POGROM IN AMSTERDAM - with Ayaan Hirsi Ali & Omer Bigger
Last night in Amsterdam, dozens of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans suffered a pogrom in the streets of Amsterdam, following the soccer team’s match against Ajax. According to most accounts, this ambush was planned and coordinated in advance.
And according to Israeli authorities, 10 Israelis were injured throughout the night, as mobs of antisemitic rioters ambushed, chased, and attacked the Israeli soccer fans. Dozens have been arrested, and the Israeli government dispatched planes to Amsterdam to return the Israeli fans safely to Israel. The Amsterdam police was observed to be largely ineffective in attempting to protect the Israeli fans from the assailants.
To unpack these disturbing events, and discuss the climate of antisemitism that has erupted in the Netherlands and across Europe, we are joined by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Omer Bigger.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American activist, author, and a former Dutch member of Parliament. She is known for her outspoken criticism of Islam.
Ayaan has just launched a media platform called Courage.Media, which aims to amplify the voices of those who are showing great courage by standing up to the anti-western, anti-liberal, anti-democratic movements that are taking root in our media, our politics, our schools, and our communities.
Omer Bigger is an Israeli tech worker living in Amsterdam.
Ayaan’s piece on the pogrom in Amsterdam: https://courage.media/2024/11/08/the-pogrom-in-amsterdam/
To buy Ayaan’s books: https://tinyurl.com/pd34a9s8
Also discussed in this episode: “Pogrom 2024” John Podhoretz: https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/pogrom-2024/
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
AHA: In France, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Sweden, you have the existing Muslim communities setting up a parallel society where they don't feel a part of Dutch society, and the demographics of these places have changed. It's a people with a political ideology that wants to eliminate the state of Israel, eliminate Jews and Islamify the territories that they have come to through settlement, through the democratic process, and when the time is right, eventually through force. And what you saw last night in Amsterdam is a manifestation of that confidence in numbers.
DS: It is 10:15 AM on Friday, November 8th here in New York City. It is 5:15 PM on Friday, November 8th in Israel, as Israelis wind down their day and get ready for Shabbat. It is 4:15 PM in Amsterdam. November 9th, 1938, 89 years ago, was Kristallnacht in Germany, Night of the Broken Glass, when over 1,200 synagogues and thousands of Jewish businesses were vandalized, desecrated. Last night in Amsterdam, the scene echoed this past, when dozens of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans, Maccabi Tel Aviv is, is an Israeli Soccer or football club. Dozens of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were subjected to a pogrom, an actual pogrom. I'm not just speaking here metaphorically. After the team's match against the local Ajax, the local Amsterdam team. By most accounts, this ambush was planned and coordinated in advance. Netherlands authorities report that five Israelis were hospitalized and released. The police said dozens had been arrested. The Israeli government dispatched aircraft to Amsterdam to return the fans safely to Israel. While the fans are making their way to the airports, on their way to flights to Israel, many of them describe an unimaginable reality, some of whom we've spoken to, and I'm sure our listeners have read their accounts. One fan describes an ineffective local police. I'm quoting here, “the game was over and we started to leave the stadium. Already at this stage, we felt unsafe. When we left the metro station, the subway station, we were picked up by a group of Muslims wearing keffiyehs, who started running towards us. We sprinted to the hotel for something like 400 meters. They threw stun grenades and firecrackers at us. And tried to catch as many as possible. We ran as fast as we could to hide, but they were everywhere.” Close quote. I will also add, in comparing this to Kristallnacht, as John Podhoretz pointed out in an important piece in Commentary Magazine, which we'll link to in the show notes, we all have seen images of Kristallnacht. Those black and white photos of the destruction and the violence. But we don't have video images of Kristallnacht, seeing how it actually played out, how it was organized. And the pogrom that occurred last night in Amsterdam was recorded on video on the pro pogrom activists, filming it on their phones, GoPro cameras back again, reminiscent of October 7th, capturing everything on video. So now we can actually see all of this. And while the mainstream media, at least here in the United States, gave very little coverage to what occurred, uh, last night. Due to social media platforms, we can actually view all of what is happening, and it is chilling. With me today is Omer Bigger, an Israeli high tech worker who's living in Amsterdam. And Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali born Dutch American activist and writer known for her outspoken criticism of Islamic extremism. Ayaan has just launched a media platform called Courage.media, which aims to amplify the voices of those who are showing great courage by standing up to the anti western, anti liberal, anti democratic movements that are taking root in media, politics, schools, and communities. Omer, I want to make clear, and starting with you, that you are not a reporter, so please don't feel pressure to be, you know, call me back’s Amsterdam correspondent. Could you just describe from your perspective, an Israeli living in Amsterdam, could you describe how the evening unfolded from your perspective, how you saw it all playing out?
