Innocent Israelis, Bad Arabs? How the Media Scripted Amsterdam's Soccer Violence
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans stage a pro-Israel demonstration ahead of the UEFA Europa League match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Ajax in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Nov. 7, 2024. Photo by Mouneb Taim/Anadolu via Getty Images
The NYT, BBC, CNN, among others emphasized the attacks on Israeli fans, while minimizing the anti-Arab racism that seemingly provoked much of the violence.
When violence erupted around a soccer match in Amsterdam this week between fans of Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv and Dutch club Ajax, Western media outlets rushed to frame it mostly as an antisemitic attack on Israeli fans. But a closer examination of the coverage reveals troubling patterns in how racial violence is reported; not only is anti-Arab violence and racism marginalized and minimized, but violence against Israelis is amplified and reduced to antisemitism.
Consider this paradox: The New York Times ran the headline, “Israeli soccer fans injured in attacks linked to antisemitism in Amsterdam,” but the body article contained only verified evidence of anti-Arab racism. Its lede emphasized antisemitic motivation, while the body of the article cited footage by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans chanting anti-Arab and racist slogans – footage that the New York Times had actually verified. The only basis at the time for claiming antisemitism came from a single tweet by the Dutch prime minister, while the linked Amsterdam police's own statement made no such attribution (subsequent police statements did condemn “antisemitic behavior”).
The New York Times was not alone in minimizing Israeli fan violence and anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. Other mainstream outlets like NBC, CBS, CNN, and the BBC, all ran almost identical headlines that read like Israeli press releases, emphasizing that Israelis had been “attacked.”
The language was incendiary, suggesting that there had been some one-sided planned ethnic cleansing of Amsterdam. President Isaac Herzog used the word “pogrom” to describe what happened, a loaded term that was then picked up by other commentators. Reuters used the phrase “antisemitic attack squads,” while the Telegraph quoted the Dutch king in its headline, leading with "We failed Jews during football attacks as we did under Nazis.” The invocation of Nazism did not stop there, the US-based Anti-Defamation League emphasized that the attacks happened on the night before the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938. One commentator posted a photo of Anne Frank.
Despite no Israelis being killed, a media system loathe to use the term genocide to describe the deaths of over 43,000 Palestinians seemed happy to use terminology redolent of the Holocaust. Suddenly, incidents of soccer hooliganism and anti-Israeli violence seemingly provoked by anti-Arab racism were being reduced to antisemitic pogroms.
Burying the Lede
Buried or omitted in most accounts was verified evidence of anti-Arab racism that had occurred prior to these events, including footage of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans tearing down Palestinian flags, attacking taxi drivers, and chanting explicitly racist slogans like “Death to the Arabs” and “Let the IDF fuck the Arabs.”
So marginalized were stories attempting to explain violence from Maccabi Tel Aviv fans that one Amsterdam resident took to social media to call out the media bias. She described hiding in fear as Israeli supporters attacked her home for displaying a Palestinian flag, stating in Dutch, “I hardly see anything in the media about my experience – that letting loose agitated football hooligans with war traumas, from a country that commits genocide and engages in extreme dehumanization, in the city *regardless of whether there are counter-protests* is not a good idea.”
This demotion of non-Israeli experiences and suffering in the media was evident in other outlets such as the Washington Post and Channel 4 News. On Instagram, their headlines emphasized the attacks on Israeli fans. Only in the accompanying text did they clarify the context, with Channel 4 news writing “that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were involved in two days of violence in the city, including footage of them singing anti-Arab and racist chants.”
Minimizing anti-Arab racism and the provocations by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans was not subtle. The BBC's extensive live blog of the unfolding events quoted 13 Israeli and Jewish sources while allowing just one or two alternative perspectives. Injuries to Israeli fans received detailed documentation and personal accounts, while the impact of racist abuse on local Arab and Muslim residents went largely unexplored.
My snap quantitative analysis of the BBC's live coverage reveals the stark imbalance.
About 80% of the coverage focused on Israeli victims. The sourcing disparity is even more telling: 13 Israeli and/or Jewish people (including multiple victims, officials, and community leaders), were spoken to.
Almost no space was given to voices discussing Maccabi Tel Aviv provocation – except the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in itself, an odd choice given this was not exclusively about Palestine.
When describing attacks on Israelis, the BBC deployed eight emotionally charged descriptors like "pogrom," "horrific," and "brutal," while using only two mild terms – "racist" and "offensive" – for documented anti-Arab behavior by Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
The majority of the impact and injury reporting in the BBC live blog emphasized Maccabi Tel Aviv fans and Israeli safety concerns. One interview with a resident mentioned how she sheltered a group of fearful Israeli fans. The Israeli fan mentions being fearful of explosions (possibly fireworks). But no context was given about who launched the fireworks, despite it also being reported that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were setting off fireworks. The insinuation is that all the violence and fear was a result of people attacking Jews, even if it was Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters doing it.
Marginalizing Israeli Violence
Amsterdam is not Gaza, so balanced reporting should not be difficult. However, much of the early reporting focused on Israeli official sources. The initial New York Times piece relied heavily on Israeli official voices – Netanyahu's office, Herzog, Saar, El Al – while treating Arab and/or Dutch local perspectives as peripheral.