Brussels, 8th November, 2024 – European Coalition for Israel joins world leaders in condemning what seems to have been well organised and coordinated antisemitic attack on Israeli and Jewish football fans in Amsterdam late on Thursday evening, as they returned to their hotels after a football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax of Amsterdam.
The attacks bring back collective memories of Kristallnacht in Germany exactly 86 years ago tomorrow. In video recordings circulating on social media, Israeli fans can be seen ambushed, kicked and beaten on the streets of Amsterdam as some took refuge in hotels while others were driven into a river. As of Friday afternoon, five people had been taken to hospital and 62 arrests had been made.
The Dutch government coalition leader Geert Wilders called the attacks “a pogrom on the streets of Amsterdam where thugs with Palestinian flags were hunting down Jews.” In a message to President Isaac Herzog of Israel King Willem Alexander of the Netherlands said “We failed the Jewish community during the Holocaust and last night we failed them again.“
Meanwhile in the UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis called the event “a watershed moment for Europe and the world,” while other European leaders such as French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron said that “the attacks remind us of history’s darkest moments” and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that “anyone who attacks Jews attacks all of us.”
In a statement in Brussels, just two hours south of Amsterdam, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell said:” It is a dark day in European history when the Israeli government has to consider sending military aircraft to Amsterdam to evacuate Israeli Jews. If this modern-day pogrom does not wake up the political world in Europe to the dangers of antisemitism, nothing will. It is our shared responsibility to keep Europe safe for Jews. European Coalition for Israel remains committed to working together with the EU institutions, national governments, Jewish organisations and the wider European civil society to combat antisemitism and ensure a future for Jewish life in Europe.
