Who planned and coordinated the attacks on Israeli soccer fans?
The scenes in Amsterdam last Thursday night fit right into the worrying trend of burgeoning anti-Israel violence on Europe’s streets. Following an Ajax–Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer game, pro-Palestinian thugs ambushed Israeli fans in a series of hit-and-run assaults. Just a few hours after a Kristallnacht memorial to commemorate the 86th anniversary of this historic night of bloodshed, dozens of anti-Semites were out for Jewish blood. And there are indications that the violence was planned beforehand and carefully coordinated.
Rabbi Yanki Jacobs, a Chabad shaliach in Amsterdam who also serves as the student chaplain for universities nationwide, and a son of the current chief rabbi of the Netherlands, told Mishpacha that demonstrators had been trying to prevent the game from taking place at all, and wanted to protest outside the stadium, but were blocked from doing so by the Dutch authorities.
It was en route from the stadium back to the athletes’ accommodations that the attackers struck. Rabbi Jacobs adds that, as is common with soccer games, it’s obviously possible that the Maccabi fans had been somewhat provocative in their conduct.
“Hooligans getting into fights is not unusual,” he notes wryly.
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