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The New York Times Leads the Way in Negating Amsterdam Pogrom

Israeli football supporters and Dutch youth clash near Amsterdam Central station, in Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 8, 2024, in this still image obtained from a social media video. Photo: X/iAnnet/via REUTERS

Footage of last week’s violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam has now been circulated widely.

Clips show Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters chased down the city’s canal-lined streets by mobs armed with fireworks.

Many of us have seen the horrifying video of a young fan pleading with his attackers that he is “not Jewish,” as they pummel him with kicks and punches, and also the brutal scenes of Israelis beaten unconscious by thugs shouting slogans like “Free Palestine” and “This is for the children.”

Dutch authorities have confirmed — and messages shared on encrypted apps like Telegram reveal — that the attack on Israeli fans was meticulously planned. Contrary to some claims, this wasn’t a reaction to hooligan behavior by a handful of Maccabi supporters.

More disturbing than the sickening antisemitic violence that happened on the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht is the media’s indifference to — and, in some cases, tacit justification for — these attacks.

Take The New York Times’ coverage, which initially described the incident as “violence tied to a soccer game,” implying it was run-of-the-mill football hooliganism. Even as the headline referenced the antisemitic nature of the attack, the Times slyly pinned this view on “Israeli authorities,” despite identical conclusions from Dutch police.

Incredibly, a video of a mob hurling projectiles at a Maccabi supporter was still reported as part of “clashes” between rival teams, sanitizing the brutal one-sided attack into a benign scuffle, while Tel Aviv fans singing “Am Yisrael Chai” was termed an “anti-Arab provocation” by the outlet:

NYT amsterdam pogrom

Then, four days later, The New York Times took its “both sides” narrative even further, publishing an “explainer” suggesting that, even if Israelis were attacked, they somehow invited it. The article opens with an assertion that the mob surrounding a casino — where Israelis were seeking shelter — was there because someone “stole and burned a Palestinian flag.”

Later, the piece even suggests that it only “appears” the attacks were motivated by antisemitism.

Equally worrying is The New York Times’ platforming of Sheher Khan, a Muslim Dutch politician who argues that Israelis should be banned from Amsterdam to avoid “inevitable” demonstrations and confrontations.

Rather than challenging Khan’s grotesque proposal with a call to protect Israelis and Jews from antisemitic mobs, the Times practically endorses it, citing the “political backdrop” as reason enough.

Unfortunately, The New York Times’ coverage reflects a broader trend.

Reuters, the Associated Press, and The Guardian also rushed to frame the violence as soccer “clashes,” ignoring the condemnation of what Amsterdam’s mayor Femke Halsema likened to “antisemitic hit-and-run squads.”

 

The worst reactions, however, came from certain media personalities indulging in grotesque victim-blaming.

For example, former MSNBC host and self-styled moral arbiter Mehdi Hasan took to X to all but justify the pogrom as a natural consequence of the war in Gaza.

Guardian columnist Owen Jones felt compelled to add “context” to the attacks, claiming that Israeli fans chanted “genocidal bile,” effectively suggesting they deserved to be targeted. This angle was eagerly echoed by Novara Media’s Rivkah Brown, who confidently branded Maccabi fans as among the real “culprits.”

Let’s not be too surprised by Jones, though. This is, after all, the same man who, after watching 47 minutes of footage from the October 7 Hamas massacre, concluded that Israel still hadn’t provided enough proof of horrors like the gang-rape of women and the deliberate killing of children.

What took place in Amsterdam was a brutal wave of antisemitic violence. That’s the reality. And it should be just as simple for the media and their pundits to call it what it was — a modern-day pogrom. Enough with the equivocating.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”

Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”

The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.

“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”

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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30

A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.

During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.

The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”

Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.

“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”

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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.

Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.

The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.

The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.

The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.

The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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