It should be possible to campaign for Palestinian freedom, condemn racist Israeli football fans and still show unequivocal solidarity with European Jews, says author and campaigner Dave Rich
It should be possible to campaign for Palestinian freedom, condemn racist Israeli football fans and still show unequivocal solidarity with European Jews, as he did last week, about football fans fighting in a European city. But as reactions to the violence in Amsterdam have shown, this was no ordinary outburst of football hooliganism, but another polarising moment in the debate about antisemitism.between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv was not even a traditional fight between rival football fans.
After the match, however, events took a very different turn. In the city centre far from the stadium, what the mayor, Femke Halsema, has described as violent “hit and run” attacks on Israeli supporters by groups of local people took place. These were not football fans engaging in the usual inter-hooligan punch-ups, but rather a coordinated series of antisemitic assaults. Messages oncalled for a “Jew hunt”. Taxi drivers allegedly used their apps to locate targets.
Debate over whether the violence towards the Maccabi fans in Amsterdam was antisemitic or “merely” anti-Israel is of no practical consequence, given how readily those categories are blended by the people leading the assault on European Jewish life. The rioters in Amsterdam described their victims variously as Jews, Zionists and Israelis as they attacked them, as if to remind us all that violent mobs care little for academic distinctions.
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