Thanks for this. I live in Amsterdam and have been similarly outraged by the way this has been protrayed. I was not aware that Wilders was who officially welcomed the Israeli foreign minister, and think you're right to suspect that there's some coordination in this whole affair. As for the NYT, this has become sadly typical of their reporting not only on anything connected to Israel, but just politics in general--and is yet another example of why people hate and distrust corporate media.
Absolutely. The decline of standards there has been so crashing and so crushing, too, for those of us who had our problems with certain areas or certain topics but nonetheless trusted its general news operation. What a calamity.
A fantastic statement, Benjamin. I have been desperately trying to read between the lines of media reports, in Australian/Western media sources, to understand what really happened - to no avail. Only the Amsterdam Police Commissioner, appeared to be at all (somewhat) balanced in his report. You have clarified the situation in your usual sane and reasonable manner. I just hope that the Dutch people and the wider community will eventually see this side of the issue. Keep up your important work, Ben, and thanks for your humane and passionate words. Bill
It is horrendous. It makes Jews in the UK wonder: who was behind the riots in the summer here - thank Hashem, the anti-racist turnout was considerable and there was no resulting violence. But it leaves one thinking: who has interest in encouraging this stuff? At any rate: it is a gross disrespect to the memories of people who have actually been murdered in pogroms and the hyperbole and conflation ultimately makes ALL Jews unsafe.
It strikes me that there's another reason this is being stoked so ferociously - namely the UN report that came out this week confirming that 70% of Gaza deaths are women and children and 44% are children 5-9 years old; and the Israeli declaration that Palestinians will never be allowed to return to northern Gaza. Another day another war crime, I suppose, but people have been warning about "forcible transfer" for weeks, and that's exactly what's happened. Who's talking about it now?
You mention in the video that people conflate anti Zionism with antisemitism and also anti-Israeli with antisemitism.
Now here it gets confusing for me. Wilders calls himself a friend of Israel and he is loudly proclaiming wanting to persecute antisemitism. While he is doing that it is also clear he uses this as a weapon to put people against each other. It also seems to me he is only supporting Israel when it’s about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim topics. To me that is implicit antisemitism. Why do people fall for this and not see the political games that are being played now. I’m baffled by the strong and absurd divisive language uttered by almost every senior Cabinet member today in press conferences and on social media.
Maybe unrelated or maybe not: have other people also gotten very inflammatory ads on YouTube using images from the Ajax riots claiming that pogroms are back in Europe?
Of course it is antisemitic. He is actively endangering the Jewish population in this country by stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment, which he has been doing for decades. We are reduced to instruments with which he can bludgeon the Muslim population.
The reporting in Germany about this has been absolutelly appalling, as has been everything German "journalism" does since october 2023 (and before tbh). It is not even the case anymore that the investigations are biased, it is basically fictional (bad) writing. So, thanx for the video!
Hi Benjamin, thank you very much for the insightful analysis of the events in Amsterdam. I wanted to vent a thought as a sidestep but I could not help but see the exact analogy.
I studied the ‘strategia della tensione’ in Italy, starting from about 1964. Proxy hooligans (youths from extreme far right parties) were empowered by secret services to ‘contain communism’. For example, they used the hooligans to infiltrate communist public manifestations to start violence against the police so that media and politicians could frame the danger of communism to the public order. The strategy of tension aimed to scare the ‘silent majority’. Political parties on the (extreme) right side hoped to gain from these machinations. To the point where extreme left groupings indeed started to use violence, after the false framing of their guilt in the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969. This bombing started the ‘years of lead’. The public at the time did not understand at all, but the effects of deliberate misinformation and the machinations of power for political gain were very real in the 70s.
That is to say, if indeed Amsterdam is a case in point, we see - as well - an old trick in new clothing from the Cold War past (exit communists, enter […]). Nasty stuff.
Thanks a lot for this. This comment on the Sky News policy is also very telling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clHlvgOPrWY. One thing you did not mention in all this is that Geert Wilders and the other right wing parties have a specific grudge against Amsterdam, considered a leftwing city where they hardly get any votes. So any chance to paint that city black (and mayor Femke Halsema, formerly Green Left) they exploit to the bone. They like to depict it as another ' example of leftist failure to act against these islamic thugs' .
