Article by Jonathan Cook

There has never been a harder time to do political and media analysis than right now. Each day, the western establishment unmoors itself further from reality. Its priorities are so inverted, so obscene, that the most appropriate response is ridicule.

The latest example was the reaction to violent clashes in Amsterdam before and after a match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local team Ajax.

The ridiculous framing from western politicians, assisted by mainstream media outlets, was that the visiting Israelis were “hunted down” in what supposedly amounted to a “pogrom” by Dutch street gangs, comprising mainly youths of Arab and Muslim heritage.

According to this official narrative, the violence on Amsterdam’s streets was further proof of a rising tide of antisemitism sweeping Europe and imported from the Middle East. More, the attacks were presented as having disturbing echoes of Europe’s Nazi past.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden claimed the Israeli fans faced “despicable” attacks that “echo dark moments in history when Jews were persecuted”.

Israel, of course, helpfully stoked this idea by promising “emergency flights” to “rescue” its football fans – seeking to evoke memories of its airlifts in the 1980s of Ethiopian Jews to escape famine and reports of persecution, or possibly of the 1975 airlift of US embassy staff from Saigon.

Islamophobic Bile

The western media’s coverage of these events was as strangely deferential to these genocide-inciting thugs as the Dutch police’s handling of their violence.

Had visiting British fans behaved this way in Amsterdam, the police would have made mass arrests immediately.

Similarly, had British hooligans found themselves on the receiving end of violence in such circumstances, the British media would have shown little sympathy.

The clashes would rightly have been understood as ugly tribalism, a not-unfamiliar sight at football matches.

The difference here was that the clashes unleashed by the Israeli fans’ provocations had a much larger context than simple antipathy between rival teams. It was fueled by tensions surrounding horrifying events taking place on the international stage.

There is nothing shocking or especially sinister about Dutch fans, especially those with Arab or Muslim heritage, responding with their own violence to Israeli youths – some of them presumably fresh from military service in Gaza – trying to export their own genocidal anti-Arab and anti-Muslim incitement to Amsterdam.

All the more so when the Israeli fans were amplifying the bigoted, Islamophobic bile of leading Dutch politicians.

It should have been even less surprising given the wider context: that Maccabi Tel Aviv fans were celebrating in someone else’s city the Israeli military’s genocide in Gaza, among Dutch citizens who don’t view Arab life as worthless or Muslims as “human animals”.

Sadly, that is exactly how the western establishment has viewed Palestinians over the past 13 months, as Israel has slaughtered them in the ever-shrinking concentration camp that is Gaza.

Paradoxically, it was left to an Israeli politician, Ofer Cassif, who belongs to the tiny Hadash party, the only joint Jewish-Arab party in the Israeli parliament, to bring some perspective.

He wrote on X: “[Israeli] fans go on a violent rampage, carry out beatings, tear up Palestinian flags in the streets as if they were an occupying force, and shout Nazi slogans in favor of the extermination of a nation [Palestinians], and then whine when the situation degenerates into complete chaos and violence returns to them like a boomerang.”

Continue reading on: The Middle East Eye

Former United States President Bill Clinton is facing backlash from US Muslim and Arab Americans after saying Israel has been “forced” to kill civilians in Gaza and suggesting the country was in the Holy Land “first” – before the Palestinians.

Speaking at a rally for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Michigan, a crucial swing US state with large Arab and Muslim populations who the Democrats are trying to win over, Clinton said he understood people’s concerns about the bloodshed in Gaza, but said Israel had no choice but to inflict large civilian losses, even as it is accused of genocide in the International Court of Justice.

“Hamas makes sure that they’re shielded. They’ll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself,” Clinton said.

“I’m going to do everything I can to convince people they cannot murder their way out of this, either side,” he later added.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza broke out, Israeli forces have killed more than 43,000 people in the Palestinian enclave, the majority women and children. A United Nations-backed commission has accused Israel’s military of “crimes against humanity” during the war, including forced starvation and intentional attacks on civilians, as well as blaming Palestinian groups for war crimes.

Clinton also stirred controversy when he said Israelis were in the Holy Land “first”.

“I got news for [Hamas]—[Israelis] were there first, before their faith existed,” he said, avoiding reference to the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homes in 1948, during the war that established Israel.

Insulting and Islamophobic

Arab- and Muslim-American leaders slammed Clinton for antagonizing communities whose votes Democrats have been courting in the razor-tight November 5 US election.

Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of the US’s first Arab-majority city, Dearborn, said remarks by Clinton and other Democratic leaders were not helping the party’s case with his community.

“When you see the remarks of former President Bill Clinton, talking about how Israel is forced to kill civilians … it gets extremely frustrating,” Hammoud told Al Jazeera. “When you have surrogates like Liz Cheney campaigning across the state of Michigan, talking about how even Dick Cheney – the war criminal – is supporting Vice President Harris, is that supposed to be a welcoming message to this community?”

Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel program at the Arab Center Washington DC, wrote on social media: “Hard to think of a more counterproductive way to send this message.”

Robert S McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said in a statement. “Bill Clinton’s callous and dishonest attempt to justify the Israeli government’s attacks on civilians in Gaza was as insulting as it was Islamophobic.”

Despite traditionally voting Democratic, many Arab Americans are turning away from the party this year due to anger over President Joe Biden’s unwavering support for Israel amid wars in Gaza and Lebanon, a position Harris has maintained.

A recent survey suggests more Arab Americans support Republican candidate Donald Trump than Harris, a trend that could prove important in Michigan.

The Democrats have been accused of being tone-deaf in their comments on Israel and the Palestinians, and focusing their messaging towards pro-Palestinian progressives on warning of the dangers of Trump, rather than action to stop Israel from continuing its wars in the Middle East.

Palestinian American comedian Amer Zahr, who is running for school board in Dearborn, said it is “baffling” how out of touch the Harris campaign is with the Arab community.

“It’s hard to imagine anything more insulting than what Bill Clinton said about us. He invoked the oldest Zionist tropes in some bizarre effort to convince us to vote for Kamala Harris,” Zahr told Al Jazeera.

Source: Al Jazeera