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Protesters Taunt Amsterdam Cops With Pogrom Slogan
Anti-Israel protesters face Dutch police during a banned demonstration in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Nov. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Esther Verkaik
JNS.org — Dozens of people chanted “Say ‘Free Palestine,’ then we go” at police officers at an illegal rally in Amsterdam on Wednesday night.
The phrase heard at the protest, where many participants had a Middle Eastern appearance, echoes those an assailant was filmed telling an Israeli who had jumped into a canal in the city to avoid a beating on Nov. 7. In the video, the swimming man says “Free Palestine” almost immediately after being prompted, drawing laughter from his attackers watching him from the embankment.
That incident was part of a series of preplanned assaults, which many Dutch Jews and others consider a pogrom, by at least 100 Muslim men against Israeli soccer supporters returning from a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local Ajax team.
The chants, which were widely interpreted as a celebration of the violence exercised against Israelis on Nov. 7, were heard during the second anti-Israel gathering on Wednesday night at Dam Square, a central location that features a large monument for the victims of World War II.
Also on Wednesday night, demonstrators clashed with police at an illegal protest in Paris against a pro-Israel benefit held by local Jews.
Earlier this week, Belgian police arrested suspects whom detectives said were inspired by Amsterdam rioters to attack Jews in Antwerp.
These and other events are causing concern across Europe about a new security reality for Israelis, Jews, and law enforcement agents. The Amsterdam assaults showed the ability of local groups of Muslim rioters to use instant messaging to mobilize quickly and coordinate concentrated attacks on moving targets that they pursued in real-time.
“The nature of this event is a new development,” Amichai Chikli, Israel’s minister for diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, told JNS Wednesday about the assaults in Amsterdam.
Chikli said that “several groups pursuing Jews in city centers” was something “we have not encountered before.”
His ministry’s situation room had monitored online preparations for the assaults. The information gathered was transmitted to Israeli security authorities and from there on to local law enforcement in Amsterdam, “who clearly dropped the ball,” Chikli said.
During the first gathering on Amsterdam’s Dam Square on Wednesday night, police provided transportation services to 265 people who had gathered there in violation of the municipality’s temporary blanket ban on demonstrations, the De Telegraaf daily reported. Police vans dropped off the protesters at least one location in the city’s west where the municipality decided to make an exception to the ban.
But many protesters returned to Dam Square, according to the paper. When police told them to leave, they chanted, “Say ‘Free Palestine,’ then we go.”
The handling of Wednesday’s protests in Amsterdam gave fresh ammunition to critics who accused the municipality of laxness — and who had already lambasted city authorities for not preventing the violence on Nov. 7.
“We have an emergency situation in the city, and yet another demonstration is being allowed. It completely undermines the sovereignty and credibility of the city government,” Cas van Berkel, a member of the Amsterdam City Council for the JA21 party, told De Telegraaf.
Some of the demonstrators at Dam Square shouted at police: “Whose streets? Our streets.”
When police attempted to arrest some protesters, they ran away, some of them shoving the officers, according to Bart Schut, the deputy editor-in-chief of the Dutch-Jewish weekly NIW.
“This is how a city looks when the mayor has no control of it,” he wrote on X, adding a hashtag calling for the resignation of Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema. At around midnight, Dam Square was empty, the AT5 television channel reported. It was not immediately clear how many people, if any, were arrested on Wednesday.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Wednesday about the assaults on Israelis by Muslims in Amsterdam, left-wing lawmakers accused the victims of instigating the violence and blamed the right-wing, pro-Israel politician Geert Wilders for stoking racial tensions.
The rhetoric on display in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of parliament, was part of an emerging narrative in the aftermath of the events of Nov. 7.
The incidents, which Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Wilders have called a pogrom, initially prompted blanket condemnations and expressions of shame. Some of those expressions, including by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, referenced the near annihilation of Dutch Jewry by the Nazis and their helpers during the Holocaust.
The assaults took place on the eve of the Nov. 9-10 anniversary of the Kristallnacht Nazi pogroms that took place in the Third Reich in 1938 — a fact that many Dutch officials referenced in speaking about the attacks.
Increasingly, however, the premise that the Israelis were the victims is being debated along the party and ideological lines that divide Dutch society, which is already polarized on issues of immigration and law enforcement.
At the parliamentary debate on Wednesday, Stephan van Baarle, a lawmaker for the Denk party, which has been colloquially described as a “Muslim political party” and is often been accused of antisemitism, presented the Israeli soccer fans as the aggressors.
Facing Wilders, he asked where Wilders was when “Maccabi rioters said to women with head covers: ‘You Arabs, we will kill you?’” and said that “Maccabi hooligans went hunting for Palestinians, to search for them.” The Dutch mainstream media and authorities have not reported on any such events.
