Amsterdam attacks: Why did Western media get it so wrong?

During the Maccabi Tel Aviv- Ajax match in Amsterdam, the Dutch capital, Israeli fans - some of whom are either former or current Israeli soldiers - engaged in numerous provocations, however Western media largely placed blame on pro-Palestinian groups for the pre-match and post-match violence.

Despite claiming to provide neutral and balanced reporting on complex social, economic, political and cultural issues Western media, including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, published one-sided coverage likeCalls for ‘Jew Hunt’ Preceded Attacks in Amsterdam and Chaos, Provocations and Violence: How Attacks on Israeli Soccer Fans Unfolded.

For their reporting on the violence triggered by Maccabi fans, neither publication interviewed a single pro-Palestinian Dutch protester. Instead both cited the same Israeli fan, Ofek Ziv, “a financial adviser from Petah Tikva”. It is striking that the two US media outlets should rely on one Israeli source for two different articles on the same subject.

“The media ignored the criminal behaviour of the Israeli hooligans and only condemned the counter-reaction. In doing so, the Israeli supporters were deliberately portrayed as 'innocent tourists'. This led to much anger among the (Dutch) population,” says Arnoud van Doorn, a former member of the far-right Dutch Freedom Party (PVV).

Van Dorn, who left the PVV in 2011 and converted to Islam following year, suggests that the violent incidents may have be “coordinated” with the Dutch government, which only condemned pro-Palestinian groups arresting 62 people among whom ”there was not a single Israeli rioter”. Paradoxically, a Dutch court banned pro-Palestinian protests following the Maccabi attacks.

“The Western media’s main function is to fabricate a grotesque lie, in this case that pro-Palestinians ‘attacked Jews.’ This narrative is then wildly amplified by the mainstream press to construct the ‘victim’ card for Israel to justify US-Israeli policy in the Middle East and West Asia,” Arnold August, a Montreal-based author and journalist, tells TRT World.

Both van Doorn and August credit the role of independent journalistic platforms and social media in revealing what truly happened in Amsterdam. Platforms like Bender, run by a 14-year old Dutch teenager, captured footage of Maccabi fans committing violent attacks across the city.

Numerous videos show Maccabi Tel Aviv fans seizing a Palestinian flag from an apartment window and later burning it in the city square, while many Israeli hooligans chanted offensive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian slogans like “Let the IDF win. F— the Arabs!” and “F— you Palestine”.

Thanks to independent media platforms like Bender and Left Laser, “the truth came out,” van Doorn tells TRT World. “If it were not for him (Bender) and other similar outlets, we would not have been aware of what occurred,” adds August, who worked tirelessly to reveal Maccabi-triggered violence on social media last week.

“More than the Maccabi fans, the real culprits of this week have been the media. A media that would tell us the sky was red if it were in Israel's interests,” wrote Rivkah Brown, a journalist at Novara Media, on X.

Cemil Yilmaz, an Amsterdam-based social and cross-cultural psychologist, views that Western media as deeply problematic. “You can’t call these media outlets ‘media’ organisations anymore. They are so one-sided that they don’t even do their own job.”

‘Jew hunt’ narrative disputed

Despite significant evidence, Western media insisted on framing the events in Amsterdam as a case of anti-Semitism rather than a case of Israeli fascism.

This was in spite of reports indicating that many Maccabi fans who were “armed with sticks, iron pipes and chains”, rioting in an organised way in central Amsterdam, are current and former Israeli soldiers including Mossad agents, according to both Van Doorn and August.

But the WSJ article still tried to depict the clashes as primarily anti-semitic by calling them a “Jew hunt” even though the paper appeared to accept the fact that confrontations with Israelis “came after videos circulated online of Maccabi fans pulling down a Palestinian flag and chanting about Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.” The Amsterdam police also confirmed both provocations of Israeli fans.

August suggests the so-called Maccabi fans had a particular agenda with their self-made chaos across the Dutch capital, aiming “to send the message to Israel that ‘Jews are not safe in Europe’,” to curb emigration from the Zionist state to other parts of the world due to its ongoing war on Gaza, which has recently also extended to neighbouring Lebanon.

Van Doorn argues that the “Jew hunt” story was framed to create a false image of Muslims in The Netherlands as "aggressive Jew haters", potentially laying the groundwork for new anti-Muslim legislation in the country.

The far-right PVV, closely tied with Israel’s Netanyahu government, is part of the Dutch coalition government, and supports the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Western media coverage of Maccabi-triggered incidents “has once again shown its true Zionist face,” he adds.

NYT’s selective reporting

The NYT described the incidents as “Antisemitic assaults on visiting Israeli soccer fans” while mentioning, in passing, that a Muslim taxi driver’s car was attacked as he sat inside it by Israeli fans a night before the match.

“A taxi’s dashcam video from Wednesday, verified by The Times, shows a man hitting the car with a long object. The police chief also said a cab had been vandalised that night,” reported the NYT, using vague language that failed to highlight that Maccabi fans were the attackers.

According to Yilmaz, most of the taxi drivers in Amsterdam have either Turkish or Moroccan heritage. “Muslim taxi drivers sometimes sport a small Palestinian flag or something, which symbolises Palestinian cause that might have potentially triggered a fight with Maccabi fans,” he tells TRT World. Muslims make up nearly 13 percent of the Dutch capital’s population.

Following the attack on their colleague by unhinged Maccabi fans, taxi drivers organised to protect themselves against escalating violence from Israeli fans. After the police-verified attack on the taxi driver, some clashes occurred between Muslim cab drivers and Israeli fans, according to different reports.

Deleted video evidence

Violence by Maccabi fans occurred not only before but also after the football match, which ended in a 5 - 0 victory to Ajax. Annet de Graaf, an Amsterdam-based photographer, documented the post-match violence, capturing footage of around 150-200 Maccabi fans leaving the central station, running toward the Victoria Hotel and attacking locals. She posted her video on X and sold it to Reuters.

But again Western media distorted the footage’s context. German media outlets like Bild and ARD, a leading broadcaster, initially reported the video as showing Maccabi fans being attacked by Amsterdammers. Although de Graaf contacted these outlets, leading some to correct their reporting, others simply deleted the video.

Sky News, a British broadcaster, also removed a video showing Maccabi fan violence, further exposing the bias Western media’s coverage of incidents involving the Zionist state and its citizens.

“Much like the Democratic party, liberal media wants to blame everyone else for the public's distrust of it: Russian bots, Tucker Carlson and of course, populism. It has only itself, and its gaslighting of a public that thanks to social media can instantly spot its lies, to blame,” wrote Brown on X.