I have often wondered where the first anti-Jewish riots in western Europe this century will be. And it was Amsterdam on Thursday 7 November, the same night the Dutch Jewish community commemorated the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht. That it is Amsterdam has an awful poetry to it. It’s the home of Anne Frank.
The facts: after the Ajax vs Maccabi Tel Aviv football game (5-0, if you still care), Arabic-speaking men appeared to chase and beat Israeli football fans. The Telegraph reported that they were organised in advance, and that one person involved called them a “Jew hunt”. There was provocation: some Israelis burned a Palestinian flag, chanted anti-Arab slogans, and mocked a one-minute silence for the flood victims of Valencia. They vandalised a taxi. In this case – but no other I can summon – the punishment was being run over with scooters, chased into canals, and beaten while, in some cases, the police said there was little they could do. Some say they were forced to show their passports.
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