By Worthy News Stefan J. Bos with reporting by Worthy News’ Johan Th. Bos in Amsterdam
AMSTERDAM (Worthy News) – Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema survived calls for her resignation despite the Dutch capital’s first pogrom against Jews since World War Two.
Numerous Jewish people were injured following Thursday’s soccer match between Amsterdam’s Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv teams when Arab Muslims hunted for Jews, witnesses said.
At a tense emergency debate by the municipal council about the violence, Halsema denied warnings had been underestimated.
“There was no underestimation,” Halsema said firmly. “We knew there were antisemitic voices. That is something different than going on a Jews hunt.”
She described the assaults as “a kind of urban terror by boys on scooters who drove from pillar to post.” In this, “not exclusively Israeli supporters” were attacked, she added.
Those words did little to convince critics, but the majority in the council, including the mayor’s GroenLinks (GreenLeft) party, supported her.
The debate came just hours after Amsterdam public transport organization GVB confirmed Tuesday that a bomb exploded overnight, damaging a tram or streetcar, at Square ‘40-’45.
ATTACKING TRAM
Rioters of Arab descent could be seen throwing objects at the burning tram and shouting antisemitic slogans such as “cancer Jews.”
Ahead of the attack, the tram driver “was called by our traffic control to stop so that the passengers and our employees could get out. A brave volunteer tram driver – accompanied by the police – drove the tram away, empty,” the GVB said in a statement seen by Worthy News.
However, “Our employees are currently receiving full aftercare. You should not underestimate the enormous mental impact that this event has had on them.”
In footage related to previous violence reviewed by Worthy News, a man with a Moroccan accent can be heard saying, “We are going to hunt for Jews,” words that have shocked the Jewish community.
“There have been reports that Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer fans misbehaved and provoked some violence by withdrawing a Palestinian flag and shouting reprehensible slogans against Arabs. But that is different than calling for hunting Jews,” Halsema said.
She suggested that anger about the policies of the Israeli government in Gaza should not be turned into antisemitism.
Violence also spread to Belgium, including in the city of Antwerp, where at least five persons were detained for allegedly planning “to hunt for Jews.” Footage emerged of a Jewish cyclist being attacked, prompting Mayor Bart De Wever to say that authorities “want to ensure the Jewish community feels safe and protected.”
He said he would welcome troops in Antwerp’s Jewish district to protect the Jewish people if necessary. Similar sentiments were also noticed in Paris, where thousands of security forces have been mobilized ahead of Thursday’s France-Israel soccer match in the French capital.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
U.S.-based singer and rap star Nicki Minaj brought her global profile to the United Nations on Tuesday to draw attention to the mass killings of Christians in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, where more than 7,000 Christians were murdered in the first seven months of this year, according to the watchdog group Intersociety.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) used his first White House visit in seven years to deliver a blunt message: Riyadh is ready to join the Abraham Accords — but only if there is a real, irreversible path toward a two-state solution.
In one of the most lopsided votes in recent congressional history, the House of Representatives voted 427-1 on Tuesday to force the Department of Justice to release all unclassified documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The Senate quickly followed suit, passing the measure by unanimous consent, sending the bill to President Donald Trump–who announced this week that he would sign it.
As the United Nations Security Council approved a U.S.-drafted resolution laying out a pathway toward a Palestinian state, new polling shows Israeli public opinion moving sharply in the opposite direction.
Martin Bosma of the anti-Islam Party for Freedom (PVV) has lost his bid for another term as speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, in a vote signaling shifting parliamentary dynamics after last month’s election.
A visibly angry U.S. President Donald J. Trump said the broadcast license of U.S. broadcaster ABC should be “taken away” after one of its reporters confronted him over his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — an exchange that played out with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seated beside him in the Oval Office.
Palestinian attackers killed an Israeli man and wounded three others in a combined ramming-and-stabbing assault in Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank) on Tuesday, shortly after the United Nations Security Council endorsed U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s peace initiative for Gaza, Israeli officials said.