A Historic Night in Amsterdam
On November 7, 2024 a coordinated, premeditated Jew hunt ran through the streets of Amsterdam. Like Hamas did on October 7, 2023, the perpetrators proudly, gleefully livestreamed their rampage for the whole world to see.
Immediately, Jews around the world were reminded of the pogroms suffered by Jewish communities in Europe at the turn of the century. Angry mobs going door to door, smashing windows and breaking down doors in search of Jews to lynch. At that time, Jews were supposedly the singular cause of economic hardship. We were not European enough (or at all) and repeatedly, forcefully told to go back to where we came from.
Fast forward over 100 years, and we have succeeded in doing just that. Nearly half the global Jewish population lives in Israel - our ancient, historic homeland. The problem is, we are still hearing that same call: “Go back to where you came from.” Only this time, that place is Europe. The place where just under a century ago we were hunted down and slaughtered en masse specifically because we were seen as foreign.
So what is our crime this time around? 75 years ago, we are told, European Jews colonized Palestine. Never mind that more than half of Israel’s Jews are Mizrahi, meaning they escaped persecution from Arab and North African countries, not European ones. Never mind that ALL Jews - Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, and Sephardi - were native to Israel long before we were exiled by the Romans to Africa, Europe, and other parts of Asia. Never mind that Arabs who only recently identified as Palestinian came to the levant 500 years after the aforementioned exile. Never mind that Muslim holy sites were built literally on top of the ruins of Jewish ones.
Reality is shaped by when you start the clock, and anti-Israel propaganda teaches that the clock started in 1948.
For the past 13 months, in response to a genocidal attack on Israeli civilians (which was apparently completely justified by events that occurred 75 years earlier), we have been hearing calls to “Globalize the Intifada.” The most vocal supporters in the West insist that they are simply garnering global support for Palestinian self-determination and freedom from Jewish colonialism, oblivious or indifferent to regional history as well as the trauma the first and second Intifada inflicted on Israeli society.
What these Hamas apologists insist merely means “shaking off,” Israelis and Jews worldwide recognize as a period of intense, indiscriminate violence. The first and second Intifada were contained within the borders of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. The first was characterized by stoning and molotov cocktails; the second by suicide bombings in public places such as busses, malls, and pizza shops. Instead of achieving the stated goal of Palestinian self-determination, these uprisings were met with even more intense Israeli military presence and decreased freedom of movement for Palestinians.
The third intifada is actively unfolding on a global scale, characterized by random violence from random people against any Jewish person that happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anti-Jewish hate crimes are up 63% in the USA from this time last year, when Jews were already the most disproportionately targeted minority group. There aren’t firm statistics from outside of America’s borders, but you can bet that we are not an outlier.
To ask the obvious question, how is all this random violence against Jewish people with no direct connection to the ongoing war in Gaza supposed to free Palestine? The short answer is: it won’t.
It will only prove to Jews around the world that Israel MUST exist. That a Jewish nation is essential to the safety of Jews everywhere.
On Thursday night as the pogrom was unfolding, as Dutch police refused to intervene, Israel immediately responded by sending 8 rescue planes to Amsterdam. Even though many people’s passports and other legal documents were stolen or destroyed in the chaos, in real time Israel came to rescue Jewish people in distress on another continent and bring them all safely back home. 100 years ago, this was an unimaginable outcome. Today, it is reality. It is the actualization of our ancestor’s wildest dreams. It is just one of many reasons to be proud to be Jewish.
Am Yisrael Chai!