What really happened last week in Amsterdam

On Thursday 7 November, Maccabi Tel Aviv played away from home against Ajax Amsterdam in the UEFA Europa League. The fans of Maccabi, the second most popular team in Israel, have also been found to have the second-most racist fans in the country, outdone only by those of Beitar Jerusalem in this respect.

These supporters have long been known for their open and unashamed bigotry and discrimination towards Arab and Black players. Even those who played for the club have not been spared their hatred, such as Maharan Radi, who became accustomed to anti-Arab slurs being used against him during his 3-year tenure, or Baruch Dego, an Ethiopian-Jewish player who was regularly subject to monkey noises from the stands during his 5 years playing at Maccabi’s Bloomfield Stadium.

The ‘Yellows’ certainly lived up to their reputation as some of the most backward and reactionary fans in world football on Thursday, as hooligans set a Palestine flag on fire and attacked taxi drivers upon arrival in Amsterdam. Entering the metro on their way to the ground, they were filmed chanting “Let the IDF win, we will fuck the Arabs” as part of a song whose second verse includes “Why is school out in Gaza? Because there are no children left”, blatantly gloating about the massacre of thousands of Palestinian children by the IDF.

In the stadium itself, the depravity continued, as the Israeli fans disrupted an official minute’s silence for the victims of the floods in Valencia with chanting and pyrotechnics. They did this because Spain has recognised Palestinian statehood.

As a result of the tensions before and during the match, violent clashes followed in the streets afterwards between Maccabi supporters and local Dutch-Moroccan youth, who encouraged the visitors from Tel-Aviv to take up some light jogging around the city centre and to test out the water in its famous canals, as well as relieving former IDF soldiers of their passports. The locals must have reminded them of how much different and more difficult it is fighting unarmed against opponents of similar strength, instead of using automatic weapons and other military-grade equipment to slaughter civilians and children.

These supporters have long been known for their open and unashamed bigotry and discrimination / Image: fair use

Either way, the reaction from the bourgeois press and politicians following these events has been nothing short of hysterical. All the mouthpieces of capital – Starmer, Scholz, Biden, and Trudeau – came out instantly in a harmonious choir to condemn what happened as ‘horrific antisemitic attacks’ on ‘innocent’ football fans who supposedly only wanted to enjoy the match, with the term ‘pogrom’ even being used in many cases.

Using a term such as ‘pogrom’ to describe the comeuppance received by far-right Zionist hooligans who rampaged through Amsterdam causing havoc does nothing but make a tragic mockery of the real antisemitism which millions of Jews have faced throughout history and continue to face today. It also exposes the blatant hypocrisy of the establishment.

Workers and youth are increasingly beginning to see through the lies. We have all seen the video evidence of what really went on in Amsterdam. We have also heard the deafening silence from these same media outlets and warmongers over the last year regarding the real injustices taking place in Gaza, where genocide continues to rage on, paid and apologised for by ‘our’ own governments. No amount of propaganda can change that.

In the end, it is us, the working class, whose role it is to remove our morally bankrupt representatives. We, the workers and youth, will put an end to the imperialist war machine – which fuels Israeli Zionism and backs it to the hilt – by removing the capitalist system itself.

What we fight for is a world free of the cancerous ideologies which can be found amongst the supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv, and in which we can finally enjoy sport, culture, the arts, and much more without the presence of racism, sexism, homophobia, or discrimination of any kind.

We are publishing here Fred Weston’s appearance on GBNews, where he sets the record straight, outlining the provocative behaviour of the Maccabi fans and rejecting the scandalous attempt of the media to hide what really went on.