Cookie Schwaeber-Issan
Although it seems unthinkable, to most of us, it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that within Amsterdam’s Muslim community, there are individuals who would have no qualms in perpetrating a coordinated attack against the Israeli tourists, who came to the Netherlands to watch the Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the Dutch club Ajax last Thursday night.
...here we are, just a little more than a year later as the world witnesses an actual pogrom on the eve of the Kristallnacht commemoration, which remembers the rampage of broken glass of Jewish-owned businesses throughout the streets of Germany which occurred on November 9-10, 1938.
That shocking display, of terrorized vandalism, became the “first widespread use of massive force against Jews by the Nazi regime, figuring as an essential turning point in Nazi Germany.”
Now, it’s fair to ask if the events of Thursday night’s vicious Amsterdam attack, led by local Muslims, who hunted down Israelis as they left the Johan Cruyff Arena, lying in wait for them, in dark alleys throughout the city, will become a trend in other European venues, frequented by Israelis. And what will that mean for Israeli teams who travel that continent to play their rivals? Will it be safe for them to continue to do so?
As more information comes out, it is clear that this attack had been well-planned, because locations which had been popular with Israelis were targeted, as were the hotels where they were lodging. How was that information accessed? And why are we hearing that warnings had been ignored – this time by the Dutch authorities?
In the wake of these shocking and troubling events, where ten Israelis were reported to be injured and hospitalized, while others cowered in their hotel rooms, for fear of being attacked in the lobbies of their own hotels, the State of Israel had to send out emergency rescue flights to extricate its citizens from what had become a hotbed of antisemitic displays of violence, where even making their way to the airport was fraught with peril.
So shameful was this attack that Dutch Member of the House of Representatives of Netherlands, Geert Wilders, referring to his country as having become “the Gaza of Europe, issued the following statement on X: “A pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam. Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews. I will NOT accept that. NEVER. The relevant authorities will be held accountable for their failure to protect the Israeli citizens. Never again.”
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