The mayor of Amsterdam says that she regrets her use of the word “pogrom” to describe the widespread, coordinated attacks against Israeli tourists in the Dutch capital following a soccer game earlier this month.
“Boys on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli soccer fans, it was a hit and run,” Mayor Femkle Halsema said Sunday, speaking on Dutch news channel NOS. “I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms.”
But, she said, “I saw how the word ‘pogrom’ has turned very political — into propaganda, in fact,” adding that “the government of Israel speaks about a ‘Palestinian pogrom on the streets of Amsterdam,’” and that Dutch politicians “use the word ‘pogrom’ essentially in order to discriminate against Moroccan, Muslim residents. I didn’t mean for that and I don’t want that.”
The Amsterdam mayor had described the attacks as a “pogrom” the day after they occurred following a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local Ajax soccer club, echoing other comments by Dutch and foreign officials, as well as Israeli leaders. A few days later, during a debate in the Amsterdam city council, she doubled down on the designation.
Israeli officials said 10 people were injured in the November 7 violence, perpetrated by local Arab and Muslim gangs against Maccabi fans after the match. Hundreds more Israelis huddled in their hotels for hours, fearing they could be attacked. Many said that Dutch security forces were nowhere to be found as the Israeli tourists were ambushed by gangs of masked assailants who shouted pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel slogans while they hunted, beat and harassed them.
Before the match, Maccabi fans burned a Palestinian flag, attacked a taxi and chanted anti-Arab slogans, according to Amsterdam police chief Peter Holla. Footage of the incidents was widely circulated on social media.
In this image taken from video, people march with Palestinian flags near the Ajax stadium in Amsterdam, November 7, 2024. (AP Photo InterVision)
Halsema on Sunday noted the behavior of the Maccabi fans, telling NOS, “The international pressure was so great, that without knowing the facts about the Maccabi fans, we had to give our preliminary account. Accordingly, the first reports didn’t immediately reveal that those fans, too, behaved violently.”
Halsema’s remarks drew quick criticism from Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who said on X (in both English and Hebrew) that the mayor’s words were “utterly unacceptable,” adding, “The failure that occurred on that night must not be compounded by a further grave failure: a cover-up.”
“Hundreds of Israeli fans who came to watch a football match were pursued and attacked, targeted by a mob asking for their passports to check if they were citizens of the Jewish state. There is no other word for this than a pogrom,” he continued.
Further, Sa’ar wrote, “the application of the term ‘pogrom’ was not an Israeli invention. It was used by Dutch politicians who recognized the severity and antisemitic nature of the incident.” The foreign minister specifically commended Dutch politicians Geert Wilders (PVV), Caroline van der Plas (BBB) and Chris Stoffer (SGP).
“We will never again accept the persecution of Jews on the soil of Europe or anywhere else!” Sa’ar concluded.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar speaks during a handover ceremony at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem on November 10, 2024. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)
On Friday, the Dutch cabinet appeared to narrowly avoid collapse after meeting in an emergency session, after junior finance minister Nora Achahbar, a former public prosecutor who was born in Morocco, quit over comments other ministers had made about the incidents, which she said she had found hurtful and possibly racist.
Her resignation triggered a crisis in which other members of her centrist NSC party threatened to quit, but the cabinet later reached an agreement, avoiding a further exodus.
The coalition is led by the anti-Muslim populist PVV of Geert Wilders, which came out on top in a general election a year ago. It was installed in July after months of tense negotiations.
Wilders has repeatedly said Dutch youth of Moroccan descent were the main attackers of the Israeli fans, although police had not given any details about the background of the suspects. He said those convicted of involvement should be deported if they have dual nationality.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said a few days after the attacks that the violence showed that some of the youth in the Netherlands with an immigrant background did not share “Dutch core values.”
Violence against Jews continued following the November 7 attacks, as anti-Israel protesters have repeatedly demonstrated, in violation of a temporary ban on protests, prompting some skirmishes with police. Last week, dozens of rioters clashed with officers and set a tram car on fire while chanting antisemitic slogans.
Antisemitic incidents in the Netherlands have surged, as they have around the world, since the Hamas terror group’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which terrorists from the Gaza Strip invaded and killed some 1,200 people, took 251 hostages and triggered the ongoing war there.
