A football riot raged across the streets of the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, last night. An Israeli side had come to play Ajax Amsterdam, but the politics of the current war in Gaza spoiled the occasion. Without the full facts, I would rather not comment further. But it is unacceptable for people to be targeted for being Israeli or indeed Jewish, or for people to be targeted because they are Palestinian or support the people of Gaza. I think the Israeli government overreacted by chartering a plane to take its citizens out of the Netherlands.
Holland saw 110,000 of its Jewish population deported to the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other deathcamps during the Second World War. To have Jewish people targeted again on the streets of Amsterdam, albeit in a vastly different context, would have opened old wounds.
Tomorrow, I am publishing a NaBloPoMo post to commemorate the 86th anniversary of the Reichs Kristallnacht.
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