Wilders said he condemned any expressions of violence by Israeli visitors, but said “it does not compare in any way to the Jew-hunt that we witnessed by Arab, Muslim men.”
Halsema, who on Friday said there was “no excuse” for the assaults against Israelis, at a debate at the City Council of Amsterdam juxtaposed the assaults of the Israelis with actions attributed to them.
“Israeli supporters, guests in our city, were searched, chased and attacked, accompanied by antisemitic calls on social media and on the streets. There were also Amsterdam residents who were attacked by Maccabi hooligans. Hooligans who used racist and hate speech in our city, against residents,” she said.
Prominent Dutch Jews, including attorney Herman Loonstein and Rabbi Meir Villegas Henriquez, accused the mayor of victim blaming. Villegas Henriquez has called on Dutch Jews to make aliyah following the assaults.
Footage from Nov. 7 shows dozens of men shouting “Let the IDF win” and “F—k the Arabs” in Hebrew as they enter a metro station after sunset. Another video shows Israelis stealing a PLO flag from a facade. A third shows Israeli men running in the city’s center, some of them holding sticks. It was not clear whether that video was filmed after or before the Muslims attacked the Israelis. Police said Israelis damaged a taxi cab, but some officers disputed this account, saying the driver had attacked Israelis.
On Wednesday night, Wilders, whose Party for Freedom is the country’s largest and a coalition partner, wrote on X that Prime Minister Dick Schoof had confirmed that perpetrators of the pogrom may be tried for terrorism and lose their Dutch citizenship. “Antisemitism can be considered extra reason for de-naturalization! Fantastic!” Wilders wrote.
Police are considering prosecuting 11 perpetrators of the assaults, in which 25 Israelis were wounded.
Following the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and abducted another 251, Israel went to war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s critics in Europe have accused it of genocide, including at weekly rallies that have featured numerous calls for violence against Israelis and Jews. Several countries reported an explosion in recorded antisemitic incidents. In the Netherlands, the Center for Information and Documentation recorded an increase of 245 percent in antisemitic incidents in 2023 over 2022.
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Kosher Restaurant in Madrid Targeted in Arson Attempt
People demonstrate in the city of Santander, Spain, under the motto ‘Let’s stop the genocide in Gaza,’ on Jan. 20, 2024. Photo: Joaquin Gomez Sastre/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
A kosher restaurant in central Madrid was targeted in an attempted arson attack, prompting a police investigation, as Spain continues to face a rise in antisemitic incidents since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
On Tuesday night, an unknown individual entered the Rimmon Kosher restaurant in the Spanish capital and “sprayed a liquid with a strong gasoline smell on the entrance, intending to set fire and burn down the premises,” according to a joint statement from the Jewish Community of Madrid (CJM) and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE).
Before the police arrived, the attacker fled the scene. However, the restaurant staff’s quick response prevented the fire from being lit.
In a press release on Wednesday, CJM and FCJE condemned the foiled attack as “an antisemitic act aimed at causing harm, targeting public spaces frequented by the Jewish community, and terrorizing its members.”
“This is an act driven by hatred, with a vile and brutal intent, that threatens coexistence, freedom, and tolerance — values that have always defined the citizens of Madrid,” the statement continued.
Comunicado de la Comunidad Judía de Madrid ante el intento de incendio del restaurante Rimmon Kosher de Madrid. pic.twitter.com/SESEm9J8ay
— Comunidad Judía de Madrid (@cjm_es) March 5, 2025
As of now, a police investigation is underway, with authorities focused on tracking down the perpetrator and determining the motive behind their actions.
“We hope the perpetrator’s identity will be determined soon and that this person will be arrested quickly,” CJM and FCJE addedt. “In the meantime, we are ready to cooperate with the authorities and the restaurant owners in any way needed.”
The Israeli Embassy in Spain also condemned Tuesday’s attack on the kosher restaurant, near the main synagogue, and expressed full support for the staff, owners, and customers of the establishment, as well as solidarity with the Jewish community of Madrid.
“We are facing yet another case that shows how hate-inciting rhetoric leads to violence,” the embassy posted on X/Twitter. “We fully trust that the authorities will act decisively to prevent violent and antisemitic incidents from recurring in Spain.”
La Embajada de Israel en España condena enérgicamente el ataque perpetrado contra un restaurante casher en Madrid, próximo a la sinagoga principal.