OB: I had tickets to the game given to me for the Ajax by calling, and usually in Amsterdam you use public transportation to get around. Now, Hebrew is not something that's uncommon to hear on the streets. And yesterday, when you just hop on the metro, you hear the Hebrew, but from locals that are warning you to just lay low. Even you go to the stadium, they tell you take this route or that route from people that are living just near the stadium to avoid potential hazards along the way. That was already a little bit weird, but I'm local here and I've been around. I don't feel danger at any point in time. When we reached the stadium, there was police presence next to the stadium. Next to the stadium, there was actually a lot of police presence. And I think that's the only event that night that they were ready for. When I went to the stadium, they didn't let me in. I didn't really realize why. I think they sense that I'm a foreigner and they claim that the stands I went for are only for Ajax fans. But I've been there with locals and they've said that they've never seen anything like that. I didn't have a chance to protest or anything like that. Told them, if you don't like my shirt, I'll throw it in the garbage. Like, I'll do whatever you say. This is an experience for me. They just brought these four security folks and escorted me out and actually pushed me out the door and locked it behind me. Told my friends that I'm not going to fight against it. Of course, I don't want to be with any record or anything like that. So I just left and went home. But when I went home, you sense that the level of security drops. Like there was no one outside the studio anymore. On my way back to the metro, you start to see Some activity around this here Arabic with high energy. I didn't see any intent at that point in time I hopped on the Metro and then I started to see other Israelis that were not allowed in. All sorts of weird reasons.The most odd reason that I've heard is people who already got to the stands and sat in their seats. The usher heard Hebrew and escorted them, uh, those people out. I got home. I was frustrated. And after the game, I started to receive messages. My phone did not stop beeping. Everyone I know, and I know a lot of foreigners in this country, not Israelis, everyone are concerned.
DS: And, Omer, can you just describe briefly the, the WhatsApp messages you were receiving as all this was playing out and the videos that were being sent to you?
OB: Unfortunately, I didn't have to be graphic, but what you see is dozens of people chasing the few. And you'd see there's one horrific one that someone is unconscious on the floor and there are like eight people around them kicking them hitting them Screaming at them. They're unconscious already. You see that person that's thrown into the canal freezing canal and they're not allowing them out of that canal and there were dozens of these videos. More and more violence. What bothered me the most is that my go to page is local news and not Israel news because I live here. And the descriptions that you see online are outraging. It would be mutual violence and these kind of things. When in reality, it was just a terror attack.
DS: What is your understanding of how the Dutch authorities prepared for, for this event?
OB: The second that you leave the stadium, there's nothing. Full stop. They were just unprepared. But I think that alarms me even more than that, than once informed. Nothing has happened. The quotes that I've heard from people I know are, some officers mocked at us, just laughed, haha, yes, everything is okay. Others described it as they were afraid from the mob, so to just hid across the corner or anything like that. And the most extreme one that I've heard of is a police officer that was so afraid from what they've seen, that they've joined, just to not get hit by the mob themselves.
DS: Ayaan, you've had a lot of experience with the security authorities in the Netherlands. What do you make of this? Because my impression from you is that you're not actually terribly surprised about what Omer's describing.
AHA: No, I'm not surprised. And just like Omer, I woke up this morning to the bad news and I was following it around, but I've heard from some Israeli friends. That the Israeli government told the Dutch government that there are plots to cause chaos and attacks that are planned. But the story is what was done with that information. So that's one. And two, the attacks themselves, which I think Omer, you've described that we're going to get more of it, but it's also how the media covers those stories. And then it is the lead up, the decades in Holland that led up to this situation. When I was in Holland, I was under police protection from October of 2002 until 2007, when the Dutch government decided that it wants to pay for my protection. And the leading philosophy of protection, of security was, we don't wait for an event to occur. We don't wait for attacks to occur. It's all based on the philosophy of prevention. And when it's events like a football match, several agencies would sit together and plan exactly what they would do to prevent any kind of chaos, sometimes chaos or carpet. They do sit together and plan. So if you get a warning from the Israeli government the night before you are alerted to an impending attack, uh, one year after the October 7th attacks in 2023, If you're used to this sort of thing, the Dutch government had a number of options.They could have called the Israelis and said, sorry, we can't let this event take place, or we will have the football match take place, but we won't have fans. That was one option. The other option was to guarantee their security. And the third option was to ask the Israeli government, we can't do it because we don't trust our own security forces, can you come and help us? As you can see, all of those options are diplomatically embarrassing, so they didn't do it and they took the dive. And this brings me to the second point, which is why is it then that the chaos occurred? And that is because within the security, um, agencies, sadly, um, individuals have found their way, um, that work there that, uh, uh, ideologically driven. They're more loyal. to their ideology than they are to the institution that they serve. And in this case, they are anti Semitic, they're anti Zionist. There were individuals within the system that said, sorry, we can't, we're not going to protect that because it's not consistent with our beliefs. It's against our conscience. The Dutch constitution allows for that.
