In Amsterdam, clashes trigger a divisive blame game as old wounds reopen

Amsterdam, the Netherlands – More than a week after clashes in Amsterdam, Tori Egherman, a Jewish writer and researcher who has lived in the Dutch capital for 20 years, still feels angry.

As she sits in a cafe, the poster above her, featuring a black dove, reads “Peace now”.

The image was created by Dutch graphic designer Max Kisman when Israel’s latest war on Gaza began and has been distributed free of charge to tens of thousands since.

“What makes me angry is that they come, act in the most violent and racist ways, and then leave us to clean up their mess,” she said of the Israeli football club fans involved in last week’s violence.

“This episode only makes Jews and Muslims suffer the most. If we are more divided and can’t work together, there’s little we can do as communities to improve the current situation.”

Tori Egherman, a writer and researcher, believes the recent clashes in Amsterdam were ‘provoked’ [Giovana Fleck/Al Jazeera]

On November 8, fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv who had travelled to support the Israeli team playing the Dutch group Ajax vandalised Palestinian flags and chanted racist, dehumanising slogans.

There were “no children” left in Gaza they chanted, as they called for the Israeli army to “win”, promising to “f**k the Arabs”.

They also attacked the homes of city-dwellers with Palestinian flags at their windows.

As they headed to the match on November 9, they again chanted racist slogans.

After the match, Ajax having won by 5-0, Maccabi fans were chased and attacked by groups on foot and on scooters in what world leaders, including United States President Joe Biden, have called an act of anti-Semitic violence.

Five people were hospitalised, dozens were arrested, and policing has been heightened since.

“I am not saying that the violence wasn’t anti-Semitic. I really think it was both provoked and anti-Semitic,” said 62-year-old Egherman, who immigrated from the US.

She added that over the years, she has witnessed “a lot of Jews who get called out for using a kippah – like many Muslim women are too for using a hijab”.

However, she said anti-Semitism is “only acknowledged if it doesn’t come from someone who’s white and Dutch”.

‘This was completely expected’

Local activist Sobhi Khatib, a 39-year-old Israel-born Palestinian who arrived in Amsterdam decades ago, said, “The more you break down this incident, the more you see how this was completely expected.”

Khatib recalled student-led pro-Palestine protests earlier in 2024, when police used batons against demonstrators.

“The violence from last week is an escalation of the institutional violence that has been present and normalised in Dutch society, especially since [Geert] Wilders was elected last November,” he said, referring to the Islamophobic politician who leads the far-right Party for Freedom (PVV). The PVV triumphed in 2023, becoming the largest party in the House of Representatives.

Palestinian activist Sobhi Khatib worried that wearing a keffiyeh in Amsterdam would make him vulnerable to attacks [Giovana Fleck/Al Jazeera]

In recent days, the Dutch state has tried to exert control on activists.

After the clashes, Amsterdam’s Mayor Femke Halsema issued an emergency decree banning protests. But some, enraged by Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, have defied the measure.

Frank van der Linde, an activist and organiser in Amsterdam, tried to fight the ban legally.

“We have to fight against this repression by all non-violent means,” he said, adding that preventing free expression risks further disruption. “The mayor is shooting herself in the foot.”

In a court case, he argued that the decree breached human rights. The court ruled on November 11 that the ban was legitimate.

“Repression is a trend,” concluded van der Linde.

‘This conflict deeply impacted the Dutch Moroccans’

The Netherlands is home to a large Muslim minority who comprise about 5 percent of the population.

Most have roots in Morocco and Turkey.

The country’s relationship with Dutch Moroccans in particular is often uneasy.

“There is a lot of Moroccan scum in Holland who make the streets unsafe,” Wilders said in a 2017 election campaign. “If you want to regain your country, make the Netherlands for the people of the Netherlands again, then you can only vote for one party.”

“This conflict deeply impacted the Dutch Moroccans in the city, much more than the Palestinians,” said Khatib.

Dutch Moroccan student Oumaima Al Abdellaoui, 22, usually spends her time visiting schools to talk to pupils about cohesion. In 2019, she co-authored a book about the two cultures in Dutch society.

“Everyone in my communities, both the Islamic community and the Dutch Moroccan community, is frightened and angry over the blame game. We don’t know what’s coming next,” she said, adding that the community is often wrongly blamed for societal woes such as a lack of housing or crime.

“There’s a deep feeling of not being understood and not being protected by the government or the police.”

She used the Dutch term “tweederangsburger” to describe the feeling among many Dutch Moroccans, meaning “second-class citizen”.

The attacks against the Maccabi fans were condemnable, she said.

“Violence should never be used. But this violence is a consequence of a build-up of marginalisation, racist politics, and racism within the police force.”

As protesters continue to defy bans, debates rage on responsibility, and minority communities in the Netherlands remain fearful, while Israel’s war in Gaza goes on.

To date, almost 44,000 Palestinians – most of them women and children – have been killed since October 7, when Hamas launched an incursion into southern Israel during which 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 were taken captive.

Jelle Zijlstra, a 37-year-old Amsterdam-born Jewish theatre director and activist, worries that the far-right and anti-immigration political groups in the Netherlands will capitalise on the street clashes for years to come.

“While all this happened, we forgot to focus on the people who are suffering the most in Gaza,” he said.

“What we saw last week seemed like a scary equivalency that Jews and Muslims are natural enemies … Our officials have been quite picky in what types of anti-Semitism they condemn, usually the type that suits their agenda. Therefore, they are using Jews to deflect racist policies and Islamophobic rhetoric.”

Prime Minister Dick Schoof has termed the riots and attacks as “unadulterated anti-Semitic violence”, saying there is a “big difference between destroying things and hunting Jews”.

While he has touted the possibility of stripping passports of “those who have turned away from society” referring to suspects behind the attacks on Israeli fans, he has said the Maccabi supporters’ violence will be investigated.

When contacted by Al Jazeera, Amsterdam’s chief of police sent a statement that acknowledged the harassment of those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but concluded that above all, “I can imagine that Israelis feel unsafe … their wellbeing is our top priority.”

The office of Amsterdam’s mayor said Halsema’s priority was restoring peace and order, and she was therefore unavailable for comment.

Joana Cavaco, a 28-year-old member of Erev Rav, an anti-Zionist Jewish collective based in the Netherlands, argued that blaming people of Arab backgrounds for anti-Semitism is unlikely to ease tensions and limits open discussions about Europe’s role in the Holocaust.

“Anti-Semitism is a part of Dutch society, it is rooted in this culture,” she said. “When it comes to Holocaust memory, the Dutch point their fingers at the Germans, without acknowledging that people from the Netherlands have allowed Jews to die in concentration camps. Those are the questions that we try and believe should be addressed to mitigate anti-Semitism. This provides safety.”

She added that ensuring the safety of Palestinians will also lead to the protection of Jewish people.

Khatib, the Palestinian activist, said when the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans arrived in Amsterdam, he avoided wearing his keffiyeh in public.

“I was afraid,” he said.

He remains pessimistic about the future of Amsterdam’s pro-Palestine movement, especially if the national discourse fails to evolve.

At the end of the interview, another pro-Palestine protest was emerging at Amsterdam’s Dam Square, a short distance away.

Khatib placed his keffiyeh around his shoulders, making sure that it was visible even over his rain jacket.