More than a month after dozens of Arab men went on a so-called “Jew hunt” for Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam, the trials of seven suspects revealed this week new information on the logistics of the event that shocked Jews and others worldwide.
The information, which was revealed on Wednesday at a court in Amsterdam, exposed the antisemitic agitation of the alleged perpetrators, and also how organizers worked for days to bus in culprits from across the Netherlands to ambush Israelis, whom the attackers often referred to simply as “Jews.”
The new information contradicts the popular narrative in the Netherlands that the assaults of Nov. 7 were a spontaneous reaction to Israeli soccer fans’ provocations.
Instead, it conforms with reports by Israeli authorities, including the National Center for Combating Antisemitism under Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Minister Amichai Chikli, which found ties between the attacks and Hamas.
Some of the revelations in the indictments come from transcripts lifted from correspondence within WhatsApp groups that police had infiltrated and monitored, yet failed to use the information to prevent the assaults.
A defendant identified as Rachid O., 26, from Utrecht allegedly shared locations throughout the night of Nov. 7 of “cancer Jews to beat up,” as he wrote, to the 900 members of the main WhatsApp group of that night’s “Jew hunt,” as participants called the series of assaults.
(“Cancer Jew” is a common antisemitic term in Dutch.)
The group was initially titled “Free Palstine” [sic] but renamed “Neighborhood Home 2,” in a possible attempt to camouflage it.
The assaults by members of the group and others were against Maccabi fans returning from a soccer match between their Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local Ajax team. More than 20 Maccabi fans were wounded in the assaults, which many Jews and others in the Netherlands called a pogrom.
Police were deployed in large numbers near the stadium but failed to protect the Israelis in the city center, where they walked into an ambush that had been planned days in advance by Arab men, including dozens of taxi drivers, the indictments showed.
A regular Dutchman
A defendant identified as Umutcan A. from The Hague claimed that he participated in the assaults because he was “afraid” of the Maccabi fans, The Algemeen Dagblad, aka AD, newspaper reported. “It was a stupid instinct. Basically I’m just a regular Dutchman, a citizen who just works and pays my taxes,” he told judges.
Prosecutors on Thursday presented evidence from WhatsApp chats of Umutcan planning to “attack Jews” and going on a “Jew hunt.” One of his friends praised Umutcan on the chat. “He thumped a lot of Jews. He was the star of the evening again,” that person wrote about Umutcan, whom prosecutors want jailed for eight months.
The heaviest sentence request by the prosecution, that of two years in prison, was against a man identified as Sefa Ö., 32. He was filmed kicking a man against a moving tram and punching another man while he was on the ground, the AD news site reported on Wednesday.
He is a barber and his wife is heavily pregnant. He told the judge on Wednesday that he regrets his actions but did not elaborate on this point, AD reported.
Several defendants said they regretted their violent acts and that they had been provoked into perpetrating them because of the behavior of the Maccabi fans, namely when they pulled down a PLO flag from a balcony and when they sang about how the “IDF is f**king Arabs.”
Antisemitic rhetoric was rife in correspondence in the WhatsApp groups, AD reported.
On the day of the assaults, perpetrators may have arranged transportation for culprits from outside Amsterdam, the Het Parool daily reported.
“People from other cities want to come,” one group member, Amir, wrote after 4 p.m. on Nov. 7, several hours before the assaults. “We have 20 cars here,” another replied.
“Where are the buses from Utrecht?” another user asked. “They’re on their way with 70-80 men aboard,” another replied.
When Israelis were identified in the city center, at around midnight, members wrote on the WhatsApp group: “ASSEMBLE AT CENTRAL STATION” and “WE HAVE TO MAKE THOSE CANCER JEWS FEEL WHAT THEY DID TO OUR BROTHERS,” a reference to Israel’s attacks on Hamas in Gaza, Het Parool reported.
On Nov. 18, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema retracted her initial use of the word “pogrom” to describe the attacks.
“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,” said Halsema, a former leader of the far-left GreenLeft party.