[amiga386]

You kinda forgot to mention the organised pro-Palestinian rioters, so let's add them back into your narrative.

https://news.sky.com/story/statement-by-the-amsterdam-police...

> The Amsterdam police made clear that among Maccabi supporters there were 500-800 ultras visiting the city in November 2024. Like other European ultra groups, these fans were organised and, on some occasions, seemed willing to fight. The Amsterdam police also stated that a lot of disorder in those days were the result of different groups provoking each other.

> At the same time, another development takes place - small groups of pro-Palestinian rioters actively search for individuals they perceive as Israeli, Jewish or Maccabi supporters. At 23:55pm, the first 'flash' attacks on Maccabi supporters begin at Dam Square. Several dozen violent incidents in the city centre follow. The pro-Palestinian rioters use various methods to reach their victims. Some move on foot, others use scooters or taxis to move quickly through the city. This makes it difficult for the police to intervene quickly and effectively. This proves to be a fundamentally different form of violence compared to earlier situations, which involved clashes between groups facing each other. From 1:24am onward, reports of attacks decrease, but fear among Jewish residents of Amsterdam and Israeli tourists remains high. Multiple reports come in of people feeling unsafe and not daring to leave their hotels.

The Macabbi ultras were violent and racist hooligans, as you said. But you can't excuse or leave out the behaviour of their opponents who went on a "Jew hunt" (their words!) and attacked random Jews or Israelis, unaffiliated with the football hooligans.

From your wiki link:

> Most of the people involved in the attacks on Maccabi fans were taxi drivers and youths on scooters,

So yes, if the people attacking the Maccabi fans are taxi drivers, yes, I'd expect to see taxi drivers getting beaten up right back.

> In the nights following the attacks, people thought to be Jewish continued to be targeted, including being forced out of taxis and ordered to show their passports to check if they were Israeli.

Didn't feel the need to mention this? Oh, sorry, random people being forced out of taxis to check if they're Israeli is just an overstatement by the media, "the second coming of Anne Frank", I forgot.

[Matl]

I followed this closely at the time. It was clear that Maccabi supporters were looking for a confrontation and were intimidating anyone with a Palestinian flag. They're kind of known for being massive racists[0].

A group of Maccabi Fanatics chased two men, beating one with a belt as he tried to escape in a taxi. After the police arrived, the group ran away, joining other Maccabi ultras, nearly all of whom wore black clothing instead of team colours, walking towards Rokin. This group of around 50 Maccabi supporters gathered in front of Villa Mokum, a squat where several Palestinian flags were displayed.

Why not mention this?

0 - https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/47336888/maccabi-tel-...

[amiga386]

What part of "The Macabbi ultras were violent and racist hooligans" did you miss?

Also, why not mention what happened after?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/12/18/ams...

> Over the course of the night, police monitoring Telegram and WhatsApp began to detect “messages of aggression and threats toward Maccabi supporters,” according to a report produced afterward by city authorities. The vandalism of the taxi was “oil on the fire” in a community angered by the city’s decision to let the team play, said driver Mohamed Asri, 31, who was not working but watched the chat messages that night.

> At one point, a worker at Holland Casino tipped off a WhatsApp group that Maccabi fans were outside, according to screenshots of the messages obtained by The Post with usernames redacted. Police said there was a call for taxi drivers to mobilize, and cabs began to amass at the site.

> Maccabi fans ran inside the casino and security closed the doors behind them, according to casino spokesman Ilan Sluis. A bartender across the street said a group of about 50 people tried to break into the casino by rushing the doors for about 25 minutes.

> Kobi Itzajki, 34, a Maccabi fan, had just returned to a hotel when he received a message from a friend at the casino.

> “There’s an antisemitic event here,” read a 3:17 a.m. message, reviewed by The Post. “Turkish Muslims attacked Israelis who fled here. We’re locked inside the casino, bring the police.”

> Altercations took place in other parts of the city, too. A video posted online shortly after 3 a.m. shows a man struggling to swim in an icy canal and being forced to say “Free Palestine.”

> “TOMORROW AFTER THE GAME AT NIGHT PART 2 JEW HUNT,” someone wrote in a WhatsApp group just before 4 a.m.

... and so it goes on. Please read all of it.

[Matl]

> What part of "The Macabbi ultras were violent and racist hooligans" did you miss?

The part where they initiated violence.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> if the people attacking the Maccabi fans are taxi drivers, yes, I'd expect to see taxi drivers getting beaten up right back.

You have the causality backwards: maccabi fans started attacking taxis before the latter started retaliating.

> At the same time, another development takes place - small groups of pro-Palestinian rioters actively search for individuals they perceive as Israeli, Jewish or Maccabi supporters. At 23:55pm, the first 'flash' attacks on Maccabi supporters begin at Dam Square.

Didn't feel the need to mention the lead-up to this? Everything in the article that came before this line, maybe? Here are some excerpts:

> In the early morning of 7 November, at approximately 12:20am, the control room receives reports that a group of about 50 Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters are pulling a Palestinian flag off a building façade and obstructing traffic.

> Some of the supporters are wearing face coverings, shouting anti-Palestinian slogans, and harassing people.

> Of the group walking along the Rokin, several individuals remove their belts and use them to attack taxis. Scooter riders are also attacked with padlocks.

> The next day, around 12:15pm, the first [maccabi] supporters arrive, and the group quickly grows. They chant anti-Palestinian slogans.

> The fan walk begins around 17:30 at Dam Square. During the fan walk, supporters shout slogans in Hebrew. Afterwards, it appears that these include highly offensive, racist expressions. At the front walks a group wearing face coverings.

