Mouin Rabbani on What Really Happened in Amsterdam Between Israeli Soccer Fans & Local Residents

I wanted to ask you about where you are right now you're at the hey Moen Rabani uh but I want to ask you about the latest news nearby in Amsterdam where police beat and arrested more than a hundred pro- Palestinian protesters on Sunday after they defied a ban on demonstrations um following Street clashes between visiting Israeli soccer fans uh many of them violent and Dutch youth un in the city began on Wednesday when fans of the makabi Tel Aviv football team were seing chanting such uh slogans and I want to get those slogans um right

but I'll be careful in what I say let the IDF win and F the Arabs but of course they say f um referring to the Israeli Army's offens of in Gaza another video captured a fan screaming Fu terrorist sinir die everybody die in reference to the Hamas leader who was assassinated last month um Amsterdam's mayor blamed quote anti-semitic hit and run squads but many observers in Amsterdam said the Israeli fans were responsible for instigating the violence the Israeli soccer fans uh known as Hooligans the violence grew into an international story as Israel sent planes to

evacuate the Israeli fans on Sunday the Israeli journalist gon Levy wrote a piece for the newspaper harats in Israel headlined the Amsterdam attack shows israeli's denial of the reality they created in it gon Levy writes quote why do they hate us so much no it's not because we're Jews not that there isn't anti-Semitism of course there is and it must be fought but the attempt to pin everything on it is ridiculous and mendacious the North African immigrants the Arabs and the Dutch people who rioted saw the horrors in Gaza over the past year they're not

willing to remain silent about them this is another cost of the war in Gaza that should have been considered the world will hate us for it every Israeli abroad will be a target for hatred and violence from now on that's what happens when you kill almost 20,000 children carry out ethnic cleansing and destroy the Gaza Strip it's a little Quirk of the world it doesn't like those who commit these sorts of crimes again those are the words of the Israeli journalist gon Levy in a peace for haratz um muen Rabani can you talk about what

happened yes well um just to pick up where you left off um in fact their favorite slogans were death to the Arabs may your village burn and there is no school in Gaza because all the children are dead um but it wasn't just about racist and and genocidal uh slogans uh these Israeli um soccer hooligans thugs if you will also engaged in in property destruction assaulting people of Arab appearance um uh assaulting taxis and totaling um one of them and more importantly they were allowed to do all this under police protection if you compare it

to uh British football for example when British teams play abroad um uh the British government sends police details with them not to protect the Hooligans but it but but to restrain them and ensure that they're unable to do any damage and so what we're talking about here in Amsterdam is is not a clash between the Hooligans of two opposing sides but rather um uh these Israeli uh thugs attacking people who in principle had nothing to do with the game and then afterwards being uh confronted by their victims uh with also with some violence included and

then you had kind of a power struggle within the Dutch Elites um uh vilder the far right effectively the ruler of the Netherlands seeking to undermine the government and prime minister he appointed in order to increase his power over them that government seeking to retain its fom if you will um his Coalition Partners seeking to maintain their powers so they all began kind of outbidding each other in demonizing their own citizens and um calling these clashes an anti-semitic uh Jew hunt which would only make sense if one could demonstrate that the victims of of these

clashes were not just um uh supporters of the Israeli team or Israelis more generally but also Dutch Jews and Dutch Jewish institutions and Dutch Jewish properties and there's no evidence that such attack took place or even that the Dutch Jewish Community which of course would have been understandably fearful given all these reports they were um receiving about Jew hunt and anti-semitic pogram and so on there's no evidence that they even asked for police protection uh on the night in question and so you know the government vilder uh the mayor of Amsterdam have all been going

to um increasing extremes of of trying to compare what happened uh to the na Nazi occupation the German occupation of the Netherlands during the 1940s let me play uh mine for you what the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said um he's spoken with us president-elect Donald Trump three times in the past few days also commenting on what happened in Amsterdam on Thursday night yesterday we marked the crystal knock that happened 86 years ago on European soil it was a brutal and violent attack against Jews just because they were Jews unfortunately in the last few days we

saw pictures that recall that night in the streets of Amsterdam anti-semitic riers attack Jews Israeli citizens just because they were Jews but there's one big difference between that night and our time today we have a state your response to the Israeli Prime Minister mu raban well well the key difference of course between Christal in 19 November 1938 and what we saw in Amsterdam on the 7th of November is that the properties that were marked for assault and attack um were targeted because they were for example displaying Palestinian Flags not minoras so um that's kind of

a key difference and you know all this talk about that these people were singled out because they were Jews rather than because they were football supporters or presumed to be supporters of this um uh racist genocidal uh gang of soccer holigans is is is really just you know trying once again to make the point that the real victims here are not the children who are being slaughtered in the Gaza Strip the real victims are those who are engaging in the Slaughter and those who are perpetrating uh the genocide and and what has happened now is

that the Dutch government Municipality of Amsterdam the Amsterdam police have put in emergency measures banning all demonstrations in opposition to the genocide and as you mentioned have now started arresting dozens of people who have violated that ban um to assemble peacefully to um uh to protest uh what is happening in Gaza there's a larger background here of course which is the failure the refusal of the international soccer authorities known as FIFA and UEFA to take any measures against Israel the Israeli Football Association Israeli football clubs in sharp contrast to their immediate imposition of comprehensive measures

against the Russian Federation and Russian teams literally within days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine um we only have 30 seconds but can you finally comment on what happening in Lebanon the thousands of people killed the attacks continuing particularly in southern Lebanon despite Israel claiming ceasefire talks are progressing yes well Israel is failing militarily it's still stuck on the border Zone and is therefore taking out its its anger its aggression on on the Lebanese civilian population and hoping to use that as a form of pressure on the government and on hasbalah to achieve something I

want to thank you so much much Moen for joining us muen Rabani Dutch Palestinian Middle East analyst host of the connections podcast senior former senior analyst for the international crisis group contributor to the book Deluge Gaza and Israel from crisis to cataclysm democracy Now is currently accepting applications for our video news production and D digital fellowships go to democracynow.org I'm Amy Goodman thanks so much for joining us for another edition of democracy Now for