Good morning. Last week, when violence erupted around a Europa League fixture in Amsterdam between Ajax and Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv, a fairly ordinary football match became the locus for something much larger, and much darker.
The story was initially characterised as an unprovoked and antisemitic attack on Israeli fans just trying to enjoy a football match in Europe; even Joe Biden called it “despicable” and said it “echoed dark moments in history when Jews are persecuted”. And there is no doubt that an appalling strand of antisemitism ran through much of the violence that unfolded in Amsterdam, from fans ordered to show their passports to check if they were Israeli to beatings being handed out while the assailants shouted: “Jewish, Jewish, IDF, IDF.”
