The Dutch capital has witnessed a state of chaos in the past few days. More than 60 people were arrested. Accusations of anti-Semitism escalated in the city. Scenes of beatings, violence, and vandalism were reported by eyewitnesses, and profanity along with racist chants were heard and documented.
Amid these scenes of chaos in the city, the mainstream media showed another kind of chaos. Posts and reports focusing on the Israeli breaches were deleted. Media outlets focused primarily on the violence the Israelis were subjected to, overlooking the Israeli fans’ provocations.
Misbar's team analyzed the media coverage of the clashes in several prominent and widely-read outlets. The analysis included coverage from Sky News, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Reuters, BBC, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.
These outlets emphasized violence faced by Israeli fans while downplaying their role in initiating the whole situation.
What Happened in Amsterdam?
Amsterdam held a match on Thursday, November 7 between the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax Amsterdam. The tension in Amsterdam began a day before the match when thousands of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans arrived in the Dutch capital ahead of the game.
According to Amsterdam's police, the tensions started when Maccabi supporters set a Palestinian flag on fire and ripped Palestinian flags from residential homes. They were filmed as they were shouting slurs at Palestine and Arabs.
Additionally, the Israeli fans vandalized a taxi, which led to clashes between around 400 Israeli Maccabi fans and taxi drivers from across the Dutch capital. They also disrupted the minute of silence for the victims of Spain's deadly floods with chants, whistles, and fireworks.
Although the police said the situation was under control at the end of the match, it escalated again as rioters committed hit-and-run actions, targeting Israeli supporters in the city center.
Around 62 people were arrested, while five supporters were brought to the hospital for their injuries and have since been discharged.
Sky News Edits a Video Report Favoring Israel
During the clashes, Sky News uploaded a video in which their Amsterdam reporter reported on the clashes, explaining their background and how they started. However, the video was later deleted.
The video included footage of Maccabi supporters tearing down a Palestinian flag from outside a home in the capital. The reporter continued that Maccabi supporters were singing racist and anti-Arab songs, and disrupted the minute silence for Valencia flood victims with whistles and fireworks. Then, another footage was shown of Maccabi supporters attacking locals in Amsterdam.
The reporter concluded her report by saying that Israeli far-right ultras are notorious for their racism and physical violence, stressing that the Israeli officials who regarded the clashes in the city as anti-semitism did not mention Maccabi hooligans who attacked Dutch citizens.
The British outlet replaced its initial video report with another one implying that the clashes were anti-Semitic. The replaced video was published with an editor’s note that said, “This is a re-edit of a previous video which didn’t meet Sky News’ standards for balance and impartiality.”
A 58-second scene of pro-Israel advocacy was added to the video showing a statement by the Dutch Prime Minister falsely claiming that the clashes were “simply antisemitic violence,” and a scene of a Maccabi supporter saying that the violence was the same “as the 7th of October” was added to the video, without mentioning that the Israeli fans were the ones who initiated it.
A comparison between the earlier video and the edited one reveals that the video was edited to portray Israeli fans as victims.
In the original video, Sky News’ reporter blamed Maccabi fans for tearing down Palestinian flags outside homes. In the edited version, she described them as “three men,” in an effort to mislead viewers into thinking that the men were unrelated to Maccabi supporters, although Amsterdam’s police stated that it was Maccabi supporters who tore down the flag.
The previous video ended with the reporter saying that: “Dutch, Israeli, and British leaders denounced the attacks as anti-Semitic, and even referred to as a pogrom. But their statements failed to mention the assaults by the Israeli hooligans against Dutch citizens.” However, the edited version seems to embrace the anti-Semitic description of the clashes. Sky News omitted the entire sentence in the edition aligning itself with statements that had previously criticized them. It now ends: “Dutch and Israeli leaders denounced the attacks as anti-Semitic, and even referred to it as a pogrom.”
A Video of Maccabi Fans Violence Misused by Media to Portray Israeli Fans as Victims
Multiple prominent outlets used a misleading video to portray Israeli soccer fans as victims.
The video, which shows Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters attacking a Dutchman, was widely shared by pro-Israeli accounts on social media to portray Israeli fans as victims of anti-Semitic attacks carried out by Muslims in Amsterdam.
Misbar previously fact-checked the video and found the claim to be misleading.
The video shows Israeli fans starting a fight and attacking a Dutchman in Amsterdam, as confirmed by the photographer of the video.
Misbar’s analysis of the video aligned with the photographer’s testimony. The attackers in the video wear navy blue and yellow clothes, Maccabi Tel Aviv’s home-strip color.
