A Dutch criminal court on Wednesday sentenced four men behind the “Jew hunt” attack against Israeli soccer fans that rocked Amsterdam last November, though the lenient prison terms are drawing outrage from the Jewish community in Europe.
“The prison terms of the sentences are so mild that the Dutch legal system actually incentivizes the ‘Jew hunters’ for another round of hunting,” an Israeli-dutch parliamentarian, Gidi Markuszower, said in response to the sentences. “It’s very clear that mainstream media and mainly politicians from the left are more comfortable providing cover for their fellow antisemites than protecting the Jews here in the Netherlands.”
The wave violence exploded on the streets of the Dutch capital following a soccer match between local team Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv. Hundreds of Jewish and Israeli fans who had traveled to Amsterdam for the game soon found themselves targeted by coordinated “hit-and-run” attacks, during which they were chased and beaten by assailants chanting slogans like “Free Palestine.”
Harrowing footage of the attacks circulated online, with one clip filmed from inside of a car showing the driver hitting a pedestrian who rolled onto the ground while a voice behind the camera can be heard instructing “drive over him.” Another video shows a motionless man lying face-down on the ground being kicked by several individuals standing above him.
The mayhem continued through the evening and by daybreak, Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the dispatch of two rescue plans to evacuate the targeted Israeli citizens from Amsterdam. By the time the dust had cleared, at least ten Israelis had sustained injuries and five were hospitalized, Israel’s foreign ministry reported. Hundreds more had locked themselves in their hotel rooms, fearful of the gang violence.
Initially, pro-Palestinian activists blamed the Israeli fans for the attack, claiming that they had egged on local fans by chanting ant-Arab slogans during the game.
It later emerged, however, that members of a pro-Palestinian WhatsApp group chat had been planning their so-called “Jew hunt” for days, carefully locating the hotels of Maccabi fans and devising an attack plan. Many of the assailants were Arab taxi drivers who had used their ridesharing apps to coordinate the blitzes.
The string of violence elicited international outrage and Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof promised Mr. Netanyahu that “the perpetrators will be tracked down and prosecuted.”
Even so, however, the weightiest sentence doled out by the court on Wednesday was three months of prison time. That was issued to one of the central organizers behind the attack, Cenk D. (According to Dutch law, only the first letter of a defendant’s last name is given to the media.)
Cenk D. had called on 1,000 members of a WhatsApp group to attack Jewish soccer fans whose locations he had managed to track down. He shared harrowing messages in the group chat like “A dead Jew is better than a living Jew,” “all Jews should be gassed,” and sent images of holocaust victim, Anne Frank.
Taxi driver Mounir M., who used the same WhatsApp group to help fellow attackers track down Jews and to offer advice for evading police, was only sentenced to six weeks minus 26 days for time served as the investigation was ongoing.
Another taxi driver, Kamal I, will only spend a few days in jail, even though he had taken videos of the assaults on his phone and asked in the group chat if anyone had a truck so he could “ram into” the Israeli soccer fans. He shared messages in the chat urging participants to “hunt, hunt, hunt.”
The fourth assailant, Mohammed B. will avoid prison time because his sentence was as long as the number of days he had already spent in jail.
The sentences follow the December convictions of five other identified suspects, with the harshest punishment being a six-month prison sentence. So far, 14 of the 36 identified attackers have stood trial.
A lawyer representing 35 Israeli victims, Victor Loonstein, contrasted the weak sentences to the initially strong response to the attack, suggesting that Dutch politicians had shifted the narrative over time, the Times of Israel reports. “Where at first the riots were labeled a ‘Jew hunt,’ this quickly changed under the influence of politicians and pro-Palestinian organizations,” Mr. Loonstein said. “Suddenly, the events had to be viewed in a different context, and we were supposed to understand the motives of the perpetrators. I call this the ‘October 7 mechanism.’”
Mr. Loonstein further criticized the public prosecutor’s decision not to charge the rioters with antisemitic motives — which carries a weightier penalty — despite evidence of the attackers repeatedly calling for a hunt against “Jews” not “Israelis.”
Policy director of the Israel Allies Foundation Europe, Raouf Leeraar, reckoned that Dutch attitudes regarding the attack changed after it became clear that Muslim migrants were the predominant aggressors.
“Initially, there was widespread condemnation of the antisemitic attacks,” he told the European Conservative. “But as soon as investigations revealed that the perpetrators were predominantly Muslim immigrants, the narrative shifted. Suddenly, the attackers became victims—portrayed as marginalized individuals reacting to discrimination or anger over Gaza—while the actual victims were subtly blamed for their supposed provocation.”
Mr. Leeraar also denounced the claim that the incident reflected a “clash between rival football fans” as “baseless” noting that Ajaz and Maccabi have maintained “a strong friendship since the early 2000s.”
“On that horrific night — mere hours after the official Kristallnacht commemoration — groups of mostly Moroccan and Algerian men launched hit-and-run attacks on Maccabi supporters returning from a match at the Johan Cruyff Stadium,” he said. “In essence, Jews were hunted in the streets of Amsterdam. Once again.”