RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.thefp.com/p/mathias-dopfner-make-germany-more-jewish-again?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Last week, a mob rampaged through the streets of Amsterdam, ambushing and assaulting Jews. Anyone who appeared to be a supporter of Israeli soccer team Maccabi Tel Aviv was targeted by groups mostly consisting of young men from the city’s Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish communities. Just before the 86th anniversary of Kristallnacht, victims pleaded with their assailants “not Jewish, not Jewish.”

This shameful episode is only the latest example of antisemitism on Europe’s streets. It is the disgraceful consequence of an irresponsible migration policy that is equally receptive to Islamists and Holocaust deniers. Violent incidents have become more common since October 7, 2023, and the already shrinking population of European Jews is set to decline further as many Jews in the Netherlands, in France, and my country, Germany, consider emigrating. 

The decline, in Germany and Europe more generally, is greeted with a shrug. Such complacency is shameful. Particularly in Germany. The country can never make up for its historical guilt, but it could help ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself. Not only should Germany be working to persuade Jews to stay—we should throw open our doors to Jews who want to move here. Allow me to explain.

In his book Why the Germans? Why the Jews?, German historian Götz Aly exposes how antisemitism is deeply rooted in a destructive envy. He describes how, for centuries, people were not only envious of the outward successes of the Jews but also of something profound and ancient—a culture, a religion, a history that has continued to exist across millennia. 

“The envious person,” Aly surmises, “is always seeking a scapegoat.” The unsettling question he poses is “Can you be envious of someone you despise?” Jews were vilified as being “rootless,” although they possessed exactly what the Germans had been looking for: a clear identity and story. 

Envy, again, is a major root cause of the global spread of Islamist antisemitism. What we know from Germany’s painful history is that when antisemitic envy, and the envy of achievement, become the dominant zeitgeist, they stand in the way of knowledge, wealth, and progress. Instead, they produce delusion, poverty, and regression. What inevitably transpires is the opposite of meritocracy: “ineptocracy,” or the rule of the least capable. 

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/11/08/a-pogrom-in-amsterdam/

On Thursday night, in a dark echo of Europe’s darkest days, Amsterdam bore witness to a pogrom.

Following a Europa League football match between Ajax Amsterdam and Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv, ‘pro-Palestine’ thugs went on an organised and seemingly pre-meditated hours-long hunt for Maccabi supporters – because, well, they were Israeli Jews. And that is enough it seems, in this era of keffiyeh-sporting, BDS-fuelled anti-Semitism, to justify hunting people down and violently attacking them.

According to Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema, men riding scooters searched the streets for Israelis and carried out ‘hit and run’ assaults. Other reports tell of masked men ambushing and attacking fans as they walked back to their hotels. Some Israelis were knocked down and beaten up. Others were forced to jump into canals to escape.

One video recording shows a man lying on the ground as a gang of men repeatedly kick his motionless body. Another shows a vehicle being driven at what presumably is a Maccabi supporter. Another shows Jewish football fans being attacked in a crowded street, while a man shouts, ‘That’s for Gaza motherfucker… now you know how it feels’.

According to the Amsterdam police, five supporters were taken to hospital, while 20 to 30 others were treated at the scene. It is likely that many more would have been seriously hurt and worse if it wasn’t for those Amsterdam locals who allowed Maccabi supporters to hide and shelter in restaurants and cafés.

Deborah Lipstadt, currently the US special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, is in no doubt as to the significance of what happened last night. It was a concerted and violent attack on Jews because they were Jews. It was all too reminiscent of ‘a classic pogrom’, she said, before drawing attention to the attacks’ proximity to the anniversary of Kristallnacht, ‘when Nazi-sanctioned and Nazi-led pogroms against Jews erupted across the German Reich’. Striking a similar note, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands told Israel’s President Isaac Herzog: ‘We failed the Jewish community of the Netherlands during the Second World War, and last night we failed again.’

It was all so grimly predictable. Ever since Hamas’s 7 October attacks and the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, anti-Semitism has surged across Europe. Synagogues have been fire-bombed. Jews have been menaced and attacked. And the streets of Western cities have been filled on a near-weekly basis with anti-Israel marches, thronging with anti-Semitism. It was these conditions that made an attack on Israeli Jewish football fans all too possible.

https://www.jns.org/netanyahu-sends-planes-to-amsterdam-to-rescue-jews-from-pogrom/

The Israeli National Security Council told Israelis to remain in their hotel rooms, avoid wearing anything with Jewish or Israeli symbols and to return home early.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated at about 4:30 a.m. local time that he was dispatching two rescue planes to Amsterdam following a “very violent incident against Israeli citizens.”

“The harsh pictures of the assault on our citizens in Amsterdam will not be overlooked,” Netanyahu’s office stated. “Prime Minister Netanyahu views the horrifying incident with utmost gravity and demands that the Dutch government and security forces take vigorous and swift action against the rioters, and ensure the safety of our citizens.”

The Israeli National Security Council stated in Hebrew that Israelis in Amsterdam should remain in their hotel rooms and avoid the street, refrain from wearing visible Jewish or Israeli symbols and notify Dutch police and the Israeli mission about any threat or attack. The council also advised Israelis to return to home, with more planes expected.

Earlier in the day, Maccabi Tel Aviv lost 5-0 to Ajax Amsterdam in a Europa League soccer game. Various reports indicate that Israeli fans were attacked—with some reports of injuries—after leaving the game. Some reports indicated that up to dozens of people were arrested. (JNS sought comment from the Amsterdam police.)

Geert Wilders, who leads the largest political party in the Netherlands, wrote that it “looks like a Jew hunt in the streets of Amsterdam.”

“Arrest and deport the multicultural scum that attacked Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters in our streets,” Wilders wrote. “Ashamed that this can happen in The Netherlands. Totally unacceptable.”

https://www.jns.org/weizmann-busts-swiped-as-anti-israel-vandalism-sweeps-uk/

Palestine Action, a United Kingdom-based anti-Israel group, on Saturday carried out coordinated vandalism in several U.K. locations, including Manchester and Cambridge Universities.

Violence included defacing with red paint the Jewish National Fund offices in London and Cambridge University’s Institute of Manufacturing.

Palestine Action said it targeted the Cambridge Institute because it partners with Rolls-Royce, Siemens and BAE Systems, which the group has accused of “perpetrating genocide.”

The vandalism marked the 107th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917, a public statement by the British Government during World War I announcing its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people,” an important step in the political process leading to the creation of modern Israel.

The declaration was due mainly to the efforts of Chaim Weizmann, who led world Jewry following WWI and became Israel’s first president.

Weizmann worked as a chemist at Manchester University during the war, making an important contribution to the war effort.

In perhaps the most brazen act, Palestine Action activists smashed a glass display case at the university’s chemistry building and stole two busts of Weizmann, posting a video of the theft on social media.