Written by Michael Thervil
Video courtesy of Wall Street Journal
When it comes to Israel in 2024, it’s one thing to bully poor Palestinians who have no credible means of fighting back, then it’s another thing for Israel to export their bullying tactics to other countries where they don’t have the United States and the Collective West backing them up as they commit acts of intimidation and genocide. In this case take the people of Amsterdam, who last week hosted a Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) match between the Israeli Maccabi Tel Aviv FC and the Dutch football team Ajax FC, which resulted in the Ajax FC defeating the Maccabi Tel Aviv FC 5 to 0. In the world of international football, for a team to score 5 times during a match it says a lot about the playing ability of a team on the pitch.
According to sources, social tensions started to heat up on Wednesday between the fanbase of the two teams before boiling over on Thursday when fans of the Maccabi though they could export Israeli aggression in Amsterdam by engaging in acts of vandalism on the homes of the citizens of Amsterdam who may support Palestine, burning Palestine flags, harassing Ajax fans and screening ethnic obscenities regarding and towards Arabs. To make matters worse, the next day just before the start of the football match, Maccabi fans further incited social tension by marching up and down the streets of Amsterdam screaming anti-Arab rhetoric. In doing so, their abusive actions set off a chain reaction of resentment and anger which escalated between themselves and the fans of the Ajax FC.
The tipping point, which resulted in Israeli supporters getting their asses beat in the middle of the streets of Amsterdam wouldn’t come until after the football match due to some Palestinian supporters extracting revenge because of the disrespect and bullying tactics that were carried out by supporters of Israel. When local police in Amsterdam began receiving reports of Israelis taking not only a loss on the pitch, but now taking a loss on the streets of Amsterdam, Amsterdam deployed 600 police officers to stop the fighting between the two fan bases.
Because of police involvement, it was reported by sources that roughly 60 people had been escorted back to their hotels and at least 40 of them were being subjected to fines. It was also reported that at least 10 people are currently still in police custody. The corporate news media is reporting the violence that ensued on the streets of Amsterdam as “antisemitic”. This leads many people to wonder why do Israel and its supporters feel as if they can export their methods of aggression, methods of intimidation along with their acts of violence, as well as their perpetual sense of entitlement onto other people of the world. Then when it backfires, make the claim that the people who retaliated are antisemitic?
There are two other questions that Israel and its supporters also must answer and those are: “Since when does the bully get to claim victimhood?” And “Don’t people have the right to be antisemitic if they want to?” This is not to say that the people that participated in the riot on Thursday are antisemitic, but the fundamental question we’re posing here is: “Do people really have the right to choose and express how they really feel – even if it means being antisemitic in 2024?” We would like to say yes – even though the world says no. The truth is one group of people can’t incite other people to violence then pretend to be shocked when they retaliate so you can claim victimhood.
The one thing Israel and its supporters are failing to understand here is that not only do people around the world have the right to feel how they feel, but they have the right to express how they feel through action, even if you disagree with it. In the case of Israel, this is especially true when their genocidal actions on the people of Palestine and Lebanon begin to serve as a justification for people around the world to take an anti-Israel and/or antisemitic stance. From the perspective of many people around the world, it’s about time people took a stand against Israel outside of the protection of the United States and the confines of Palestine and Gaza. With that being said, Israel has dug its own grave on the international stage and its time they lay in it.
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