[Dargo]

There was a lot of police on the beat, Thursday night in the capital. More than 800 police officers were on hand. An exceptionally large number, even for Amsterdam. But they could not prevent violent assaults on football fans from Israel. On Wednesday night, the Amsterdam triangle (police, judiciary, mayor) decided to ban the pro-Palestinian demonstration at the Arena. on Wednesday night, the first reports of vandalism and violence from Maccabi supporters arrive. Footage shows Israelis pulling a Palestinian flag off a building on Rokin and setting it on fire and smashing home windows.

Footage also circulated showing hooligans beating a taxi with an iron chain, kicking a driver. After that beating, a group of taxi drivers chased the supporters into a casino on Max Euweplein. One supporter ended up in the water and was forced to shout ‘Free Palestine’. One woman warns of ‘the consequences for the Islamic community, which will be blamed’. Several activists stress the futility of violence. ‘It's going to happen anyway,’ says someone. 'Even without pro-Palestinian supporters. The battle is on. It is now the Amsterdam youth against these IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces, ed.) hooligans.' On Thursday afternoon, Maccabi supporters gather in downtown Amsterdam. They wave Israeli flags, applaud the actions of the Israeli army, chant ‘**** the Arabs’, carry banners with pictures of Israeli soldiers, and plaster the Dam full of stickers of these ‘heroes’.

That evening, a group of less than a hundred pro-Palestinians turned up at Anton de Komplein, not far from the Arena. ‘It is a different crowd than usual at pro-Palestinian demonstrations’. They are almost exclusively adolescents and young men, dressed entirely in black and with their faces covered.' They end up in a cat and mouse game with the riot police. Dozens of videos circulating online show Maccabi supporters being chased, assaulted and beaten up by hooded men with Palestinian flags on their backs. ‘Tonight the world is going to see that the People's Army don't like those Israeli dogs (sic.),’ reads Snapchat.

Police are investigating the extent to which taxi drivers were involved in the violence. ‘Player bus blocking those cancerous Jews,’ says someone in a Telegram group for taxi drivers with over 3,700 members. ‘Hang Palestinian flags in the city,’ says another. ‘They are going to come there like rats.’ Many Maccabi fans feared for their lives on Thursday night. ‘In Israel, because of all the threats, we are always mentally prepared to fight,’ says Menashe in the lunchroom. 'There, too, there is always back-up from the army or Shin Bet. But here, in a strange city, you have no safety net. We were on our own.'

Advice never, but utterly never in the Netherlands pull shenanigans with taxi drivers who are bad, you will very quickly get the entire mob of any town in the Nederland on your neck, then fleeing no longer helps.