Amsterdam mayor rejects anti-Jewish pogrom charges as 'propaganda' against Muslim community

Amsterdam Mayor Femka Halsema denied that the recent Muslim anti-Jewish riots in the city were a pogrom, Dutch media reported on Monday. She also accused the Israeli government and some Dutch politicians of using the term pogrom as “propaganda” to target the Muslim population in the city.

Halsema initially described the antisemitic attack as “young men on scooters crisscrossed the city looking for Israeli football fans. It was a ‘hit-and-run.’ I fully understand that this brings back memories of pogroms,” she said. 

However, on Monday, the mayor walked back her original statement referring to a pogrom.

“If I had known that it would be used politically in this way, and also as propaganda... I want nothing to do with that,” Halsema told Dutch media, likely due to political pressure from the city’s government coalition consisting of Left, Green and Liberal parties. 

“The Israeli government spoke of a ‘Palestinian pogrom on the streets of Amsterdam,’ and in The Hague, the words were used to discriminate against Moroccan Amsterdammers – Muslims. That is not what I meant or what I wanted,” she further argued. 

Earlier this month, 10 Israeli sports fans were brutally attacked by Muslim gangs after a soccer match between the Dutch team Ajax and the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Dutch, European and Israeli leaders were quick to condemn the antisemitic violence. 

The strongest local condemnation came from the Dutch right-wing coalition leader Geert Wilders. 

“Pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam. We have become the Gaza of Europe. Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER. The authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again,” Wilders vowed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who strongly condemned the antisemitic attack, compared it to the infamous Nazi-led Kristallnacht attack in November 1938. 

“Tomorrow, 86 years ago, was Kristallnacht, when Jews on European soil were attacked for being Jews. This has now recurred. This was marked yesterday in the streets of Amsterdam,” Netanyahu stated. 

Some politicians have tried to downplay or deny that the attack on Israeli and Jewish soccer fans was driven by antisemitism.

Amsterdam’s mayor even tried to blame both sides for the violence. However, the Dutch media outlet De Telegraaf reported that a “Jew hunt” had been announced and planned in advance through the messaging app Telegram. 

The Dutch government nearly collapsed as a result of the antisemitic riots in Amsterdam after Junior Finance Minister Nora Achahbar quit the government coalition.

Achahbar who is of Moroccan descent, “felt comments by several ministers about last week’s events had crossed a line, with hurtful and possibly racist comments about the attacks on the Israeli fans,” the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant reported. 

The Dutch Jewish community, which today numbers about 30,000, has been present in the Netherlands for centuries. It was heavily decimated during the Second World War when some 75% of Dutch Jews were murdered by Nazis and their local Dutch collaborators.

The Dutch Muslim community, primarily composed of recent immigrants and their descendants from mainly Morocco and Turkey, makes up about 5% of the total Dutch population and 17% of Amsterdam’s population.