Expresamos nuestro total apoyo al personal, propietarios y clientes del establecimiento, así como nuestra solidaridad con la… pic.twitter.com/4jTqZLq6CH
— Israel en España
(@IsraelinSpain) March 5, 2025
Since Hamas started the Gaza war with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Spain has been a fierce critic of the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 atrocities, Spain halted arms shipments from its own defense companies to Israel and launched a diplomatic campaign to curb the country’s military response. At the same time, several Spanish ministers in the country’s left-wing coalition government issued pro-Hamas statements and called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, with some falsely accusing Israel of “genocide.”
More recently, Spanish officials said they would not allow ships carrying arms for Israel to stop at its ports. In response, the US Federal Maritime Commission opened an investigation into whether Spain, a NATO ally, has been denying port entry to cargo vessels reportedly transporting US weapons to Jerusalem.
Additionally, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez urged other members of the European Union to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its military campaigns against Hamas in Gaza and the terrorist organization Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In May, Spain officially recognized a Palestinian state, claiming the move was accelerated by the Israel-Hamas war and would help foster a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israeli officials described the decision as a “reward for terrorism.”
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‘Failure’: Larry Summers Slams Harvard University’s Response to Campus Antisemitism
Demonstrators take part in an “Emergency Rally: Stand With Palestinians Under Siege in Gaza,” amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, Oct. 14, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Former Harvard University president Larry Summers said on Monday that the administration’s response to campus antisemitism remains unsatisfactory, echoing the concerns of Jewish civil rights activists who continue to demand progress from the Ivy League institution.
“Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism,” Summers posted on the X/Twitter social media platform. “Despite [current Harvard president Alan Garber’s] clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large-scale change, and the Corporation has been ineffectual.”
The Harvard Corporation is the university’s highest governing body.
Summers went on to list several outrages to which Harvard has subjected its Jewish and pro-Israel students and faculty during this academic year — including the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES) holding a panel on Israel’s military actions against terrorist groups in Lebanon in which antisemitic tropes were promoted, Dean Marla Frederick’s denouncing Israel’s founding as the nakba, and the university’s antisemitism task force keeping a professor who has downplayed the severity of Jew-hatred on campus as one of its members.
Summers noted as well that Harvard’s antisemitism task force, which a US federal lawmaker accused of being a farce contrived to manipulate the public’s opinion of the university, has not yet issued a final report containing its findings or recommendations for new policies for dealing with the issue despite having convened over a year ago.
“It is by the way shocking, and I think outrageous, that months after Harvard’s abject failures after Oct. 7, the task force hasn’t even reached a conclusion,” Summers continued. “Nor is there yet a basis for confidence that disruptions will be met with disciplinary consequences, especially in a number of professional schools that are redoubts of the far left.”
Harvard continues its failure to effectively address antisemitism.
Despite President Garber’s clear and strong personal moral commitment, he has lacked the will and/or leverage to effect the necessary large scale change, and the Corporation has been ineffectual.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) March 4, 2025
Summers’ statements come amid a challenging moment in the history of Harvard University, America’s oldest and arguably most prestigous institution of higher education. Since Hamas’s invasion of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Harvard has seen its law school student government issue a resolution which falsely accused Israel of genocide; its students quote terrorists during an “Apartheid Week” event held in April; and dozens of its students and faculty participated in an illegal pro-Hamas encampment attended by members of a group that had shared an antisemitic cartoon. Additionally, many Harvard students openly cheered Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, which included sexual assault and child abduction, and a mob led by the president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review followed, surrounded, and intimidated a Jewish student, screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” into his ears.
After these incidents and more, Harvard fought tooth and nail to discredit lawsuits which alleged that its response to campus antisemitism amounted to the enabling of discriminatory behavior which violates federal civil rights law. Harvard eventually settled multiple complaints out of court, but at least one plaintiff, Harvard alumnus Shabbos Kestenbaum, refused to be a party to the agreements, arguing that they allowed the university to evade accountability for its alleged inaction.
Summers and Kestenbaum aren’t Harvard’s only critics in the Jewish community. On Monday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a “Campus Report Card” in which Harvard’s antisemitism policies were given a “C” grade. ADL chief executive officer Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement accompanying the report that every school assessed by the organization should have received an “A.”
“I said it last year, and I’ll say it again: every single campus should get an ‘A.’ This isn’t a high bar — this should be standard,” Greenblatt explained. “While many campuses have improved in ways that are encouraging and commendable, Jewish students still do not feel safe or included on too many campuses. The progress we’ve seen is evidence that change is possible — all university leaders should focus on addressing these very real challenges with real action.”
US President Donald Trump’s administration has vowed to crack down on campus antisemitism and pro-Hamas activity across the US.
In January, he issued a highly anticipated executive order aimed at combating campus antisemitism and holding pro-terror extremists accountable for the harassment of Jewish students, fulfilling a promise he made while campaigning for a second term in office.