I'm currently working on a university project on the cultural identity of Iranian Jews and it's disappointing to learn how Zionist ideology interprets the practices of non-European Jews as "culturally inferior", that in the context of them supposedly being discriminated against by Muslim rulers. I've still got heaps of research to do but to me this just highlights how ready this ideology was to exclude forms of Jewish expression of faith that developed closer to the homeland, if you wanna call it that. "The ideological pressure to transform newcomers into ‘new Jews’ as envisaged by traditional Zionist ideology specifically targeted diaspora Jews coming from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East." (quote from my professor's work, Dr Alessandra Cecolin) And this cultural divide has now expanded in the secular context in which Zinonist Jews feel entitled to decide who's Jewish enough and who isn't, referring to the example you gave about not feeling safe as a Jewish person protesting against this genocide.
It is good to hear that there are people from Israel who take a more nuanced approach. BTW, here is a video (with subtitles) from a young reporter that shows you what really was going on
Mossad agents will join the team, not the supporters. You also ignore the pro Palestinian telegram groups that organized before the match to attack the maccabi fans. The after the match tourists in Amsterdam were still asked to ID and prove they are not Jewish. Yesterday a tram was set on fire, not before they shouted kankerjooden
Thanks for this. I live in Amsterdam and have been similarly outraged by the way this has been protrayed. I was not aware that Wilders was who officially welcomed the Israeli foreign minister, and think you're right to suspect that there's some coordination in this whole affair. As for the NYT, this has become sadly typical of their reporting not only on anything connected to Israel, but just politics in general--and is yet another example of why people hate and distrust corporate media.
Absolutely. The decline of standards there has been so crashing and so crushing, too, for those of us who had our problems with certain areas or certain topics but nonetheless trusted its general news operation. What a calamity.
As Wilders is not a member of the Cabinet he had no business greeting Israeli officials on the airport. It is all so fishy.
A fantastic statement, Benjamin. I have been desperately trying to read between the lines of media reports, in Australian/Western media sources, to understand what really happened - to no avail. Only the Amsterdam Police Commissioner, appeared to be at all (somewhat) balanced in his report. You have clarified the situation in your usual sane and reasonable manner. I just hope that the Dutch people and the wider community will eventually see this side of the issue. Keep up your important work, Ben, and thanks for your humane and passionate words. Bill
Happy to do what I can.
It is horrendous. It makes Jews in the UK wonder: who was behind the riots in the summer here - thank Hashem, the anti-racist turnout was considerable and there was no resulting violence. But it leaves one thinking: who has interest in encouraging this stuff? At any rate: it is a gross disrespect to the memories of people who have actually been murdered in pogroms and the hyperbole and conflation ultimately makes ALL Jews unsafe.
People who want to divide society have every interest in stoking race hatreds. It's despicable wherever it comes from.
It strikes me that there's another reason this is being stoked so ferociously - namely the UN report that came out this week confirming that 70% of Gaza deaths are women and children and 44% are children 5-9 years old; and the Israeli declaration that Palestinians will never be allowed to return to northern Gaza. Another day another war crime, I suppose, but people have been warning about "forcible transfer" for weeks, and that's exactly what's happened. Who's talking about it now?
Of course. Anything to distract.
Geert Wilders called Amsterdam "the Gaza of Europe" – I can't think of anything more incendiary or irresponsible.
Wow. I had somehow missed that one.
You mention in the video that people conflate anti Zionism with antisemitism and also anti-Israeli with antisemitism.
Now here it gets confusing for me. Wilders calls himself a friend of Israel and he is loudly proclaiming wanting to persecute antisemitism. While he is doing that it is also clear he uses this as a weapon to put people against each other. It also seems to me he is only supporting Israel when it’s about anti-Arab or anti-Muslim topics. To me that is implicit antisemitism. Why do people fall for this and not see the political games that are being played now. I’m baffled by the strong and absurd divisive language uttered by almost every senior Cabinet member today in press conferences and on social media.
