Never again is right now
On October 7, 2023, Hamas attacked Israel. They tortured and murdered hundreds of people, took hostages and continued their torture from what we can tell, and sparked off a fight they never should have started.
Israel has systematically kicked their cans up and down the street and is also taking on all comers as they’ve fended off Hezbollah and Iran in the process.
But the truth is that the battle isn’t confined to Israel, the Levant, or the Middle East.
It’s everywhere, and last night, it was in Amsterdam.
Israel was sending commercial planes to the Netherlands on Friday to bring home Israeli soccer fans after overnight attacks in Amsterdam that officials described as antisemitic, although there was evidence of provocative chanting from Israeli fans.
Videos on social media showed riot police intervening in clashes, with some attackers shouting anti-Israeli slurs. But some footage also showed Israeli supporters chanting anti-Arab slogans before Thursday evening's match.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters were "attacked, abused and pelted with fireworks" and that riot police intervened to protect them and escort them to hotels. At least five people were treated in hospital, she said.
Security measures were increased in the city, where hundreds gathered on Thursday to remember Kristallnacht, the Nazi pogrom against Jews across Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938.
…
One video verified by Reuters showed a group of men running near Amsterdam central station, chasing and assaulting other men, as police sirens sounded.
However, another verified video showed Maccabi fans setting off flares and chanting "Ole, ole, let the IDF win, we will fuck the Arabs”, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said he was "horrified by the anti-Semitic attacks on Israeli citizens", which he called "completely unacceptable".
Schoof said he had assured Netanyahu by phone that "the perpetrators will be identified and prosecuted".
That’s great, but it never should have happened in the first place.
I can’t help but feel that these mobs were emboldened by the refusal of Dutch police to protect Jewish sites or events due to “moral dilemmas.”
Look, I believe you can criticize Israel as a nation without being antisemitic, but it needs to be confined to the decisions made by the nation. You don’t blame the entire people for those decisions, nor do you attack or harass people who just happen to be Jewish because of what a government that isn’t their own did.
Yet antisemitism is a real thing. That’s what we saw in Amsterdam.
It’s what we saw on university campuses all across the nation and what we’re going to keep seeing until the West recognizes that tolerance isn’t a universal concept.
It’s all fine and good to want to accept people as people and let them live their lives as they see fit, but there has to be a line. The moment they start attacking others, this should have ended. I’ve seen a half dozen different videos of this stuff happening. It wasn’t just a one-time thing. Those five people in the hospital? There’s no indication they were all together and it was just one mob. This went on for hours.
And the police did nothing.
Here, a mob like this would probably have gotten shot. I’d be celebrating them getting shot, too, because screw them. I’d demand that the shooter not just avoid prosecution, but should get a freaking medal for it.
But the timing is probably the most insulting part of this.
This was an attempted pogrom—only failing to meet the definition because they didn’t manage to kill anyone, not because there was some moral line these turdnuggets refused to cross. It was incompetence, not morality that prevented murder so far—on the eve of the anniversary of a pogrom.
In the wake of World War II and learning of the atrocities being committed by the Nazis, the world said, “Never again.” Those two words were capitalized and solidified as a line that we would never allow to be crossed.
Well, Never Again is now.
October 7th was an awful, brutal, and unwarranted attack mostly on innocent civilians. Israel responded and much of the world seems dedicated to forcing them to just take the attack, to allow enemies who have called for genocide to be allowed to not just live but retain power. Allies of those enemies have targeted Jewish people throughout the world, driven by that same genocidal desire, and we’ve seen it, yet so many people are willing to let them all die.
Never Again is right here and now, and if Europe won’t deal with it, then congratulations. You’re just as bad as those who enabled the Nazis in the 1930s.
History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it sure as hell rhymes.
There’s a lot of rhyming going on right here and now.
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The worst part is the antisemitism isn't just coming from Islam and the left. I've lately run into a very large group of right wing racists and antisemites and with one mild comment about not judging others based on immutable characteristics, they got dozens of their buddies to call me names I wouldn't repeat in complete privacy, much less on social media. I find it very disturbing the party I've voted for in every election since 1988 harbors some of the same types of scum of which the Democrats are so proud. My only consolation is at least most conservatives are as disgusted by them as I am.