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I don't think you are.
I watched the video. It was in Owen Jones usual style of Razer like focusing on what he wanted to and ignoring anything else
The video seems to have shown something differ nt to how a media outlet initially reported it. That feeds into the general conclusions from the authorities which overwhelmingly conclude serious antisemitic incidents occured.
Why can't you accept that?
Having read the report I have a different take.
The events chronicled don't fit with James's assertion that antisemitism occured alongside other disorder. It was clear that the first acts of provocation, violence and intimidation were perpetrated by the Maccabi fans, particularly targetting taxis and taxi drivers (who were likely to have been from Muslim communities).
What followed, according to the report, was retaliation for the attacks and damages to taxis, some of this co-ordinated.
The following day, according to the reports, social media posts encouraging retaliation included antI-semetic sentiments. Even then groups of Maccabi fans were using batons and poles to attack others. Presumably this was why 10 of those arrested were Israeli citizens.
However, sometime in the evening, people began being targetted randomly by people seeking out Jews. It's difficult to call this anything other than anti-semetic, regardless of the events that preceeded it.
Again. Nothing says right-wing agenda like agreeing with the green-left mayor of Amsterdam does it.
I think we are going around in circles here! I shall leave you and Sludge to your strange conspiracy theory.
Just make sure you send the video ("the video the video!!!") to the Dutch parliament so that they can be as in the know as you guys!
I don't doubt there was an anti-Jewish element to it, just as there was an anti-Arab element and any attack on innocent parties is to be overwhelming condemned. But given the horrors perpetrated in Gaza as we speak is it not understandable some people who identify with the victims become enraged? If this match had been played before the 7th October events I doubt there would be such high instances of anti-Jewish feeling but of course there would always be some
Just as a point of order Cyril. I do not dispute the starting points at all. I have said (see my second post at the start) that Maccabi fans likely started it.
My issue has always been to back up the reports of what followed 👍
Anyway, I am checking out of this discussion now as we are just going round in circles.
Both of them, along with the Dutch monarch, Joe Biden, Ursula von der Leyen, Bibi Netanyahu and a host of other political leaders and news outlets promoted a story of pre-meditated anti semitic attacks on innocent Israeli fans, and littered their accounts with words like 'pogrom' and referenced the anniversary of Kristallnacht as making events even worse. Almost all of them repeated and amplified the Israeli playbook of exceptionalism and victimhood, and in many cases mixed in a large dose of Islamophobia.
As THE account of what happened it was a lie - and in my opinion it was done deliberately and not out of ignorance. It had a clear political purpose. That is why they were (and are) lying.
The Amsterdam police from the beginning were telling a more complex story.
Since then the mayor of Amsterdam has rowed back, as have a number of news outlets (including the BBC). Almost no other politician - certainly not Biden, van der Leyen, or the far right Dutch Prime Minister - have corrected their initial statements. None of them have denounced the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans for their racist acts and chants, or for starting the violence.
None of us know all the facts and never will. We don't know whether 10% of the Maccabi fans were guilty or 90%. We don't know whether a handful of Dutch people on the streets and on social media were using racist slurs and targeting Jews for being Jews (rather than for being racist thugs who trashed their city) or whether it was widespread. Clearly the incidents were serious - more than normal football hooliganism and its reaction - and there were clear examples of anti semitism.
But the international response to the incidents in Amsterdam were and still are the distortions, misrepresentations, partisan views and downright lies that were peddled in the immediate aftermath, and for the most part are still out there uncorrected. Job done?
Are you seriously asking 'why do politicians lie'?
I'll give him credit on this, he fights to the end but of course even he will concede he's fought a losing battle. I imagine he hates it though so expect him to respond with some quite extraordinary bollocks. I admire his spunk though when he knows he's in a minority of one.