The Pogrom in Amsterdam

“Globalize the Intifada!” is one of the slogans of pro-Palestinian organizations in the United States. We now see what it means as a brutal pogrom fouls the streets of Amsterdam. Just ponder this description of events in the biggest Dutch city last night:

What we know so far is that [Maccabi Tel Aviv] fans were ambushed, six are reported missing, attackers were armed with clubs and knives, Israelis were thrown into rivers and run over by cars, their passports was stolen and published online, fathers walking with their children were attacked by mobs, women were beaten in the streets, many beaten unconscious, two emergency planes have been dispatched from Ben Gurion airport to evacuate citizens immediately, the local authorities are overwhelmed …

This was not a part of the October 7, 2023, massacre. This was the aftermath of a football match between Maccabi and Ajax, one of the major football clubs of Amsterdam. My friend’s report continues:

… medical services are unavailable as local authorities have lost control of the city where thousands of Muslim migrants scattered over Amsterdam are perpetrating these attacks, breaking into hotels, firing incendiary devices through windows and burning Israeli flags.

I know Amsterdam well. For many years I lived in the Netherlands, including The Hague, which is only 36 miles away. What happened last night is not surprising to me. I have spent more than 20 years warning Europeans and Americans of the likely consequences of large-scale migration from Muslim-majority countries, especially when combined with naive politics of multiculturalism, rather than integration and assimilation.

But in one respect I am puzzled. Surely, the government in The Hague and the mayor of Amsterdam followed the standard operating procedures in place for such a high-risk sporting fixture. I know from experience that even for smaller events—sometimes involving no more than an individual visit or a handful of people—so-called threat assessments are carried out by an elaborate team of intelligence agencies.

Security for high profile events is methodically planned following detailed playbooks that have worked well for decades. Think about the Eurovision Song Contest earlier this year in Malmö in Sweden, which was a target for hundreds of thousands of protesters all over Europe because of Israel’s participation. Even though Malmö is home to some of the world’s most antisemitic Islamists, that event was brought to an orderly end.

The story in Amsterdam is the takeover of the city by Islamists, who now live there in such numbers that they feel confident enough to carry out an organized assault on Israeli Jews. But when I say “the takeover of the city,” I mean something quite specific. I mean the takeover of the city’s internal security apparatus.

Let’s begin with the demographic realities of the Netherlands today. Today there are 1.17 million Muslims in the Netherlands, close to 7% of the population, according to Pew Research, compared with just 30,000 Jews. By 2050 the Muslim share will be above 9%. There will be 20 times as many Muslims as Jews. Still, the Muslims will still be a minority. Most Dutch will still be white, the descendants of Christians, even if no longer observant.

But now consider the Amsterdam police. Around twenty years ago, a well-intentioned plan was implemented to encourage the participation of ethnic minorities in all areas where they are underrepresented. The police and security agencies were considered to be too white. Initially, the program of “encouraged” representation was unsuccessful because the standards were simply too high for those who applied. Only a few of the allochtonen (aliens, literally “those from another soil”) managed to make their careers as police officers and even to join the secret services and other security units.

But then two things happened. First, the Islamists (Muslim Brotherhood) adopted the strategy of Islamization through participation. Then the impatience of the leftist establishment to hasten the process of participation resulted in the lowering of standards for minorities. As a result of this Dutch version of DEI, the vetting processes became less and less stringent.

I well remember when I was reliant on Dutch police protection to ensure that I did not suffer the same fate as my friend Theo van Gogh, who had been stabbed to death by a jihadist in the streets of Amsterdam. One day, one of the agents assigned to my security detail turned out to be of Turkish descent. I became uneasy when he began to criticize me for my work with van Gogh on “Submission,” a film about the treatment of women under Islam. When I expressed my concerns, I was told by his superior officer that it was not up to me who was given the task of protecting me. I was required to learn a new kind of submission—to the dictates of the DEI bureaucracy.

Today, a large part of the police force in Amsterdam is made up of second-generation migrants from North Africa and the Middle East. Since October 7 last year, some officers have already refused to guard Jewish locations such as the Holocaust Museum.

Women and gays in Amsterdam have also felt their world change and shrink. However, it is the Jewish community of Amsterdam who have had to learn to survive in this new environment.

Yesterday night’s pogrom was thus the opposite of a black swan. Such an event was foreseeable long ago. Twenty years ago, I watched as the Dutch authorities caved in to almost every Islamist demand. Muslim students disrupted or walked out of classes on the history of the Holocaust, so the classes were eliminated from their curriculum. Jews and gays were attacked and beaten in the streets of Amsterdam, so—after a series of platitudes about “unacceptable behavior”—the victims were told not to appear so gay or Jewish in future.

More recently, in one of those ironies that would require an Evelyn Waugh to do full justice, the Anne Frank House, a museum established to commemorate the Holocaust, was made to include Islamophobia as many of the hatreds it is now repurposed to combat.

No doubt Amsterdam today can boast the highest share of minorities employed in government and security agencies. But, as a consequence, those agencies cannot guarantee the safety of Jews.

The globalization of the Intifida is progressing rapidly when, in the year 2024, we are called to witness a pogrom in the city of Baruch Spinoza and Anne Frank.