DS: Omer, I know you have to drop before you go. I want to ask you a big question and you can take it wherever you want. How would you describe your experience of living in Amsterdam as an Israeli Jew before October 7th with what it has been like since October 7th.
OB: Dan, before I answer you, I want to make a small statement to reply to something that Ayaan said. And I think that the source of the problem is opening doors to refugees that have no intention to blend in society. And I actually have a quiet plan to just remain silent until they hit critical mass when they can make some sort of a coup and apply whatever their original plan was. And folks, it's not only Amsterdam. It happened yesterday in Amsterdam, because that was an opportunity. But these hidden cells are everywhere. And a lot of places in Europe are already lost. They just don't know it yet. And the first in the chain for those people are Jews and Israelis. But they wouldn't stop there. All the rest would have been next. And now I'll answer your question. I live a peaceful life. I work most of the day. The other hours I rest and do my hobbies, but mostly at home. So I avoid these large scenes that can be dangerous. But what I can say is since October 7th, the atmosphere has changed. I own a dog. When I go out with the dog, I used to lock my house from the outside, and hide the key to not walk around with it. So if I have anyone at the house, if I get jumped and killed or whatever, they can find my key and trace it back to the home and get in unprepared. That's how I lived for a while. Now, when I open the curtains in the morning, I see Palestinian flags outside and I see Palestinian flags on houses that before October 7th, their kids used to knock on my door and ask to play with my dog. They don't knock on my door anymore, but I would not engage in a conversation with them because I don't want to trigger their memory to let them know that I'm here. Knowing the intelligence work that they do similarly to what led them to be quote unquote successful yesterday. I'm afraid they're just chasing me back to my house or know where I'm at, and that is around me all the time. And the simplest example I can give you is that I would never, ever put an Israeli flag up, because this is a mark.
DS: Would you put, would you put a mezuzah on your door?
OB: Internal doors only.
DS: What is your thinking, if you can share, and I know you're processing all this very quickly, in terms of your future residence in Amsterdam?
OB: After the 7th, I didn't think about going back. I'm not one that thinks you should take life changing decisions in the heat of the moment, but also it feels like every day could be too late If you don't take it in the heat of the moment. So what I guess I'll do is I'll probably lay low stay at home let a few days pass and see how things calm down again. But I used to think that I'll stay here for a few years. I can't say that that's my feeling today. I don't think they'll get up tomorrow and leave, but that's an option. Because it's dangerous, not because my life here is not great. But there's an important statement to make, because if we all feel that way, it means that the only place for Jews and Israelis, is Israel. So we're barricaded from anywhere. That's a very frightening thought to have, especially when Israel is under attack from all fronts. So even the one place that's supposed to be safe is unsafe. What does that mean? That means that the world is trying to make it as unsafe as it was in ‘39.
DS: All right, Omer. We'll let you go. I know you um, you have to drop off. Thank you, uh for staying with us and um Ayaan, I just want to pick up on how Holland has changed.
