Anatomy of an Antisemitic Conspiracy

The horrific premeditated violence against Israeli and Jewish football fans in Amsterdam on November 8—described by the attackers themselves in their planning messages as a “Jew Hunt” —has been amplified and justified by a disturbing blend of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including that the attacks were staged by Mossad.

Following the Maccabi Tel Aviv vs. local team Ajax Europa League football game, hundreds of Israeli fans were chased by mobs bearing knives and clubs, and often on scooters yelling slogans like “Free Palestine”, "Jewish, Jewish, IDF" and “This is for the children”. They were pursued and pelted with rocks and fireworks down streets in the center of Amsterdam, in what the city’s Mayor Femke Halsema deplored as “antisemitic hit-and-run squads” that recalled pogroms of the past, occurring in the same week as the 80th anniversary of the Nazi Kristallnacht pogrom. An estimated 25 people were wounded including five seriously who were hospitalized including with broken limbs. “It is deeply damaging to the city. Jewish culture has been deeply threatened,” Halsema said. “This is an outburst of antisemitism that I hope to never see again.”

The coordinated attacks on Jews were planned in advance

Jews were beaten unconscious, punched and kicked, thrown into canals, run over, and forced to produce their passports. As confirmed by Amsterdam authorities and police and by investigative reports in the Wall Street Journal and the London Daily Telegraph, among other newspapers, based on careful analysis of video and online evidence, the attacks were organized in advance. The planning took place on online channels like WhatsApp and Telegram, and possibly with outside influence, enlisting local Muslim residents, mostly young men, and even taxi drivers.

The Daily Telegraph obtained screenshots of online message groups proving the attacks were coordinated before the match and were not a reaction to some reported incidents of Maccabi fans ripping a Palestinian flag and chanting anti-Arab slogans, in acts condemned by Jewish leaders. Instead they targeted Jews en masse.

“Tomorrow after the game, at night, part 2 of the Jew Hunt. Tomorrow we work them,”  said one message on a WhatsApp Dutch-language group the day before the attacks. Another message read “who can sort fireworks? We need a lot of fireworks.” Other messages spoke of Gaza and Palestine and labeled Jews “cancer dogs”.

Some non-Israeli fans were also pursued during the attacks, like a Ukrainian refugee who was kicked to the ground and forced to show his passport to prove he was not Jewish. As reported by the BBC, some British and other nationals who are fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv, and are Jewish were also attacked, highlighting the 'Jew Hunt' modus operandi of the mob violence.

Despite the overwhelming evidence, and amid selective global outrage, an array of interlinked but often conflicting conspiracy theories quickly surfaced, blaming the victims for the attacks. According to these conspiracist narratives, Jews provoked, planned, or fabricated the facts, “staged” the attacks—with the backing of Israeli intelligence—and were themselves the instigators and perpetrators of a riot targeting Arabs and Muslims. In any case the conspiracists declared the victims "deserved" the violence because they are "racist and genocidal".

Even in the face of condemnations from Dutch and international leaders—including United States President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau—this alternate antisemitic reality persists, continuing to circulate online and in the mainstream and fringe press.

The spread of these antisemitic conspiracy theories has been propelled by several notable figures and platforms, including:

• Watheq Alsadeh, a Palestinian community leader in the Netherlands, who declared in an appearance on Egypt’s Alghad TV on November 8, as reported by Memri TV, that Mossad, Israel’s security agency, was behind the attacks. “What happened yesterday, in my opinion and in the opinion of most people, has been carefully preplanned by the intelligence agencies, and I hope that the Dutch intelligence is not complicit in this, along with the Israeli Mossad and Shin Bet.” Alsadeh added that he believed the motive was to “turn the tables” on Israel’s image in Europe, which he contends has been negatively impacted by its “crimes” against Palestinians in Gaza.
• Owen Jones, a former Guardian columnist and figure on the Jeremy Corbyn British far left, who said the violence was “not antisemitic” but instead the responsibility of Israeli “thugs” whose behavior supposedly provoked the attacks. Jones then went on to declare a conspiracy of Western media reporting to conceal “the context”. “You are being lied to about Amsterdam, Jones posted on X. “Israeli football hooligans attacked local residents and property, and loudly chanted and sang genocidal bile. The Western media and politicians stripped all this context away - and engaged in rampant, shameless, unhinged deceit…It's a fact Maccabi Tel Aviv fans engaged in widespread violence, while chanting genocidal slogans and relishing the slaughter of kids.”