> Around midnight, Maccabi Tel Aviv rioters gather at Central Station and move towards the city centre. Along the way, they equip themselves with materials such as metal rods and stones. Stones are also thrown at taxis.

It sounds like maccabi rioters started it.

[amiga386]

> Didn't feel the need to mention the lead-up to this?

It's mentioned in the GP post. I'm in no way hiding or excusing what the hooligans were up to, only noting that the GP made an extremely one-sided statement, whereas the Amsterdam police statement covers all the disorder, including confirming what the GP said.

> It sounds like maccabi rioters started it.

And if there were no opponents to them, then it would only be Maccabi hooligans being arrested. But instead they had opponents who were equally ready to riot and use violence, including against random people who the attackers simply felt were Jewish or Israeli.

I put it to you that the Maccabi hooligans were not the only thugs in Amsterdam that week.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> And if there were no opponents to them, then it would only be Maccabi hooligans being arrested. But instead they had opponents who were equally ready to riot and use violence, including against random people who the attackers simply felt were Jewish or Israeli.

If there were no maccabi fans rioting and assaulting people the attackers simply felt were Palestinian or Muslim, then it would be peace in the street. Indeed, the responding violence seems to have been a predictable result of the initiating maccabi rioter violence.

Put yourself in the same position: A lynch mob from outside your community marches through it, masked and clad in black so as to be unidentifiable. Some of their racist chants are threats against you, your community, your family, your children. Other racist chants celebrate an ongoing genocide of your family, friends, and people. They vandalize your community and attack members of it along the way. It would not be unreasonable or unprecedented for your community to respond by stomping this lynch mob into the gutters, or at least running it out of town.

[amiga386]

As we don't live in the middle ages any more, it would be more than reasonable for the community to demand the riot police step in and arrest the provocators.

It would not be OK to plan a "jew hunt" on WhatsApp and perpetuate violence by performing a "flash mob attack" against not only against Maccabi hooligans, but also non-violent Maccabi fans, and also Jewish and Israeli people who aren't even visiting for the football. And completely random people who you just think look Jewish or Israeli.

No, that's not acceptable. That's retributive bullshit. An eye for an eye leaves us all blind.

[ImPostingOnHN]

> it would be more than reasonable for the community to demand the riot police step in and arrest the provocators.

Likewise, it would not be unreasonable or unprecedented for your community to respond by stomping this lynch mob into the gutters, or at least running it out of town.

The principle that intolerance should be tolerated is not universally held, and IMO is a bit privileged.

> And completely random people who you just think look Jewish or Israeli

That sounds like it came after the maccabi rioters started their campaign of violence against random people who they just thought looked Palestinian or Muslim.

Indiscriminate targeting of civilians is never ok under any circumstances, but unfortunately it still happens, and ethnic violence tends to beget ethnic violence.

[constantius]

The sibling comment answered perfectly, but I'll add that your advice sounds reasonable in a vacuum, but in reality this event happened one year after the start of genocide. The community had no reason to believe that the state would do anything, as the state allowed a genocidal country's genocide-celebrating citizens to travel to the community's city for a football match and the police didn't do anything while they were chanting death to arabs, hours before the locals took matters into their own hands.

After a year of international inaction in response to the genocide, the Amsterdam community acted quite reasonably, and to be honest quite commendably, by stomping the lynch mob into the gutter, as the sibling eloquently put.

[constantius]

> their words!

No... This is again the trope that anti-genocide == antisemitism.

Might be the words of one person, but you find crazies everywhere. In this specific case, according to all the foltage I've seen, on one side you had a group celebrating the death of children while their country perpetrates a genocide, on the other you had people by and large talking about punishing that behaviour.

So I'm pretty sure their words were "Free Palestine".

[amiga386]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/12/18/ams...

> There was some planned coordination — among taxi drivers and other locals who used messaging apps to organize a show of force, with at least one chat referring to a “Jew hunt.” Those conversations took place after, and in many cases in response to, episodes the night before the match, when Maccabi supporters pulled down a Palestinian flag and damaged a taxi. Neither The Post nor Dutch investigators came across plans for orchestrated violence in the days ahead of the match.

> The Post found that the violence that unfolded was not one-sided. Israeli fans were harassed, chased and in some cases beaten. But video of one of the earliest post-match altercations, shared by multiple news organizations as an example of attacks on Israelis, in fact shows Maccabi supporters as the aggressors.

Both the racist hooligans, and locals, brought violence upon each other, and innocent people.

Neither side's provocations are justified. Neither side's violence is justified. Both groups harmed entirely innocent people.

Here are some quotes from a group of taxi drivers organising reciprocal violence. I'm highlighting them to show that the locals are not exclusively innocent people ravaged by ultras, they also rioted indiscriminately. The rest of the article goes into much further detail about the actions of all parties, and I recommend you read it in full.

> “TOMORROW AFTER THE GAME AT NIGHT PART 2 JEW HUNT,” someone wrote in a WhatsApp group just before 4 a.m.

> After the match, a Telegram group normally used by taxi drivers for traffic updates tracked the fans’ movements from the stadium to the central metro station. “Jews are arriving we are waiting for them brother be ready,” a group member posted at 11.33 p.m.

> At 11:45 p.m., Sektioui posted the first of a series of images and videos showing Cobra firecrackers, some of which are strapped to bottles labeled as paint thinner. Those firecrackers are illegal in the Netherlands, even without modifications to increase their explosive power.