Netherlands: ‘Jews-Hunters Face Up To Two-Years Jail’

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

AMSTERDAM (Worthy News) – Dutch prosecutors have demanded up to two years imprisonment for several suspects involved in the Netherlands’ first pogrom since World War Two.

After a soccer match in Amsterdam between the Dutch capital’s Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv clubs, mainly Moroccan mobs launched a “Jews-hunt” on November 7-8 that prosecutors said, “caused a storm that noticed far beyond the country’s borders.”

Numerous Jews, including some asked to show their passports by angry men, were injured in the attacks, according to investigations.

The Dutch Public Prosecution Service said Thursday that “the presence of Israeli supporters offered an opportunity to take revenge for the situation in Gaza.”

A group of Israeli fans were seen taking down a Palestinian flag from a home, while others shouted anti-Arabic slogans. However, Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said the provocations did not justify attacks against Jews that have been compared to pogroms of the 1930s and 1940s.

In two of the four cases that were dealt with on Wednesday, Dutch prosecutors said that “there is a discriminatory aspect or group insult directed against Jews.”

Three of the five defendants facing charges in an Amsterdam court for (inciting) public violence against Jews said they had “innocent intentions,” but prosecutors disagreed.

PRISON SENTENCES

Ultimately, prison sentences were demanded for three of the defendants. Two cases were adjourned, including that of a tearful 22-year-old Palestinian asylum seeker, Mahmoud A., who traveled from a temporary asylum center to Amsterdam.

He is charged with attempted manslaughter for kicking a victim hard in the head. Like the other defendants, his surname wasn’t mentioned under Dutch privacy laws.

Nineteen-year-old Lucas D. from Monnickendam was the first to appear in court on Wednesday. A plainclothes police officer had reportedly observed him throwing two stones at a riot police van and photographed him holding what appeared to be a stone in his left hand. Lucas D. claimed it was just a lump of clay. “If I threw it in the air, it would fall apart,” he argued.

He also denied chanting “Those cancer Jews must die” and “Death to Israel” at the Amsterdam ArenA stadium where the soccer match occurred.

The man claimed the other Public Prosecution Service had taken his group chat message—“Mouthguard in, and let’s smash them”—completely out of context.

As for the firecracker in his pocket, he insisted he never intended to throw it. Prosecutors didn’t believe him and demanded a six-month prison sentence, half of it suspended.

The second case involved 32-year-old barber Sefa Ö., who has bipolar disorder and is expecting to father a child in four months.

ASSAULTING SEVERAL

The prosecution demanded a two-year prison sentence with six months suspended. Sefa Ö. did not deny assaulting multiple people in central Amsterdam.

Footage shown as evidence included a flying kick he allegedly delivered to a victim who then fell against a moving tram.

Ö. turned himself in after recognizing himself in the blurred footage aired on Dutch television’s police program Opsporing Verzocht (’Investigation Requested).

“I regret being there. I’m not a bad person. Unfortunately, this happened,” he repeated in court

The third defendant, 26-year-old Rachid O., denied making anti-Semitic remarks despite writing on social media chat group messages such as “I might never get another chance to beat up these cancer Jews” and “Shoot them down.”

In court, he claimed he was referring only to Maccabi fans. When asked why he was in the group, he cited frustration over alleged chants of “Death to Arabs” by Maccabi fans. Yet prosecutors demanded a six-month prison sentence, with two months suspended.

The remaining two defendants appeared in court Thursday, with the judge expected to issue verdicts in all cases on December 24 amid mounting concern about antisemitism.

PRO-ISRAEL

Last month, some 2,000 pro-Israel protesters gathered outside Amsterdam’s city hall after Mayor Femke Halsema nixed the rally originally planned for the capital’s Dam Square, citing concern that the site “could not be properly secured.”

However the same central Dam Square, near a national war memorial including for Jewish victims, is where pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel demonstrations also took place, critics said.

The anti-Israel protests erupted after Hamas massacred some 1,200 people and kidnapped hundreds in the Jewish nation on October 7, 2023.

So, “We are standing here at the wrong place. This is how ‘never again’ [a Holocaust] becomes ‘yet again,’ by taking rights away from Jews bit by bit,” said Jewish former politician Rob Oudkerk. “‘Yet again’ is Mayor Halsema, who bans us from Dam Square.”

A furious Halsema denied wrongdoing, saying she wanted to protect the Jewish community.

Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.

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