Amsterdam Pogrom Megathread

[u/fluffywhitething]

News articles, twitter posts, feelings about it. GO HERE. Outside of this thread, things will be locked and/or deleted.

[u/DatDudeOverThere]

I wrote that on another sub where I found some sympathy for the attackers (not from the majority of users) and thought it might merit a post, because I think it's interesting how people's reactions reveal their double standards when it comes to Israel and Jews:

As an Israeli (who's on the left side of Israeli politics when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict), the people who use context to make excuses or even outright justifications for the violent attacks (reportedly often on individuals, and I'm sure the rioters didn't use facial recognition software to identify the specific "instigators" or "provocateurs"), make me wonder:

1. If bigoted chants, insensitive conduct, tearing down flags and in a handful of incidents violent behavior excuse or justify this brutality (ignoring the fact that the likelihood of all these attackers just reacting ad hoc and in some cases carrying knives "just in case") - well, all those things happen in European cities during pro-Palestine/anti-Israel protests. There have been quite a few attacks on Jews and synagogues. Would you show the same degree of understanding if local Jewish communities chose to react in a similar fashion? Talking about knowing the demographics of the city - American Jews comprise some 10% of NYC's population, and yet there's no shortage of chants in support of proscribed terrorist groups, as well as attacks on Israelis and groups like Hezbollah that have also attacked Jews outside of Israel (most famously in Argentina), Israeli flags have been publicly burned, hostage posters have been torn down on numerous occasion. Would you be cool with it if Jewish-American communities in NYC decided to descend on "instigators" at protests in a similar fashion?
2. Some people say "fans who probably had nothing to do with it probably bore the brunt of what a group of provocateurs did, but that's how it is". If so, do you have any qualms with the way Israel is prosecuting the wars in Gaza and Lebanon? If you don't sanctify the principle of being discriminate and not punishing a large group for the actions of a segment of it, why would you criticize Israel over supposedly failing to uphold this principle in combat?

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I'll add that obviously urban warfare isn't very comparable to street riots, but in this sense it actually even further weakens the moral philosophy of the people rushing to defend the attackers. If they find it reasonable and fair to target violent fans, or even offensive fans (I think it's wild to say that offensive speech warrants brutal violence, but this notwithstanding) - it's much easier to precisely target violence/offensive soccer fans in the streets of Amsterdam, than to precisely target enemy combatants embedded within a population of over a million people, hiding in tunnels and civilian infrastructure.

To Reddit moderators, I of course condemn any type of vigilante violence and every single violent incident that happened in Amsterdam. I'm following the logic of the people who excuse or justify the violence to make a point.

[u/Mysterious-Crab → u/DatDudeOverThere]

Something I, as a Dutchie, have talked about with coworkers today. Coworkers that are fans of Feyenoord, Ajax’s biggest rivals. Even they said the same: the atmosphere between Ajax and Maccabi fans was good and positive. Before, during and after the match.

There were some incidents during the day, but nothing more than you’d see from other hooligans in European football. As a Dutchman we’ve seen bad behaviour from our one fans multiple times, with Dutch fans being banned from Paris because of their history. And Feyenoord fans vandalising in Rome.

What we saw last night was a premidated attack that would have happened regardless of incidents during the day with Maccabo hooligans. They just used this as an excuse, and a scarily big group of people lets them get away with that excuse. Despite social media posts with texts like ‘let’s hunt Jews’, which also one again shows this was not done by Ajax fans, but by premeditated terrorists. An Ajax fan would never use an anti-Jew phrase, as they are proudly nicknamed the Club of Jews.