Despite Misbar’s fact-checking supported by the confirmation of the photographer, media outlets still misleadingly used the video in their reports and did not, to the time of writing this analysis, delete the video from their reports or edit the reports.
The Telegraph embedded the video in an article titled, “We failed Jews during football attacks as we did under Nazis, says Dutch king.”
As The Telegraph used this video to victimize the Maccabi fans, it continued its article focusing heavily on violence against Israeli fans while omitting key details about how the clashes began.
The outlet only mentioned the violence against the Israeli fans and concluded the article with Dutch, Israeli, and Western leaders and characters statements describing what happened as antiemetic, comparing it to the Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass in which six million European Jews were murdered by the Nazis, 86 years ago.
The same aforementioned misleading video was used by Reuters in a video report. The video was shown at the beginning of the report while the reporter said that the clashes were described as anti-Semitic attacks. The reporter did not clarify the context of the video either.
Later in the article, the outlet mentioned the video sharing some frames from it but referred to Maccabi fans who attacked a Dutchman as “a group of men,” despite the photographer's confirmation and their clothes’ colors.
Reuters titled its article, “Amsterdam bans protests after 'antisemitic squads' attack Israeli soccer fans.” The article focused on attacks against Israeli fans, stressing that anti-Semitic incidents have surged in the Netherlands since Israel launched its war against the Gaza Strip.
The article only briefly mentioned how the clashes started in two lines.
The same video was also shared by BBC playing it in the background while a Maccabi fan was talking about the violence the Israeli fans experienced, implying that it shows scenes of violence against the Israelis.
By the same token, The American news outlet The Wall Street Journal misleadingly used the video in the context of victimizing Israeli fans, captioning it, “Israeli soccer fans were chased and beaten in Amsterdam in what Israeli and Dutch leaders called antisemitic attacks.”
Little Room for Pro-Palestinians’ Testimonies
Apart from misleading users, media coverage has largely centered around the experiences of Israeli fans, not paying attention to the perspective of pro-Palestinians in Amsterdam.
The Guardian posted a thorough article about the violence the Israeli fans were subjected to, titled, “Amsterdam police arrest more than 60 people after attacks on Israeli football fans.”
The British outlet included three accounts: one from a Dutchman and two from Israeli fans.
The owner of the Condomerie, near Dam Square on the Warmoesstraat, provided his testimony saying that he saw gangs chasing opposing fans. He described the incidents as organized attacks against Israeli fans.
Two other accounts by Israeli fans were cited in the article who described how frightening the night was for them.
In comparison to these three Israeli-centered accounts, the article briefly cited a single testimony from a pro-Palestinia. However, this testimony came from someone who did not witness the clashes but merely “found the behavior of Israeli fans threatening.”
Western Media Weaponised Anti-Semitism
Most media outlets framed the clashes in Amsterdam as anti-Semitic one instead of focusing on the context of the violence the football hooligans did, as did Dutch and some Western leaders.
The New York Times covered the incidents with an article titled, “Antisemitic attacks prompt emergency flights for Israeli soccer fans.”
The outlet focused on presenting the incident as anti-Semitic, repeating the term “antisemitic” six times in its opening paragraphs. Israeli soccer fans were depicted as victims. The American outlet focused on recounting Israeli injuries and emphasized how three flights were sparked to bring Israelis home, insinuating that innocent Israelis had to flee due to anti-Semitic violence.
The violence committed by Israeli fans was not mentioned in the article until after the sixth paragraph, in brief hints about the vandalism of a car and their anti-Arab shouts.
The Times returned to emphasize anti-Semitism after these brief mentions.
Deliberate Omission of the Maccabi Club’s Fan Base Background
On a final note, all of the articles mentioned here did not mention a thing about the violent nature of the Israeli Maccabi fans. Maccabi Club is known for having a racist and violent fan base.
In the 2022-2023 season, Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were responsible for 65 incidents of racist chanting, according to The New Israel Fund’s initiative, “Let’s Kick Racism and Violence Out of Israeli Soccer.”
The fans have been involved in incidents where they described black players as “monkeys” and chanted anti-Arab slogans as “death to Arabs,” which has become normalized in the club’s culture.
The hostility of this club extends beyond opposing teams. In August 2014, Maccabi fans verbally assaulted their own Arab-Israeli midfielder, Maharan Radi, during training sessions and matches. They even stormed the pitch to hurl slurs at Radi.
Rather than putting the Amsterdam clashes into context, mainstream media preferred to ignore the racist history of the Maccabi fan base, linking the Amsterdam clashes to anti-Semitism and the history of Nazis’ oppression of the Jews from some 80 years ago.
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