Mideast War blowback

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Violence broke out following the recent Europa League match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv. A video showing the riots was misrepresented by many media outlets. DW takes a closer look.

In the days after the riots following the soccer match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv, international media coverage of the event has been heavily criticized. A video published by a Dutch photographer on the X platform was rebroadcast by many media outlets — and misrepresented in the process.

On the night from Thursday to Friday in Amsterdam, Israeli fans clashed with locals and pro-Palestinian supporters during the Europa League match between Dutch first-division team Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel Aviv. According to police, riots broke out in several places in the city center, 62 people were arrested and five people were taken to hospital.

The attacks on Israeli fans in Amsterdam have caused international outrage. However, according to the police, Maccabi supporters had also previously rioted and provoked, burning Palestinian flags, among other acts.

To illustrate this, a video by Dutch photographer Annet De Graaf was used several times to show the acts of violence committed by Israeli fans. However, it was misrepresented by many major media outlets in their reporting.

[...]

Claim: "Israeli soccer fans were chased and beaten in Amsterdam in what Israeli and Dutch politicians called antisemitic attacks," wrote The Wall Street Journal

[...]

The German newspaper Bild also used a screenshot from the video with the caption: "The hunt for Jews has broken out again: Arab mob chases soccer fans in Amsterdam."

DW Fact check: False

The video by De Graaf actually shows supporters of the Israeli soccer club Maccabi Tel Aviv attacking locals around Amsterdam Central Station.

It, therefore, does not show pro-Palestinians chasing Israelis, as has been falsely claimed by several media outlets, but instead Israeli soccer fans attacking locals and pro-Palestinian soccer fans.

Another video by a young Dutch reporter, Ome Bender, supports De Graaf's version because it shows the same violent scenes from a different angle.

Many users have repeatedly pointed out the misuse of the images on social networks, as has De Graaf herself. They explained that the perpetrators were Israeli, and not pro-Palestinian soccer fans.

In a viral post, De Graaf asked the media to classify her material correctly and issue an apology. A journalist from Tagesschau has already complied with this request. Tagesschau itself has issued a correction and edited the initial video and posted a new version online.

DW also did not initially categorize the images correctly, but has since published a correction under the post:

"We showed the clips marked with the watermark X/iAnnet in the wrong context. The author of the clip says she filmed Maccabi supporters who attacked Amsterdam citizens in front of Central Station after the game."

Other media have now also replaced or deleted the video sequences or published corrections.

The exact identity of the men in the video remains unclear. A spokeswoman for the Amsterdam police said in an interview with DW that the video taken by the Dutch photographer is the subject of an ongoing investigation. At present, the police cannot provide any information about the identity of the perpetrators seen in the video.

This would be absolutely horrible. And paradoxical, especially cracking down on dissenting Jewish groups in the name of opposing "anti-semitism."

Anna Joseph, a board member of Erev Rav, a Netherlands-based Jewish anti-Zionist organization, blamed Israeli fans for violent incidents surrounding the Ajax-Maccabi Tel Aviv UEFA Europa League match on Nov. 7.

[...]

According to Joseph, the violent incidents began when Maccabi fans arrived in Amsterdam. “Israeli fans damaged property, tore down and burned Palestinian flags, assaulted a taxi driver, and chanted racist and pro-genocide slogans on public transportation," she said.

She noted that these incidents left Palestinians, Muslims and other minorities in Amsterdam feeling unsafe. Despite reports to the authorities, she claims no measures were taken to prevent the violence.

"The Dutch government and media framed violence initiated by Israeli fans as anti-Semitism against them, likening it to a pogrom. This was not a pogrom," Joseph said.

She accused the Dutch police of inaction and targeting Palestinian supporters rather than the disruptive fans, describing the approach as a "double standard."

Lack of Intervention

Joseph criticized Dutch police for what she viewed as delayed and inadequate responses to Israeli fans’ actions. "If Dutch police had intervened early in the week to stop Maccabi fans from being violent, the escalation at the end of the week might have been avoided," she asserted.

Amsterdam Mayor Femka Halsema said she regretted calling the riots in Amsterdam a “pogrom” because this was being used to discriminate against the Moroccan-Muslim population of the city, Dutch media reported on Monday.

At first, she said at the press conference immediately following the riots that “young men on scooters crisscrossed the city looking for Israeli football fans. It was a ‘hit-and-run.’ I fully understand that this brings back memories of pogroms.”

She backtracked on these comments, saying she did not want to make a direct comparison with pogroms and that she was merely trying to empathize with Jewish Amsterdammers.

'Pogrom' was Israeli propaganda
She accused the Israeli government and Dutch national politicians of using the term as propaganda to attack the Muslim community in Amsterdam.

“If I had known that it would be used politically in this way, and also as propaganda... I want nothing to do with that,” Halsema said.

“The Israeli government spoke of a ‘Palestinian pogrom on the streets of Amsterdam,’ and in The Hague, the words were used to discriminate against Moroccan Amsterdammers – Muslims. That is not what I meant or what I wanted.”

THE HAGUE, the home of the Dutch parliament, saw fierce debates over the riots, leading Geert Wilders, the head of the largest far Right party in the country, PVV, to call for all those involved to be deported and have their citizenship revoked.

An Illinois woman is charged with hate crimes after allegedly attacking a man for wearing a Palestine hoodie at a suburban Chicago Panera Bread over the weekend.

Alexandra Szustakiewicz, 64, of Darien, Illinois, is charged with two felony counts of a hate crime and misdemeanor disorderly conduct, according to a Monday statement from DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin and Downers Grove Chief of Police Michael DeVries.