• Mehdi Hasan, a former MSNBC host whose show was axed by the network, and is known for his connections to Qatar and links with the Muslim Brotherhood, made similar assertions. Now host of his own media platform, Hasan denied the violence was antisemitic and claimed it was a reaction to the “racism” of Israeli “soccer hooligans”. In response to United States President Joe Biden’s statement on X that: “The Antisemitic attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam are despicable and echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted,” Hasan said: “Those soccer fans - or, more accurately, hooligans - were attacking people, ripping down Palestinian flags, and chanting happily that there are no kids left alive in Gaza. Oh, and it’s you and your administration that helped kill 16,000 Palestinian kids. That’ll be your legacy.” Hasan went on to state that the attacks were not “actual antisemitism” and painted himself as a victim. “There is a coordinated attempt on this hellsite tonight to accuse me of antisemitism because I pointed out (the fact) that Israeli football hooligans started the violence in Amsterdam. That’s not a justification of the violence that followed of course and these attacks on me are obviously a proper hit job from multiple high-follower, pro-Israel accounts, who are cynically using/abusing antisemitism to protect Israel and smear their opponents. I plan to carry on criticizing Israel while also speaking out against actual antisemitism against Jews, which is likely to increase on Trump’s watch, as it did last time. We should all stand against antisemitism, and that includes pushing back against those who conflate Israel with all Jews, or outrageously compare violent racist Israeli soccer hooligans to Anne Frank.” Later Hasan pinned to his X profile his “exclusive” interview he did with a Dutch “eyewitness/photographer” who he said alleged the media distorted her footage to make Israeli hooligans look like the victims.
• Islamist website 5 Pillars, based out of the United Kingdom, cited Jahangir Mohammed of the Ayaan Institute saying “Muslims must realise that Zionism/Israel is not just waging a war in the Middle East, but also a war in Europe by instigating hate and xenophobia against Muslim communities. What happened in Amsterdam on Thursday was a typical fascist/far-right strategy for initiating hate and violence against a minority community, and to then portray the instigators as victims and generate propaganda against the target community as violent aggressors. This in turn is intended to lead to legal action and demands for laws against the targeted community (Muslims).” Mohammed claimed without proof that this “strategy” was employed during earlier race riots in the UK in 2001 and 2018, and during last summer’s violent riots involving far right groups and some radical Islamist rioters.
• Platforms such as Middle East Monitor, interviewing conspiracy theorizing commentators including Mouin Rabbani, a Dutch-Palestinian analyst, and publishing a diatribe by Columbia University Professor Joseph Massad, also amplified these narratives. Both Rabbani and Massad have previously embraced extreme anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, Massad glorifying the idea of “globalizing the intifada” and celebrating the “Palestinian resistance”. When Hamas terrorists massacred more than 1200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, Massad immediately praised the pogrom as “awesome” and “astounding.”

A so-called conspiracy of "Israeli thugs" and the Dutch Police

Rabbani laid claims of a police-backed conspiracy in a video interview with the Middle East Monitor: “'The Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were able to go on a rampage through the streets of Amsterdam with the protection of the Dutch police. After the game, the Maccabi fans continued their violence only this time they were met by opposition. The police make 60 arrests, all of them Dutch citizens, not a single Israeli is detained for their attack.” (in fact some Israelis were detained then released).

On Democracy Now! a far left conspiracist website, Rabbani was also quoted as saying: “What we’re talking about here in Amsterdam is not a clash between the hooligans of two opposing sides, but rather these Israeli thugs attacking people who, in principle, had nothing to do with the game, and then afterwards being confronted by their victims.”