Maybe unrelated or maybe not: have other people also gotten very inflammatory ads on YouTube using images from the Ajax riots claiming that pogroms are back in Europe?
Of course it is antisemitic. He is actively endangering the Jewish population in this country by stirring up anti-Muslim sentiment, which he has been doing for decades. We are reduced to instruments with which he can bludgeon the Muslim population.
The reporting in Germany about this has been absolutelly appalling, as has been everything German "journalism" does since october 2023 (and before tbh). It is not even the case anymore that the investigations are biased, it is basically fictional (bad) writing. So, thanx for the video!
Germany is even worse than the Netherlands in this sense. Here there has been some good journalism, but it's always too little, too late.
Good analysis Benjamin.
About the media, both local and international: I believe the Steve Bannon doctrine was applied:
“The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
A friend who is a journalist told me: it was (almost) impossible last Friday, not to join the pogrom/antisemitism frame.
I think that is right. Same goes for Halsema. They would have been destroyed by Wilders and his Israeli allies.
Thank you Benjamin. You’re a voice, along with very few others, in the wilderness.
Where in israeli media was reported that mossad agents are with the supporters? Do you have a link?
Israeli authorities warned the police in Amsterdam that there might be violence against the Israelis, and not the opposite.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/sports/article-827683
Thank you Benjamin.
Hi Benjamin, thank you very much for the insightful analysis of the events in Amsterdam. I wanted to vent a thought as a sidestep but I could not help but see the exact analogy.
I studied the ‘strategia della tensione’ in Italy, starting from about 1964. Proxy hooligans (youths from extreme far right parties) were empowered by secret services to ‘contain communism’. For example, they used the hooligans to infiltrate communist public manifestations to start violence against the police so that media and politicians could frame the danger of communism to the public order. The strategy of tension aimed to scare the ‘silent majority’. Political parties on the (extreme) right side hoped to gain from these machinations. To the point where extreme left groupings indeed started to use violence, after the false framing of their guilt in the Piazza Fontana bombing in 1969. This bombing started the ‘years of lead’. The public at the time did not understand at all, but the effects of deliberate misinformation and the machinations of power for political gain were very real in the 70s.
That is to say, if indeed Amsterdam is a case in point, we see - as well - an old trick in new clothing from the Cold War past (exit communists, enter […]). Nasty stuff.
Thanks a lot for this. This comment on the Sky News policy is also very telling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clHlvgOPrWY. One thing you did not mention in all this is that Geert Wilders and the other right wing parties have a specific grudge against Amsterdam, considered a leftwing city where they hardly get any votes. So any chance to paint that city black (and mayor Femke Halsema, formerly Green Left) they exploit to the bone. They like to depict it as another ' example of leftist failure to act against these islamic thugs' .
I'm currently working on a university project on the cultural identity of Iranian Jews and it's disappointing to learn how Zionist ideology interprets the practices of non-European Jews as "culturally inferior", that in the context of them supposedly being discriminated against by Muslim rulers. I've still got heaps of research to do but to me this just highlights how ready this ideology was to exclude forms of Jewish expression of faith that developed closer to the homeland, if you wanna call it that. "The ideological pressure to transform newcomers into ‘new Jews’ as envisaged by traditional Zionist ideology specifically targeted diaspora Jews coming from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East." (quote from my professor's work, Dr Alessandra Cecolin) And this cultural divide has now expanded in the secular context in which Zinonist Jews feel entitled to decide who's Jewish enough and who isn't, referring to the example you gave about not feeling safe as a Jewish person protesting against this genocide.
It is good to hear that there are people from Israel who take a more nuanced approach. BTW, here is a video (with subtitles) from a young reporter that shows you what really was going on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySHIOYyJ95A&ab_channel=BENDER
Mossad agents will join the team, not the supporters. You also ignore the pro Palestinian telegram groups that organized before the match to attack the maccabi fans. The after the match tourists in Amsterdam were still asked to ID and prove they are not Jewish. Yesterday a tram was set on fire, not before they shouted kankerjooden