KINSELLA: Indifference ahead of despicable planned attacks on Jews in Amsterdam

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It was planned.

The attacks on Jews in Amsterdam on Thursday — the beatings, the stabbings, the shooting of fireworks, the running them down with cars — didn’t just happen at the last moment, as Israeli soccer fans were leaving the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv Europa FC match. It was planned, effectively and methodically. Just like the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023 were, in Israel.

Half a dozen Jews were hospitalized. Many now are safely back in Israel, having been airlifted there by their government. In the Netherlands, meanwhile, the thugs — more than five dozen of them — have been arrested. It was a pogrom, just as Israel said: a violent riot, aimed at killing or expelling an ethnic or religious group.

In this case, Israeli soccer fans.

That no one was killed was a miracle. The footage online — and there is a lot of it, if you have the stomach for it — is graphic and real. Unlike Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom against Jews that started to unfold 86 years ago this week in Europe, the events in Amsterdam were in colour, and in real time. But the effect was the same.

The evidence of the planning is impossible to ignore. Four days before the attacks, on Monday, Spain’s AS newspaper revealed that a pro-Hamas group was planning a protest outside the soccer stadium, one that would target the Israeli team and its fans. Israeli intelligence warned the Dutch, but little or nothing was done.

Some of the online exchanges before the attacks:

“Hang Palestinian flag in the city. They will come like rats …”
“Tomorrow after the match at night … Jewish Hunt”
“Who can arrange fireworks? Lots of fireworks needed.”
“The hunt (has) started.”

Meanwhile, Yeshiva World News reported that “a significant number of the attackers were (ride-share) drivers who used their positions to locate and target Jews.” Attacks were then coordinated over WhatsApp, another favoured platform of Islamic extremists. SJP Amsterdam — a global pro-Hamas organization with branches on almost every university campus in Canada — was seen planning the attacks in advance, coordinating with their more then 4,000 followers.

CyberWell, an Internet watchdog that tracks antisemitism on social media platforms, had warned the platforms — X, Telegram, Instagram and the like — that gaps in their moderation efforts “contributed to the horrific coordinated attack against Israeli tourists in Amsterdam” on Thursday.

Said Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, CyberWell’s executive director and founder: “A combination of chat platforms like Telegram, Instagram and other social media accounts were used to target central areas of foot traffic and hotels that would be frequented by Israelis after the game, several groups, including one linked to Hamas, freely organized protests against the presence of Israeli soccer fans on Instagram and used incendiary Hamas propaganda symbols to escalate tensions, call for violence and even celebrate the targeted attacks.”

And the respected Network Contagion Research Institute, another group that tracks online hate, also reported that WhatsApp and Telegram were used to coordinate the attacks — and that one administrator of a WhatsApp group was a former UNWRA employee.

Both the Jerusalem Post and Associated Press revealed that authorities in Amsterdam had been alerted to what was going to take place. Accounts of more than 1,200 antisemites were seen exchanging information on the attacks well before they happened — and then celebrating them when they did. Some have promised more attacks when Israel plays against France.

Videos showed the antisemites surrounding people on Amsterdam’s streets and demanding: “Are you Yehudi? Are you Jewish?” One 33-year-old British Jew described what he saw: “We left the game early to meet a friend. As we walked towards the bar area, chaos broke out — mopeds appeared from alleyways and a crowd surrounded an Israeli man,” he said.

“The man was on the ground, his head pinned between a kerb and a metal gate, being viciously kicked.” The victims pleaded with business owners and passerby for help, but they were refused. One taxi driver allegedly pushed a Jewish man out of his vehicle and joined in beating him.

And where were the Dutch police? Not upholding the law. Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise: in October, some officers in the Dutch police force were refusing to protect Jews, citing “moral dilemmas.”

On Thursday, the world saw the bloody outcome of that shocking indifference: a new Kristallnacht in Europe.

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