Since the Amsterdam maccabi hooligan event, Israel has been trying really hard to influence the narrative put out by media and politicians. The ministry of Diaspora has put out a document detailing supposed ties between Palestinian liberation activist groups and Hamas (lol). They also claim that these liberation groups preplanned the attacks on hooligans, and their proof is literally just a call for people to come join their protest during the match.

These ‘allegations’ would be funny if we did not have a right extremist government that is receptive to them.

Here is Minister Amichai Chikli outlining these conspiracies himself: https://x.com/amichaichikli/status/1856397777548284273

Media changed tone a bit after a day or two, and are now reporting that ‘both sides did bad things’. Most people are buying into that narrative. A lot of people were outraged at first about the initial framing but they have the memory of a goldfish and probably are already forgetting about it.

The right extremist cabinet coalition is putting forward the narrative that the violence was caused by ‘3rd gen immigrants who aren’t integrated in Dutch society, and don’t share our values’ which is not received very well by media and people alike. Some religious organisations (Christian, Jewish and Muslim) made a shared statement about how the government is creating division with their racist and islamophobic narrative. I think most nonpolitical people would share that opinion.

Literally me rn

Thanks for tagging me! The student unions did a great job honestly. I think they were under a lot of pressure and there was a chance the protest would be deemed illegal and police would get violent. I’m glad that didn’t happen. Also there was a lot of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. A small light compared to the news of extreme police violence from yesterday’s protest against genocide in Amsterdam.

Student unions decided to take over the organisation and are calling for people to come anyways. But with the risks involved there will be less people. Small actions are also planned all over the country but because the cancellation by workers unions was so last minute everything will be pretty chaotic. Tonight the police were very aggressively beating up anti genocide protesters again so that will cause outrage as well tomorrow so it will be an interesting day.

Student unions tried to pressure the mayor to tell them exactly why she and the police think there’s a risk of violence but they won’t give any other details than what was written in my original post. This is why they decided to ignore the risk and protest anyways.

This also shows how spineless the unions are for agreeing to cancel the protest instead of challenging the mayor and police. The budget cut of 1 billion per year will be devastating for the whole higher education sector and the vote for that plan is in less than 2 weeks, meaning that the cancellation of this protest will likely make it much more likely that the plan will pass without much opposition.

A large protest against budget cuts in higher education in The Netherlands that was planned for tomorrow in Utrecht has been cancelled due to (paraphrasing:) ‘threats of violence by pro Palestine protesters who planned to hijack the protest.’

This can not be seen without the context of the unrest in Amsterdam last week. Dutch media and politicians have been trying really hard this past week to paint anti genocide protesters in a very bad light, and this situation is no different. Several pro Palestine organisations have stated that they stand wholeheartedly behind the protests against the budget cuts and were joining to show their support. People are speculating that this support is being framed as hijacking now by the mayor of Utrecht and the police.

https://nos.nl/l/2544350

Oh yes please!

This is so cool, I hope I remember to join tomorrow morning

Police hasn’t arrested anyone related to Thursday night attacks on hooligans (all arestees were protesters), they have a team looking at footage and witness accounts first now. I’m a bit afraid this guy will get arrested but I don’t know how much proof there is against him. Police did say that they might try to charge for terrorism as well as and antisemitism which would be wild if they succeeded.

Maccabi hooligans in Tel Aviv airport

They’re singing the same song as in Amsterdam and now I finally have a good source on the translation:

Let the IDF win and fuck the arabs

Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there.

I made a list compiling the events from a few sources including cestmocro and plant.eenolijfboom on instagram:

1. Weekend of 2/11 and 3/11: Flyers are spread around football stadium calling for israhelli boycott in football. A pro Palestine protester wearing a keffiyeh gets beaten up by Ajax supporter and ends up in hospital.
2. Monday 4/11: There’s a call from a pro Palestine group to protest in front of the stadium during the game on Thursday.
3. Wednesday 6/11 afternoon: Mayor of Amsterdam forbids the protest in front of stadium and also forbids protests on some other locations like the Dam square. Protest is allowed on a location 1km from stadium. Protest organisers are warning protesters to not go on the streets alone while wearing keffiyeh or other Palestinian symbols due to previous attacks.
4. Wednesday evening: Maccabi supporters tear down Palestinian flags and burn at least one. They also yell racist chants and display banners and stickers glorifying the IOF and genocide. A taxi driver is beaten up by maccabi supporters and his car is destroyed. In a local taxi drivers group there is a call to mobilise in response.
5. Thursday 7/11 afternoon: Maccabi supporters are in the city chanting fuck you Palestine on Dam square resulting in some fights between pro Palestine protesters and Maccabi supporters. Police arrest some pro Palestine protesters because protesting was not allowed in that area. Other protesters are brought by the police to the assigned location where they are allowed to protest. Protesters aren’t happy with this because they are not in hearing distance of the football game they were protesting against, so in small groups they leave to protest elsewhere. Maccabi supporters on their way to the game are filmed chanting islamophobic phrases. Sources give different translations for the chants, but it’s something along the lines of fuck arabs and Israhelli army will win. According to BDS NL it’s part of a longer song that includes ‘there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left’.
6. Thursday during game: Maccabi supporters yell through minute of silence for victims of Spanish floods.
7. Thursday evening after game: Maccabi hooligans move to city center, do normal hooligan shit but there’s a lot of tension between them and locals for obvious reasons. Lots of taxis are driving near the hooligans honking because of the taxi driver that was beaten up the evening before. Police is surrounding the hooligans while they move through the city center to protect them from locals including the taxis. The pro Palestine protesters are also still in the city in smaller groups sometimes attempting to come near the hooligans but police is holding them back. Police is trying to get the hooligans into busses to bring them to their hotel but a lot of the hooligans escape to roam through the city in smaller groups. This is where they get confronted by pro Palestine protesters who then showed them how welcome they are in Amsterdam. Several Maccabi hooligans get beaten up and get swimming lessons. 5 Maccabi supporters end up in hospital, 20-30 are wounded and 63 protesters are arrested. The police is using the videos to arrest more protesters.

Edit: added some more details on Thursday evening from the video linked.