Amsterdam mayor walks back ‘pogrom’ label for assaults

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema on Sunday appeared to retract her use of the word “pogrom” in connection with the mass assaults by Arabs on Israelis in her city on Nov. 7.

Halsema, a former leader of the left-wing D66 party, said during a panel discussion on the NOS broadcaster that the term in the context of the attacks had become too politically loaded and a propaganda tool.

Her remarks are part of a broader narrative shift in the Netherlands about the attacks, which initially prompted harsh-worded condemnations from across the political spectrum. In recent days, politicians and opinion shapers on the left have downplayed, excused or denied the attacks on Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans returning from their team’s match against the local Ajax club.

At a press conference on Nov. 8, Halsema said: “Men on scooters crisscrossed the city looking for Israeli soccer fans. It was a hit and run. I can understand very well that this brings back memories of pogroms.”

On social media and instant messaging that the perpetrators used to coordinate the attacks, some of them recorded themselves referring to the action as a “Jew-hunt.”

But on Sunday, she said during the NOS panel discussion: “What I especially wanted to express is the sorrow and fear of Jewish residents. But I have to say that in the days that followed, I have seen how the word ‘pogrom’ became very political, propaganda in fact. The Israeli government speaks of ‘a Palestinian pogrom on the streets of Amsterdam’, Dutch politicians use the word ‘pogrom’ mainly to discriminate against Moroccan residents, Muslims. That is not what I meant and that is not what I wanted.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Sunday criticized Halsema’s about-face. He called it “utterly unacceptable, adding, “The failure that occurred on that night must not be compounded by a further grave failure: a cover-up.”

Within days of the attacks, left-wing and pro-immigration politicians began presenting a version of events in which Maccabi fans had instigated the violence. Others claimed that their provocative chanting about letting the Israel Defense Forces win and “f**k the Arabs,” as some fans were filmed singing, invited attack.

Halsema in a debate last week juxtaposed those chants with the pre-planned assaults, which were coordinated in real time via instant messaging and which Israel’s Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry said featured people and groups connected to Hamas.

In some cases during the assaults, victims were forced to say “Free Palestine” while on their knees before being beaten up. In others, Israelis jumped into canals to escape violence.

One man was filmed trying to stay afloat in a freezing canal as a man with a Moroccan accent told him: “Say ‘Free Palestine,’ then we go.” When the victim said this, several men standing over the canal could be heard laughing.

Some 25 Maccabi fans were injured, their wounds ranging from moderate to minor.

Last week, despite a municipal ban on demonstrations, dozens of anti-Israel protesters gathered at Dam Square in Amsterdam, where many of the assaults happened. They clashed with police and chanted, “Say ‘Free Palestine,’ then we go” at police officers. The illegal protest was one of several since Nov. 7.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has termed the assaults a pogrom, as has Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam, pro-Israel right-wing politician who leads the Party for Freedom, the largest of the Dutch ruling coalition partners.

“No more Jew-hunts in this country, I will not accept it. And the perpetrators—most of them Moroccans—need to be punished very hard, their Dutch citizenship stripped from them and deported,” Wilders tweeted on Wednesday.