Continuing work started during his first administration — when Trump issued Executive Order 13899 to ensure that civil rights law apply equally Jews — the “Additional Measures to Combat Antisemitism” calls for “using all appropriate legal tools to prosecute, remove, or otherwise … hold to account perpetrators of unlawful antisemitic harassment and violence.” The order also requires each government agency to write a report explaining how it can be of help in carrying out its enforcement.
Additionally, it initiates a full review of the explosion of campus antisemitism on US colleges across the country after Oct. 7, 2023, a convulsive moment in American history to which the previous presidential administration struggled to respond during the final year and a half of its tenure.
On Tuesday, Trump vowed to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations, a punitive measure which would fulfill his administration’s pledge to crack down on campus antisemitism and the pro-Hamas activists fostering it.
“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a statement posted on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”
He continued, “No masks! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Second Australian Nurse Charged Over Viral Video Threatening to Kill Israeli Patients
Members of the Jewish community and supporters gather for a protest rally against rising antisemitism at Martin Place in Sydney, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: AAP Image/Steven Saphore via Reuters Connect
An Australian nurse working in a Sydney hospital has been arrested and charged after a viral video captured him making threats, stating he would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them.
This latest legal step comes as law enforcement works to combat a surge in antisemitic incidents across Australia, which the country’s spy chief has called his agency’s top priority.
After the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel, several Jewish sites in Australia have been relentlessly targeted with vandalism and even arson, especially in the past few months. In response, a New South Wales (NSW) police task force, Strike Force Pearl, was established to address the wave of hate crimes and rising antisemitism.
On Tuesday night, 27-year-old Ahmed Rashid Nadir was arrested and charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug, NSW Police said in a statement.
The arrest follows an incident at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney, in which Nadir and his fellow nurse, Sarah Abu Lebdeh, were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night-shift discussion with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.
The footage, which circulated widely, showed Lebdeh stating she would refuse to treat an Israeli patient and instead kill them, while Nadir used a throat-slitting gesture and claimed to have already killed many.
“It’s Palestine’s country, not your country, you piece of s—t,” Lebdeh told Veifer.
“One day your time will come, and you will die the most disgusting death,” she added in a sentence riddled with obscenities.
Last week, 26-year-old Lebdeh was arrested and charged with similar federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass, with a conviction potentially leading to up to 22 years in prison.
After reviewing patient records, the hospital found no evidence that Lebdeh or Nadir had harmed patients.
NSW’s Health Minister Ryan Park confirmed that both nurses had been suspended and would be permanently barred from employment within the state’s health system.
According to the NSW Police statement, both Lebdeh and Nadir were released on bail and are set to appear in court on March 19. Lebdeh has been prohibited from leaving Australia and using social media while her case proceeds.
The incident is one of the latest in a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.
Law enforcement in Sydney and Melbourne, home to the majority of Australia’s Jewish population, is actively investigating hate crimes, including the recent discovery of a trailer containing explosives and a list of potential Jewish targets.
Since the formation of Strike Force Pearl, the task force to combat antisemitism, in December, NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb reported that 15 people have been arrested, and 78 charges have been filed.
“I must commend the work Strike Force Pearl detectives are doing to investigate, charge, and put these individuals before the courts,” Webb said in a statement. “There is a tremendous amount of dedication and hard work going into all these investigations.”
Last month, dozens of Australia’s leading Muslim groups and individuals defended the two nurses, accusing their critics of “hypocrisy” and “double standards and moral manipulation” in an open letter.
“This statement is not about defending inappropriate remarks. It is about pushing back against the double standards and moral manipulation at play while the mass killing of our brothers and sisters in Gaza is met with silence, dismissal, or complicity,” the letter said.
In response to the ongoing spike in antisemitism, Australia passed a new slate of hate crime laws last month which would, among other measures, imprison those who make terror threats or perform Nazi salutes.
In a Senate committee hearing last week, Mike Burgess, the director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), the country’s domestic intelligence agency, said that antisemitism is now the agency’s top priority.
“In terms of threats to life, [antisemitism is] my agency’s number one priority because of the weight of incidents we’re seeing play out in this country,” Burgess told the Senate. “Antisemitism and significant antisemitism acts are prominent in our investigation caseload at this point in time.”
In a recent 2025 threat assessment declassified by ASIO, Burgess warned that the surge in antisemitic attacks across Australia could escalate, as extremists are increasingly self-radicalizing and “choose their own adventure” toward potential terrorist activity.
“Threats transitioned from harassment and intimidation to specific targeting of Jewish communities, places of worship, and prominent figures,” he said. “I am concerned these attacks have not yet plateaued.”
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