AHA: Yes, Holland has changed. So this is 2024. And what Omer is describing and he's saying, when you asked him the question, has it changed since October 7, I wanted to jump in and say it had changed long before that. And the first changes we noticed, I'll speak for myself, I noticed was right after 9/11 2001. As the Twin Towers were coming down, we saw a number of young Arab Muslims, from Morocco originally, born in the Netherlands, raised in the Netherlands, who went to school in the Netherlands, who came out shouting and celebrating what had happened on 9/11 2001. And this didn't happen in Holland alone, it had happened in other parts of Europe, and that triggered a conversation, um, that I'd say probably it's the one that catapulted me into which is how is it possible that we have Our own citizens who were born here and who many of them are on, on welfare. Many of them came as guest workers and then, uh, and then they were born there. How is it possible that they could be so disloyal to our principles? And how could they celebrate such a thing? And one point of view was we've got to give these things time and they have to go through this process of integration on their own terms. The other one was more. I would call it tough love, which was, no, it's not going to be long term. The sooner we do it, the better. We have to give these people a choice and say, either leave the country, go back to the countries of origin or the origin of your parents. But if you stay here, if you want to stay here, you have to adopt our values. That point of view was dismissed as racist, as ethnocentric, as Eurocentric. And that is, for instance, the view that Geert Wilders holds. It's the view that I held when I was there in parliament. I still believe that that is the right view, but we lost, I lost that debate and the center left and center right establishment embarked on what they called integrating these minorities on their own terms. And on their own terms meant as long as they didn't engage in violent activities, which is the actual jihad, terrorist activities, that would be dealt with with the police and law enforcement. But as long as they were not violent, we would allow them to have their own schools, their own mosques, their own websites, even television satellites. And That is the background to what you're seeing now, because you have the existing Muslim communities setting up a parallel society where they don't feel a part of that society. And in the meantime, you also have open borders. You have people coming in large numbers from Muslim majority countries. So the demographics of these places have changed. The demographics of Amsterdam was a cause for concern back in 2003 and 2004. That's 20 years ago. 20 years ago, there were alarming conversations about the fact that 40% of children attending school in Amsterdam were either foreign born or they were the children of foreign born, which in Holland is a euphemism for Muslims. And that hasn't changed since I left, only more immigrants and they have a higher birth rate, and they're not assimilated. And now I think we're nearly at 2 or 3 million. The Jews are 30,000, but the Muslims would be, by 2050, 9% of the population.
DS: Right.
AHA: Of, at the moment, I think the Dutch population is 18 million. It's been a huge problem in Holland and I think the authorities bear full responsibility for the lax side, for, for being lax in integrating them, for being too naive, for being too accommodating and too accommodating in particular of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Muslim Brotherhood has got chapters in Holland and they are the ones who are pushing this participation in, in, uh, they call it Islamization through participation. And this is, uh, instead of blowing things up, why don't you take part in the democratic process until the numbers flip? And then when we are the majority, we don't really need to fight or wage wars. It's a form of subversion and, and, and that is how, uh, according to Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, which was one of the big mentors of the Muslim Brotherhood who lived in Qatar, but who was, a megastar in Holland and in other European, um, places, a megastar for the Muslim communities. His advice was through the birth rate, through immigration and, uh, through the establishment of a parallel society, we will take Europe and it's only going to be a few decades, so let's, let's stick to it. And what you saw last night in Amsterdam is a manifestation of that confidence in numbers.
DS: Ayaan, you write in your piece on courage at courage.media, which I said we'll link to you. You wrote yesterday,I'm quoting you here “yesterday night's pogrom was thus the opposite of a black swan. Such an event was foreseeable long ago. 20 years ago I watched as the Dutch authorities caved in to almost every Islamist demand. Muslim students Disrupted or walked out of classes on the history of the Holocaust. So the classes were eliminated from the curriculum Jews and gays were attacked and beaten in the streets of Amsterdam, so, after a series of platitudes about quote, unacceptable behavior, the victims were told not to appear so gay or Jewish in the future.”
AHA: That's right. And that was 20 years ago. And it has only, it's only been more accommodating. And in the meantime, they are being hired into the system, into the security, into the police, into other professionals. So if you are Jewish, and I have a couple of Jewish friends from Amsterdam who left, they left to live in Israel or they left to live, uh, in, in the United States. Those individuals who left are the ones who, children of Holocaust survivors who said, we know what's coming. And the fact that, you know what Omer was describing, they can't show their Jewishness wearing a Jewish star, the Kippah, the mezuzah, you know, anything that makes you look. Jewish, you had to, you know, prudently put away if you wanted to live in your homeland. And the authorities took, and it's not just the political authorities, it's also academia, it's the media. There was this sense of resigning to it. This is, they all felt a problem that would just go away. It didn't go away. The good people left. And so there is this displacement, uh, from the cities of Jewish people, of gays, of women. I'm not saying that women don't live in Amsterdam. Women in Amsterdam know where they can and can't go.