In court on Monday, a judge granted prosecutors' requests that Szustakiewicz have no contact with the victims and that she must stay away from the Panera Bread in Downer’s Grove where the incident occurred at about noon on Saturday, the statement said.

“Szustakiewicz was at the Panera Bread when she confronted and yelled expletives at a man regarding a sweatshirt he was wearing with the word Palestine written on it,” authorities said. “It is further alleged that Szustakiewicz attempted to hit a cell phone out of the hands of a woman who was with the man when the woman began videotaping the incident.”

Szustakiewicz was represented by the county’s public defender’s office in court on Monday. No one with the office was immediately reached for comment on her behalf.

Szustakiewicz allegedly committed a hate crime by “reason of perceived national origin” of the victims, the statement said.

In a video posted on X, which was confirmed by Downers Grove police as being genuine and connected to the charges against Szustakiewicz, a woman is seen lunging at someone holding a phone who is recording the incident, while a man tries to stop her. The woman takes at least one swipe at the man, and a beverage she is holding spills to the ground when the man crushes her cup in an attempt to prevent her from getting at the person recording.

The woman threatens to call the police, and then is seen again trying to go after the person recording, while the man asks her to repeatedly stop.

The man is heard on the recording telling the woman, “Get away from my wife.”

The woman, according to the video, then goes up to the cash register and asks an employee to call the police.

The woman then walks toward the woman holding the camera, and the man steps in between them, and pushes the woman, and both the man and the woman threaten to punch each other, according to the video.

The video has garnered more than 1 million views.

The Chicago Office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR, said in a statement the incident began because one of the victims wore a Palestinian hoodie.

The male victim, identified as Waseem, by CAIR, said in the statement: “I’m a born and raised American who took his wife out for lunch. I was not able to do that simply because I was Palestinian.”

The organization said the female victim was pregnant and called the suspect’s alleged behavior “shameful” and “abusive

Here is the X video referred to in the article. Oddly, the woman doing the harassing is also asking employees to call the police. Something doesn't add up here.

Most of the commenters on X are assuming that this woman assumes the cops will be on her side merely because she's white, similar to the Central Park birdwatching incident.

That's possible, I guess, but we also don't know what happened before the video camera was turned on.

I also wonder if this woman has some serious cognitive impairment or mental illness.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to reject three resolutions sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to block the sale of certain offensive weapons to Israel in protest of its ongoing military operations in Gaza.

The Senate voted 18 to 79 to defeat S.J. Res. 111, which would have blocked the sale of 120-millimeter tank rounds.

It also voted 19 to 78 against a resolution to block the sale of 120 mm high-explosive mortar rounds and 17 to 80 to defeat a proposal to block the sale of kits to transform “dumb” bombs into precision-guided weapons.

Sanders emphasized the resolutions were aimed at “offensive weapons that have been used to devastating effects against the civilians of Gaza and Lebanon.” He argued the restrictions would not affect Israel’s ability to defend itself from attacks, but colleagues who opposed his proposals disputed that claim.

Sanders said under the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Control Act, the United States cannot provide weapons to countries that violate internally recognized human rights or block U.S. humanitarian aid, which he accused Israel of doing.

“According to the United Nations, much of the international community, and every humanitarian organization on the ground in Gaze, Israel is clearly in violation of these laws,” Sanders said on the floor. “Under these circumstances, it is illegal for the U.S. government to provide Israel with more offensive weapons.”

Sanders cited the deaths of more than 40,000 people in Gaza, a number compiled by the Palestinian Health Ministry, an agency in the Hamas-run government, and the destruction of most of Gaza’s infrastructure.

The United States cannot be complicit to these atrocities,” Sanders declared.
Sanders has claimed that the destruction in Gaza is worse than what was inflicted on Dresden, Germany, a city that was firebombed, during World War II.

J-Street, a center-left pro-Israel organization, supported Sanders’s proposals, breaking with many other Jewish and Israel-supporting groups.

This debate and vote signify another step toward a relationship in which the US can hold Israel accountable for its actions and its use of the weapons we provide in the same way we enforce US laws for all other recipients of US security assistance,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street.

Sanders received strong pushback from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

Schumer said he was strongly opposed to Sanders’s proposals, asserting that Israel needs weapons to defend against its enemies. He said providing such munitions to Israel has been a “cornerstone” of American policy for decades.

Israel is surrounded by enemies dedicated to its annihilation from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis to most threateningly of all, Iran. These threats have been for a long time and will persist for many years into the future,” Schumer warned.

Cardin also voiced his strong opposition to Sanders’s proposals. He said that if implemented they would affect arms shipments years into the future. He warned the restrictions could have the unintended consequence of hamstringing Israel against unknown future adversaries.

“These tank munitions have a deliver date three years from now. They are replenishments. This is so Israel has the capacity to defend itself against future threats that we know are in the region, that are real,” he argued.

Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, disputed the claims of Democratic senators who warned that limiting arms sales would put Israel’s security at risk.

“Contrary to opponents’ claims regarding today’s vote, US support for Israel’s security was never at risk,” he said. “All of the Senators who voted for a resolution of disapproval today have supported tens of billions of dollars in security assistance to Israel throughout their careers.

“No Senators are calling for anything approaching an arms embargo and all of them endorse continued support for Iron Dome and other defensive systems,” he added.

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister and former defence minister, as well as the military commander of Hamas.

The Israeli prime minister’s office condemned the ICC’s decision as “antisemitic”