'This is Auschwitz': Hundreds defy Amsterdam protest ban in solidarity with antisemitic attackers

AMSTERDAM — Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters gathered on Sunday in Amsterdam’s Dam Square as an act of solidarity with Thursday night’s rampage against Israeli soccer supporters in which more than a dozen Israelis were injured.

Amsterdam police detained up to an estimated 100 pro-Palestinian protesters, driving them away in large buses from the scene of the protest. Of that number, between five and seven protesters who exhibited force against police officers were arrested.

By Sunday evening, those detained were dropped off outside the city center and released without consequence, despite Dutch law stating that defying a protest ban ratified by the court and resisting arrest are both illegal.

The hundreds in attendance defied Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema’s order to temporarily ban protests following the violence on Thursday against Israelis and Jews that broke out after the soccer match between host Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

The demonstration ban, which was put in place following an emergency order, was ratified by a judge.

On Sunday afternoon, the City of Amsterdam posted on X/Twitter that protesters who defied the ban would be arrested. However, local participants nevertheless felt they were entitled to exercise their right to protest.

Demonstrators defied police orders to leave and resisted arrest, according to local witnesses.

Unlike the assailants of Thursday’s pogrom, who were primarily Islamic youth of Moroccan descent living in Amsterdam, the protesters at Sunday’s demonstrations were primarily European-originating, associated with the nation’s far-left social and political movements.

Alongside chants frequented by pro-Palestinian groups, including “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea,” groups chanted “This is Auschwitz” and “Policemen are racists, and state terrorists” in Dutch.

According to a spokesperson for a group of organizers, though the associated group was unidentified, protesters chose to defy the protest ban because “we dispute the validity of the court order and exercise our right to free demonstration.”

Among the protesters was Amsterdam City Council Member Jazie Veldhuyzen, from the radical left-wing party Vonk, meaning “spark.” Other Dutch politicians were believed to be present throughout the demonstration, though this remains unconfirmed.

After those arrested were moved off-site, a few dozen demonstrators were corralled off onto a side street awaiting further action, local sources noted. Hundreds of sympathizing protesters remained following the arrests.

Will calm return to Amsterdam now that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans have left?

Though many Israelis had been evacuated from Amsterdam on emergency flights, perpetrators of Thursday’s attacks continued to hunt for Jewish and Israeli people throughout the city.

Local reports noted that large groups of rioters had gone into the city, asking for passports and identification from people they believed to be Jewish or Israeli, and attacking them.

Local reports also noted that organized WhatsApp groups in the Netherlands advertised for “Jew Hunting” and were supported by a local network of Muslim taxi drivers.

Local Jewish groups have called for an investigation from taxi service providers such as Uber into the organization of local taxi drivers and their role in the attacks, noting that they could have been associated with the popular rideshare app.

.@Uber, when will you begin investigating the taxi drivers in Amsterdam involved in the pogrom and other illegal activities, which the Dutch judiciary is considering classifying and prosecuting as terrorism?#AmsterdamPogrom cc: @dkhos pic.twitter.com/Twsxyx0Lyc

— JOODS.NL️ (@joods) November 10, 2024

On Sunday, an Israeli news crew reporting on the antisemitic attacks in the city were forced to hide in a store in Amsterdam’s red-light district and were subsequently evacuated after groups of antisemitic protesters tracked them down.