Feddit.onlineInnocent Israelis, Bad Arabs? How the Media Scripted Amsterdam's Soccer Violence
zeteo.com/p/amsterdam-violence-maccabi-anti-ara…
Consider this paradox: The New York Times ran the headline, “Israeli soccer fans injured in attacks linked to antisemitism in Amsterdam,” but the body article contained only verified evidence of anti-Arab racism.
Its lede emphasized antisemitic motivation, while the body of the article cited footage by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans chanting anti-Arab and racist slogans – footage that the New York Times had actually verified. The only basis at the time for claiming antisemitism came from a single tweet by the Dutch prime minister, while the linked Amsterdam police's own statement made no such attribution (subsequent police statements did condemn “antisemitic behavior”).
The New York Times was not alone in minimizing Israeli fan violence and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. Other mainstream outlets like NBC, CBS, CNN, and the BBC, all ran almost identical headlines that read like Israeli press releases, emphasizing that Israelis had been “attacked.”
Despite no Israelis being killed, a media system loathe to use the term genocide to describe the deaths of over 43,000 Palestinians seemed happy to use terminology redolent of the Holocaust. Suddenly, incidents of soccer hooliganism and anti-Israeli violence seemingly provoked by anti-Arab racism were being reduced to antisemitic pogroms.
Buried or omitted in most accounts was verified evidence of anti-Arab racism that had occurred prior to these events, including footage of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans tearing down Palestinian flags, attacking taxi drivers, and chanting explicitly racist slogans like “Death to the Arabs” and “Let the IDF fuck the Arabs.”
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Radio-Canada coverage and my reaction:
"The Israeli sang some racist songs and burned Palestinian flags then got beat up"
"Ok, good... They're mentioning it..."
"Here are some comments from Amsterdam residents."
[Insert four comments blaming the residents and not the Israeli]
"Dangit!"
The news I saw made it clear it was a bunch of fanatical "ultras" football fucks that saw some Palestine flags and started damaging property willy-nilly to take them down.
These bunch of shitheads call themselves fans, but all they know is to cause trouble and make a mess.
Not only that. They were chanting a bunch of horrible songs about arabs and palestinians. They also whistled and yelled through a minute of silence before the football match for people that died.
They even attacked a middle eastern taxi driver, dragged him out of the car and beat him up.
The whole thing has been pissing me off...
Buried or omitted in most accounts was verified evidence of anti-Arab racism that had occurred prior to these events, including footage of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans tearing down Palestinian flags, attacking taxi drivers, and chanting explicitly racist slogans like “Death to the Arabs” and “Let the IDF fuck the Arabs.”
Minimizing anti-Arab racism and the provocations by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was not subtle. The BBC's extensive live blog of the unfolding events quoted 13 Israeli and Jewish sources while allowing just one or two alternative perspectives. Injuries to Israeli fans received detailed documentation and personal accounts, while the impact of racist abuse on local Arab and Muslim residents went largely unexplored.
Those chants were certainly racist and violent Especially the chant “Why is there no school in Gaza? There are no children left there.”
You must use very alternative sources, because all the mainstream coverage I saw was six paragraphs of "poor Israelis attacked by Arab mobs" and one paragraph of "prior to these attacks, the Israelis went around doing hate crimes".
There were two groups of shitheads. Some people of one group will be prosecuted by the extreme right government party, the other group was moved back to Israel in emergency.
But I want to repeat: there were multiple groups of shitheads
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So include them in your post that otherwise just proves the point of the article?
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The article included several unsourced quotes from some kind of chat groups which are also potentially translated, no way to verify. And then they included a random unsourced screenshot which has "translation" added on top it, removing original content that would help verify authenticity. That's not proof you claim it to be... Not only basic fact checking disproves it, but article itself quotes Uber spokesperson indicating there were no reports.
A story on how the claim that was rejected by Uber. And Israeli PR machine trying to make something out of nothing.
An Uber spokesperson tweeted saying they were “shocked to hear of this abhorrent violence” and were supporting Dutch authorities with their investigation.
They claimed, “there were no reported incidents of violence or antisemitism on the Uber app,” and did not respond to allegations that drivers perpetrated physical violence.
Do you deny the genocide perpetrated by the IDF?
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"Dense urban environment" jezz I wonder why it's so dense lmao it's a ghetto.
"They didn't kill enough people" is a disgusting way to deny genocide.
The IDF could easily kill ten times as much per day, if they wanted to. If the IDF wanted to genocide Gaza, we would be at a million deaths at least by now.
"It wasn't intentional"
Remember that Palestinian terrorists managed to kill more than 1000 Israelis in one day with mostly small arms
"It was self defense"
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_denial
"It wasn't or isn't 'genocide,' because ..." They may enter definitional or rhetorical argumentation.
The ICJ have received threat from the United States, who literally threatened to invade the haag. Their words cannot be trusted anymore. Anybody would bow to this kind of pressure.
Meanwhile, the israeli, with their yank, german and british complicity, attacked Irish peacekeeper. If there was any justice, the rest of europe would attack the axis of evil (germany, britain, USA).
I'd like to see that. I have been following everything closely, and a lot of rumors are used as truths. From both sides... can you post some links?
Doesn't mean the Israelis were innocent
Today it has become clear (see mayor/police report) that these messages appeared on the day of the game after the attack on a taxi driver, and not weeks in advance.
I request you to remove that lie.
This same line was echoed by other media as well. Even in Finland there was no mention of the Israelis' actions.
The whole 'rescue plane' bullshit was a nice little cherry on top of this propagandistic shit pie that the Israeli and US Media cooked up.
Yeah, I was just thinking "is KLM not working, or what"?
Rescue planes are usually for places where commercial air traffic has broken down and there is no safe way out of the country.
As soon as I read the initial headlines all over every media outlet I went to see if anything precipitated the attacks, because I had a feeling this wasn't unprovoked.
I don't support violence against anyone, but I sure wouldn't paint this as an anti-Semitic attack. This was a group of hooligans who instigated the whole situation and got what they asked for.
The Israeli hooligans were escorted out of the city center by bus after the police clamped down on their riot. Afterwards the pro-Palestine rioters attacked everyone in the city center who had Maccabi merch or looked Israeli. The people they attacked weren’t part of the Israeli instigators. It’s not like every Maccabi fan that visited the game was a hooligan.
So something did precipitate this attack, and the media never reported on that. It only reported on what happened after.
Yes, some people completely uninvolved with the initial provocation got attacked, but the point is the attack wasn't just some anti-Semitic pogrom. Also, the bigger point is the media reported on one thing with a very specific slant and didn't report the other thing at all.
First of all I agree wholeheartedly that the racist hooligans that instigated violence before the game and the slogans they chanted are absolutely despicable.
However the attacks against the Fans were not even indiscriminately against all fans (not just the hoolingans) but they were explicitly against Jewish people. Multiple reports from the situation after the game state how people were explicitly attacked for being Jewish. I don't know how else to frame this than as an antisemitic attack.
"Not just the hooligans"
I don't know anything about football but it seems to me if my club's supporters start singing genocidal songs, I would stop supporting them.
" Multiple reports from the situation after the game state how people were explicitly attacked for being Jewish"
Not sure if you are aware but amsterdam have a jewish population since forever. And yet the only victims were israeli.
Don't even try, the anti-Israel rhetoric is unstoppable here at Lemmy...
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The right below
Oh don't worry, my comments are being removed and my other account has been banned.
Yeah denialism tends to be frown upon. Let me guess, you were busy trying to explain how the pallys deserved it for using human shields?