DID your heart bleed for those innocent Israeli Jews who were subjected to a pogrom in the city of Anne Frank? Did you see the violence which happened before and after the November 8 football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax?
Apparently, the poor souls were subjected to violent antisemitism by wicked Dutch people. The BBC reported that the Israeli military was making plans to send a rescue mission. And The Times of India said that peace-loving football fans were abducted and taken hostage in a Hamas-like attack.
No one was killed, five people were injured and 62 people were arrested. Amsterdam’s mayor called it a pogrom – a term which Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu enthusiastically seized on and amplified around the world. (Btw I have not seen any reference to the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians this last year as a pogrom.)
And reports from some outlets compared the incident to Kristallnacht – the notorious night in 1938 when the SS smashed up thousands of Jewish businesses, hundreds of synagogues and arrested 30,000 Jews across Germany and Austria.
This is all part of degrading the true meaning of words to gaslight the public
In the words of TV producer, journalist and author Richard Sanders, the reporting was “a textbook study in disinformation”[i].
Because this is really a story about journalistic integrity in the mainstream media – or rather the lack of it.
Citizen journalist Annet de Graaf filmed the Maccabi fans as they rampaged through Amsterdam after the match, wielding metal bars and attacking Dutch people.
Her footage was shown across the globe including by such prestigious bodies as the BBC, CNN and Sky News and it was used for articles by The Guardian and The New York Times.
But strangely, the Maccabi fans were suddenly the victims, in spite of de Graaf’s clear witness that they were the perpetrators. Her footage of what happened in the early hours after the Maccabi-Ajax match was shown everywhere, but the soundtrack lied about what she had filmed.
I posted it with my copyright sign, she told British commentator Owen Jones [ii].
It was not a Jew hunt as some had claimed but totally the opposite, she said.
As soon as she was aware that an influencer had given out wrong information, de Graaf posted on X:
I am the creator of this video and you are spreading fake news. This is a group of Maccabi supporters starting a fight and beating a Dutch man….I didn’t give you permission.
She demanded it be taken down immediately. But the cat was out of the bag and outlets all over the world were using footage that every one of them claimed was of Maccabi fans being beaten up.
I was shocked, she told Jones.
Alice Porter from Sky News, however, reported accurately….until she did not.
Her second package replaced the bit about Maccabi fans being the perpetrators. Suddenly they became unidentified hooded men rampaging through the streets. A statement accompanying the new piece said her original did not live up to Sky’s standards of balance and impartiality!
Porter had obviously been bullied and who can blame her for changing her story? She probably remembered the fate of her former colleague Belle Donati who was axed after grilling an Israeli spokesperson rather too vigorously in January 2024 [iii].
De Graaf demanded an apology from all the media who had used a distorted version of her package. She got one from German news service Tageschau but all other outlets ignored her plea.
She said she began to doubt herself, but footage shot by teenage vlogger Benerji reassured her [iv].
He posted a much longer video which clearly shows the hooded men, busy arming themselves with metal rods and wooden sticks from a building site, in their Maccabi colours. He is actually threatened by one such fan but sticks it out manfully and carries on filming.
So let’s return to the Maccabi fans who are well-known for their racism. There is film of them beating an Arab unconscious in Athens in March this year.
In Amsterdam they ripped down and burned Palestinian flags and destroyed a taxi belonging, it was said, to a Muslim.
Before the match began, a minute’s silence was held for the people who perished in the recent floods in Spain. The Israeli fans booed, jeered, whistled and set off fireworks (Spain had committed the cardinal sin of recognising Palestine as a state in May).
Perhaps their most shocking behaviour, though, was to sing their charming anthem: Let the IDF [v] win and f*ck the Arabs and then we’ll drink your blood.
This is followed by a verse about raping girls who love to party and concludes
Why is school out in Gaza? Because all the children are dead!
Why are Israelis so good at portraying themselves as victims when they are the aggressors and why do we fall for it? As Sanders said:
This must be the only example in history when gangs of racist football hooligans have found the entirety of the Western media and political establishment leaping to their defence and portraying them as victims [i].
Israel has not allowed overseas journalists into Gaza and has murdered at least 137 Palestinian journalists inside the Strip.
Maybe they don’t need to try so hard because, with a few honourable exceptions, Western journalists fall over themselves to obscure what’s really going on anyway.
[i] See Richard Sanders' report for DoubleDown News
[iv] Some of his footage is shown at 5:50 minutes into Richard Sanders' report
[iv] Israeli Defence Force
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