by Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld
Chants like “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” have entered the public domain.
Starting eleven of Dutch soccer team Ajax against Olympique Lyon on September 14th, 2011,
photo via Wikimedia Commons
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,094, February 22, 2019
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Antisemitism pervades
soccer in the Netherlands. Chants like “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas”
have entered the public domain. The Supreme Court has forbidden this
chant, but it can still be heard at matches. A song about burning Jews
was publicly sung in January 2019 by soccer fans in the streets of
Leeuwarden, a Dutch provincial capital. Though Jews
represent only 0.2% of the Dutch population, in 2017, out of all
complaints about punishable discrimination which reached prosecution,
41% concerned antisemitism, and most of those were soccer antisemitism.
“My father served with the commandos, my mother
was with the SS. Together they burned Jews, because Jews burn best.”
This is the text of one of the classic antisemitic songs chanted on
Dutch soccer fields.
Antisemitism in the soccer world is not limited to
the Netherlands. The problem is so persistent at the leading London
Chelsea football club – which has a Jewish owner – that the club has
announced a campaign against antisemitism. What is happening in the
Netherlands is, however, far worse. It is long-lasting, has spread
widely among soccer fans, and has entered the public domain.
More than thirty years ago, a group of fanatical
non-Jewish supporters of a major Amsterdam soccer club, Ajax, started to
call themselves “Jews.” As a reaction, fans of competing clubs began to
use antisemitic slogans against them. Ajax has no specific relationship
with the Jewish community and is not owned by Jews. (Decades ago, Ajax
had two international players who each had a Jewish father. It has also
had a chairman or two who were Jewish, but this does not add up to much
of a Jewish character or image.)
In its 1999-2000 Annual Report, Tel Aviv
University’s Stephen Roth Institute of Anti-Semitism and Racism
reported: “Anti-Semitic slurs have long become the norm at football
matches in the Netherlands. Hissing, slogans and chants such as ‘Hamas,
Hamas, Jews to the Gas’ are often heard during games.”
At the end of January, Ajax played in Rotterdam
against local nemesis Feyenoord. When the bus with the Ajax players
arrived at the Rotterdam stadium, five Feyenoord supporters shouted
antisemitic slogans. In a rather rare occurrence, the police identified
them, and they were each fined 500 euros ($600).
These antisemitic outbursts among soccer fans also
occur elsewhere. On the same day, in the center of Leeuwarden, a
provincial capital, fans of two other Dutch football clubs publicly
chanted the song about burning Jews. One supporter posted the event on
social media and received positive reactions from his followers. There
was not a single negative reaction to this Facebook post. It has since
been removed.
This pervasive soccer antisemitism is the result
of tolerance for expressions of extreme hate, including antisemitism, in
Dutch society. It manifests itself in many ways. As far back as 2004,
the director of the CIDI organization, which fights antisemitism, said
it was futile to lodge complaints with the authorities. He said he had
appealed to the court concerning extreme expressions of antisemitism,
and the prosecution did not want to deal with them.
Worse still, also in 2004, the mayor of
Heerenveen, a town with a major football club, took the position that
the commission dealing with soccer vandalism should not take serious
action against hate songs. He said it would be a reward to the hooligans
if a game were stopped because of 100-200 fans – a substantially lower
number of hooligans than there were in reality.
On International Holocaust Memorial Day, January
27, 2008, a text message appeared on the video screen at the Vitesse
stadium during a game against Ajax. It read, “Hoezee, hoezee, Long live
Zyklon B,” referring to the gas used in extermination camps during the
Holocaust. A Vitesse spokesperson later expressed the club’s regret,
explaining that fans can send SMS texts to be displayed on the video
screen. She said that before they are posted, they are checked, but that
that particular one slipped through.
In 2011, the late Uri Coronel, the then chairman
of Ajax, who was Jewish, tried to convince the fans of his club to stop
using the nickname “Jews.” His efforts had no result. Coronel said he
once entered the Feyenoord stadium between a double lineup of youngsters
who made the Heil Hitler salute.
Antisemitic hate chants, which are regularly heard
by tens of thousands of spectators in stadiums, have spread to other
targets besides Jews. A match in 2004 between two first league clubs,
ADO from The Hague and PSV Eindhoven, was refereed by René Temmink. Many
fans chanted, “Hamas, Hamas, Temmink to the gas,” which caused the
match to be suspended. A year earlier, at a game between the same two
clubs, the PSV fans shouted “Cancer Jew” at a referee.
The antisemitic hate chants have spread into the
public domain. In 2009, there was an anti-Israel demonstration in
Amsterdam in which two left-wing parliamentarians participated. There,
as in the stadiums, chants of “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas” were
heard. The parliamentarians later claimed they had not noticed them.
By 2011, the public mood was finally ready for a
zero-tolerance approach toward expressions of antisemitisim in stadiums.
Thus, much publicity was focused on hate chants at a celebration of ADO
supporters after its victory against Ajax. There, the fans, including
ADO players, chanted, “We go chasing Jews,” as well as the old favorite,
“Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas.” The latter chant had been prohibited
by the Supreme Court in 2009. The trainer of ADO and his assistant were
both present, and one of the players was heavily fined by ADO.
Then parliamentarian Richard de Mos of the Freedom
Party, who is still a member of the Municipal Council in The Hague,
condemned the antisemitic chants and submitted parliamentary questions
asking for measures against such slogans in professional soccer.
Thereafter, de Mos, an ADO fan himself, received death threats from
supporters of the club.
Soccer antisemitism has by now been fully
integrated into the wider “culture” of Dutch antisemitism. Even though
self-defining Jews represent only 0.2% of the Dutch population, in 2017,
out of all complaints about punishable discrimination that reached
prosecution, 41% concerned antisemitism. More than three-quarters of
these were related to soccer.
The head of the Dutch rabbinate, Chief Rabbi
Binyomin Jacobs, said more than ten years ago that when something
happens in Israel, “I am shouted at in the street, ‘Hamas, Hamas, Jews
to the gas.’”
Jacobs tells the story of once entering a train
together with a non-Jewish psychologist. “It was full of Feyenoord
supporters who sang ‘Jews to the gas,’” he recalled. He remarked that
the psychologist was very afraid. Jacobs said, “I showed indifference as
a sign of strength.” He added, “One could consider this incident as
hooliganism, but if one of these idiots had attacked us, probably many
of them would have done the same.”
The extreme Dutch antisemitism on display at
soccer matches shows how hate-mongering can freely develop in a country
where the elite falsely believes their nation is tolerant.
This is an edited version of an article that was published in Algemeiner on February 13, 2019.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/antisemitism-netherlands-soccer/
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