The power of propaganda lies in repetition and playing the media like a keyboard, Joseph Goebbels taught us. In the right hands, it can make people believe the earth is flat and turn seasoned football hooligans into little white lambs.
On November 7, the Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv ended in a night of pitched battles and public beatings. Western media and politicians were quick to condemn the violence in Amsterdam as “antisemitic.” Some even referred to it as a “pogrom.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set the tone for the worldwide media blitz following the game by defining the violence as “a planned antisemitic attack against Israeli citizens.” A Hollywood screenwriter could not have done a better job when he added: “Kristallnacht on the streets of Amsterdam.”
Yet, the fighting in Amsterdam, which saw five Israelis wounded and one thrown in a canal, was a far cry from the prelude to the Holocaust on November 9, 1938, when Nazi Germans ransacked and firebombed thousands of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues, and massacred 91 Jewish citizens.
Evoking memories of WWII never fails to strike a chord in the Netherlands. Under German occupation in the early 1940s, far too many Dutch citizens and bureaucrats were far too cooperative with the Nazi regime and its draconic policies.
As a result, three-quarters of the roughly 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported and never returned. Most lived in Amsterdam, still widely known under its Yiddish name: Mokum. The WWII chapter on Dutch collaboration is still a significant source of collective shame and guilt.
“We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during WWII,” Dutch King Willem-Alexander told Israeli President Isaac Herzog a day after the game. “And last night, we failed again.” we failed again.”
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof was “horrified” by the “antisemitic attacks” and personally assured Netanyahu that all perpetrators would be punished.
US President Joe Biden, EU leader Ursula von der Leyen, and British Foreign Minister David Lammy, to name but a few Western leaders, parroted each other almost word for word, all referring to “Israeli citizens” having fallen victim to “antisemitism.”
The same is true for most Western media, which generally described Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in mostly passive and neutral terms. At the same time, the violence they met was unanimously defined as being antisemitic.
British broadcaster Sky News initially published a balanced report by Amsterdam correspondent Alice Porter. She mentioned Israeli fans chanting racist songs and tearing down Palestinian flags. Yet, the British broadcaster took down her video for not meeting the company’s “standards of balance and impartiality.”