DS: Ayaan, if you were to extrapolate this out, now across Europe, can you talk a little bit about what we're not paying attention and should be in other countries across Europe, the UK, where we're seeing versions of this? I've seen versions of this in Canada. I haven't seen versions of what we saw last night. But what I saw last night and what you're describing about what led to last night, it does feel like a lot of the conditions are in place for versions of what happened last night to occur elsewhere.
AHA: And especially in Europe. So in France, in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Belgium, in Sweden, all of these countries that took in large numbers of Muslim immigrants, I see the establishment of these radical Islamist organizations, mainly led by the Muslim Brotherhood, but not exclusively. I see an enormous amount of distress amongst the Jewish minorities because for ages, Jewish, local Jewish minorities in Europe voted for center left parties. These center left parties have completely abandoned them because their vote doesn't matter. as their numbers are so small. And they get the votes of the Muslims through the organized Islamists. And the organized Islamists make demands, policy demands, that are hostile to especially Jewish minorities, but also others. So I see what was a slow Islamization of Europe now becoming much faster. European, um, populations are aging. They're getting older and older, and they're not having as many babies as the Muslims. The number of immigrants is increasing, and their birth rate is high. So those predictions from the year 2000, that's at the end of the century, the, there'll be, the European populations will flip. They are being reviewed now. They are being revised and we are being told, for instance, in Britain in the year 2040, 40% or up to even 50% of the population of Britain will be either foreign born or, the children were foreign born. And most of those children will be Muslim. And so Europe really has to get its act together. It has to close its borders. It has to shut down the infrastructure established by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood and others. They have to quickly start deporting, uh, radical Imams and others who want to establish Sharia, and they really have to impose their will on the Muslims, meaning the adoption of their values. If that doesn't happen, you're going to see the Hamasification of European cities because that's exactly what we're looking at. Don't listen to the people saying this is pro Palestinian or this is a pro Palestinian flag. It's not true. It's not. This is Hamas. This is pro Hamas. This is Hamas activism. Hamas is a branch. It's a military branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. And so what you're seeing is not people collecting money and charity for the children of Gaza so that their lives can improve. No. These are, it's a people with a political ideology that wants to eliminate the state of Israel. Eliminate Jews and Islamify the territories that they have come to through settlement, through the democratic process, and when the time is right, eventually through force.
DS: Ayaan, when you think about how governments across Europe may or may not respond to this, assuming governments do what you think they should do, or what you're laying out here in response to what's happening, how realistic is it, I guess, to do the things that you're saying? Absolutely. I could understand curbing immigration, reducing the, the inflows that you're describing here, but what do you do about these places, I mean, deporting some of the radical Imams? Okay. But, but it sounds to me like it's much broader than that. And it's much deeper than that.
AHA: It's much broader and much deeper. And I have looked at countries that have grappled with similar problems. I've looked at Switzerland. I've looked at Denmark. I've looked at Singapore. Even though that Singapore has a completely different political system where they can do things faster and, um, it, it, it's, it's not an open society to say the way Switzerland is an open society. But there has to be a political choice made. What kind of society do we want to be going forward? And if we make the choice that we want to remain open liberal societies, then we have to take full control of the education system, for instance. So, allowing Islamists to operate schools and completely brainwash children who are growing up in Europe, allowing for mosques and madrasas to be established with the same ideological subversive, uh, cultish ideas, I think that that is just asking for, it's suicidal. And so, you would have to have, and this has to be Europe wide, you would have to have a consensus that this is Europe, and Europe will take full control of schools, of the media, of the schools, of universities, the institutions that shape the minds, the hearts, and the loyalty to the nation state. Those institutions should be run by the country itself and according to the values of the country in question. If you go to Saudi Arabia, you can't just start building an infrastructure to de-Saudify Saudi Arabia. They won't let you do that. Neither will the Emirates let you, no country will let you do that. So, why do European countries in the name of freedom and in the name of openness and tolerance embark on this suicidal path? And it's not fair to them. It's not fair to the citizens. It's not fair to anyone. It's actually really plain stupid.
DS: All right, Ayaan. We will leave it there. I, um. I appreciate your getting back to me so quickly, as this is all erupting, it was, you were the person I wanted to talk to, so I am, um, grateful for your making the time, and I'm sure we'll be calling on you in the future as, uh, cause, uh, sadly, this story is not going away. Um, as you point out, it, it's actually going to, uh, become, I think, much more vivid in many places than we realize. And, um, you were a prophet on this. You, you foresaw this, you understand how it all erupted. So thank you.
AHA: Thank you, Dan. Thank you for having me.
DS: Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Research by Gabe Silverstein. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.