Massad engaged in outright denial in an article in the Monitor and accused “Israeli soccer hooligans” of being the attackers. “What would drive the Dutch king and a chorus of Dutch politicians, including the mayor of Amsterdam, to condemn their own citizens as "antisemitic" when it was the pro-genocide Israeli hooligans who provoked and attacked them and clashed with them, sparking a western frenzy of support as if a veritable pogrom had targeted Amsterdam's Jewish community? Perhaps some historical context will help.” Massad then expounded on standard “white settler-colonial” theory about the “racism” of Dutch officials and their history in the Americas, South Africa, and Indonesia. “Their defence of the pro-genocide Israeli rioters as victims and their repression of anti-genocide demonstrators as perpetrators of a pogrom is merely the latest manifestation of this endemic Dutch racism.”

Established mainstream press outlets like The New York Times, Reuters, and CNN also lent legitimacy to the conspiracy by over-emphasizing acts of provocation by some Israeli soccer fans in some reports, while failing to acknowledge the attacks as an openly antisemitic riot or pogrom. These outlets either downplayed the antisemitic aspect, attributed such labels only to certain politicians, or placed the term “antisemitic" in quotes, suggesting that this characterization of the riots and attacks was not fully supported despite clear and substantial evidence from Amsterdam authorities and video footage.

European politicians join in the hate and conspiracy mongering

• Notoriously antisemitic far right Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun incited more pogroms when he told the European Parliament during the debate about the Amsterdam attacks on November 14 that he wanted to "express my gratitude to all the football fans of Europe who make it openly visible that they don't accept Jewish racism. Israeli football hooligans invaded Amsterdam last week. Zionism is Nazism. Goyim (gentiles) of all the countries unite!". The overtly antisemitic remarks prompted the American Jewish Committee, (AJC) Europe to call on the European Parliament President Roberta Metsola to sanction Braun "who has a long history of antisemitism". "It is equally regrettable that Robert Szile who was overseeing the parliamentary debate on the attack on Israelis and Jews, did not interfere," the AJC Europe stated on X.
• In France an elected left-wing provincial official, Ismaël Boudjekada, from the city of Grand-Charmont, already known for his praise of Hamas as a resistance movement tweeted: “I would have liked to have been in Amsterdam to make a few of them run”. Meanwhile politicians on the extreme left France Unbowed party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon embraced and celebrated the antisemitic conspiracies surrounding the Amsterdam attacks. The parliamentarian Marie Mesmeur posted on X that the victims “were not lynched because they were Jews” but because they were by definition “racists who supported a genocide”. As a result of her comments the French Prime Minister filed a complaint with the police for “apology for a crime”.

Dutch Prime Minister says there is no excuse for antisemitic violence

At least 68 arrests were made in the days following the November 8 riots. Prime Minister Dick Schoof told journalists: "the images and reports for Amsterdam and what we've seen this weekend of antisemitic attacks against Israelis and Jews are nothing short of shocking and reprehensible."

He also addressed reports that Maccabi fans set a Palestinian flag on fire and attacked a taxi, while yelling anti-Arab slogans.

"We are well aware of what happened earlier with Maccabi supporters but we think that's of a different category and we condemn any violence as well, but that is no excuse whatsoever for what happened later on that night in the attacks on Jews in Amsterdam," Schoof said.

The AJC Europe's Managing Director Simone Rodan-Benzaquen said the planned assault “is a tragic example of the rising tide of antisemitic violence that has swept across Europe since October 7. Sadly, this modern-day pogrom is not an isolated incident, but part of a larger wave of hate.”  The November 8 “Jew Hunt” was followed up on Monday November 11, without any connection to a football match when a tramway in Amsterdam was set on fire by attackers chanting “Jewish cancer dogs”.

The normalization of the narratives that have proliferated since the Amsterdam attacks on Israelis and Jews—asserting that all Jews "asked for it" or "provoked" violence due to supposed racist or genocidal behavior—is emblematic of a deeply rooted antisemitism that seeks to justify attacks on Jews by portraying them as instigators of their own suffering. But as Bret Stephens noted in The New York Times, and as writer Leon Wieseltier insightfully pointed out, attempting to rationalize violence against Jews by ascribing it to their alleged actions is not a means of explaining antisemitism; it is, in fact, the very essence of it.