Mayor wouldn't use "pogrom" for Amsterdam violence if she could do it again

If Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema could repeat the press conference on the day after the Ajax vs Maccabi Tel Aviv match, she would not use the word “pogrom” again in relation to the violence in her city. Israel and Dutch national politics have used the term as propaganda to increase the divides in society, she told Nieuwsuur on Sunday. “That is not what I meant or wanted.”

On Friday, November 8, Halsema, along with the Amsterdam police chief and head prosecutor, gave a press conference about the riots in the city, in which many Maccabi fans were attacked. “Boys on scooters crisscrossed the city looking for Israeli football fans. It was a hit-and-run. I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms,” Halsema said in the press conference.

A pogrom is an organized violent attack on a certain ethnic or religious group. In the Netherlands, the term is mainly used to indicate razzia against Jews during the Second World War.

On Sunday, Halsema stressed that she did not intend to directly compare the violence in Amsterdam with WWII pogroms. She wanted to express the sadness and fear felt by Jewish Amsterdammers. “If I had known that it would be used politically in this way, also as propaganda, I don’t want anything to do with that,” she told the current affairs program.

According to the Amsterdam mayor, national politicians have “hijacked” the term pogrom to discriminate against Moroccan and Muslim Amstderdammers. She is also annoyed by multiple Cabinet members describing the violence as an integration problem. “What is that for and what is it based on?” Halsema asked. “People feel like they are back in the days after 9/11, that they have to defend themselves. But it concerns individuals who seriously misbehaved.” The government and other politicians in The Hague are causing more division in her city.

The mayor acknowledged that the Amsterdam authorities failed to keep the city safe on the night of the riots. She stressed that they acted “to the best of their ability” and were “very prepared.” She plans to have an independent investigation carried out to identify where things went wrong.

The police have 45 suspects in their sights for committing criminal acts surrounding the match, including several Israelis. Nine suspects, all Dutch, are in pre-trial detention. The police expect to identify more suspects as they continue to study footage of the unrest.