Common Grounds
Weaponizing Jewish fear, from Tel Aviv to Amsterdam
Source: Jews for Justice for Palestinians
https://jfjfp.com/weaponizing-jewish-fear-from-tel-aviv-to-amsterdam/
Em Hilton writes in +972 November 15, 2024
Rhetoric about ‘pogroms’ and ‘Jew hunts’ aims to obscure reality by generating mass hysteria — which can then be used to advance a far-right agenda.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in the arrivals hall of Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, November 8, 2024. (Jonathan Shaul/Flash90)
“Tomorrow, 86 years ago, was Kristallnacht — an attack on Jews just for being Jews, on European soil. It’s back now; we saw it yesterday on the streets of Amsterdam. There’s only one difference: in the meantime, the Jewish state has been established. We need to deal with it.”
There is a lot to unpack in this statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the unrest and violence surrounding last week’s soccer match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax. Those events began ahead of the game with the Israeli club’s fans charging around the city tearing down Palestinian flags from apartment windows, attacking a taxi driver, and chanting “Let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs” (upon their return to Israel, they were also filmed chanting “Why is school out in Gaza? Because there are no children left there”). What followed for hours after the game finished on Thursday night was a series of attacks on Maccabi fans by locals, some of them wearing Palestinian flags and shouting pro-Palestine slogans, which left as many as 30 people wounded and five hospitalized.
Many prominent media outlets and world leaders readily adopted the narrative that the unrest was a straightforward case of antisemitic violence. Israeli President Isaac Herzog was quick to label it a “pogrom.” Geert Wilders, head of the far-right Party for Freedom, currently the largest party in the Netherlands’ House of Representatives, described it as a “Jew hunt.” The Dutch king told Herzog: “We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.”
Social media was awash with the crassest parallels imaginable — including memes of Anne Frank wearing a Maccabi Tel Aviv shirt — taking the debasement of the memory of Jews’ persecution at the hands of the Nazis and their allies to new levels. How darkly ironic that these events overshadowed the actual anniversary of the Kristallnacht, at a time when the consequences of racist, state-backed violence feel so relevant.
In the wake of October 7, scholars of antisemitism, genocide, and Jewish history have warned of the ways that particularly traumatic episodes in Jewish history have been evoked to justify Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and crack down on those who criticize it. As antisemitism scholar Brendan McGeever articulated clearly, despite being brutal and disturbing, the incident in Amsterdam was no pogrom — the term for an attack on an oppressed group with the backing of the authorities. The proliferation of this term and others like it in the aftermath of the violence only served to obfuscate the reality of those events through creating mass hysteria.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans in the arrivals hall of Ben Gurion Airport, near Tel Aviv, November 8, 2024. (Jonathan Shaul/Flash90)
This is, of course, a common tactic in the far-right playbook: generating chaos and fear to reassert its worldview. The erasure of the racist violence of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans through negligent reporting by much of the mainstream media only accelerated it in this instance. At a time when genuine antisemitism is on the rise and Jewish people feel particularly under threat around the world, this instrumentalization of Jewish fear was especially galling.
LATEST OPEN LETTERS
-
05-06A Call to Action: Uniting for a Lasting Peace in the Holy Land
-
28-05Concerned world citizen
-
13-02World Peace
-
05-12My scream to the world
-
16-11To Syria and Bashar al-Assad
-
16-11To Palestine
-
24-10Japan should withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations (UN), WHO's controlling parent body, to protect the basic human rights and lives of its citizens.
-
09-08Open Letter to António Guterres: Will the UN Protect Our Rights and End Our Suffering?
-
09-06Urgent Appeal
-
07-05Protect Our Great Earth And Nation!
VIRTUAL POST OFFICE
PETITIONS
LINKS
DONATION
Latest Blog Articles
-
05-12Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!
-
04-12Our Wednesday News Analysis | ‘Genocide’ vs ‘Bigger Genocide’ in Gaza: Time to Decolonize Our Minds
-
03-12‘Genocide’ vs ‘Bigger Genocide’ in Gaza: Time to Decolonize Our Minds
-
03-12Opinion | Israel vs. the Israeli People: The State Was Supposed to Protect Us. Instead, It Turned on Us
-
03-12Diaries from north Gaza: one woman’s story of survival
-
02-12The Evangelical Pope | Turn to the Creator … Build a Civilization Born of Truth and Love
-
28-11Our Friday News Analysis | What the World Reads Now!
-
27-11Our Wednesday News Analysis | World reacts to ICC arrest warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu, Gallant
-
26-11World reacts to ICC arrest warrants for Israel’s Netanyahu, Gallant
-
26-11When we are faced with annihilation, Palestinians must either resist or become extinct
-
26-11The entire history of Zionism’s injustices, in one Bedouin village
Latest Comments
-
One of the most important and illuminating articles that I …
Comment by Benjamin Inbaraj -
And what's wrong here?
After all, there is the homeland …
Comment by Isac Boian -
Does this reinforce or deny my argument that Israel is …
Comment by Edward Campbell -
Many 'say' they support the Palestinian cause but do little …
Comment by Philip McFedries -
The UN is strangled by the "war for profit" cabal …
Comment by Philip McFedries -
I can't read the printing on the map.
Comment by Philip McFedries -
Good news!
Comment by Philip McFedries
COMMENTS
This article has 0 comments at this time. We invoke you to participate the discussion and leave your comment below. Share your opinion and let the world know.