Muslims in Amsterdam reject government rhetoric after violence

Arranging fruit crates in a market on the western edge of Amsterdam on Thursday, Mohamed Errakil said the Dutch government’s rhetoric a week after the city was shaken by violence instigated by Israeli football hooligans could encourage discrimination.

“We’re called foreigners, you’re a Moroccan, you’re a Turk. Discrimination is going to build up” said Errakil, a 51-year-old of Moroccan origin who says he “feels Dutch” and has spent most of his life running a fruit stall in Nieuw West, a neighbourhood with a sizable Muslim population.

In the Dutch parliament a day earlier, far-right MP Geert Wilders claimed that all the violence surrounding last week’s football match between Ajax Amsterdam and Maccabi Tel-Aviv was perpetrated by Muslims and “for the most part Moroccans”.

Anti-Islam Wilders, who is leader of the largest party in the government coalition, also called for those involved  to be prosecuted “for terrorism, lose their passports and be kicked out of the country”.

Errakil said that those involved in the violence “should be dealt with harshly”.

However, “every Muslim is seen as a foreigner, a terrorist, but they’re not”, he added.

Like other locals AFP spoke to at the market in the Plein ’40-’45 square, scene of isolated rioting on Monday night, Errakil urged the government and media to look at “both sides” of the issue.

Last week, Israeli football hooligans provoked violence in Amsterdam, chanting racist slogans, tearing down Palestinian flags, and attacking Moroccan taxi drivers.

Amsterdam’s mayor, however, alleged that a “poisonous cocktail of anti-Semitism and hooliganism” had provoked the violence. 

Ahead of the football match, Maccabi fans had chanted anti-Arab slogans around Amsterdam, vandalised a taxi and burnt a Palestinian flag in the city’s main square.

Five Israeli football fans were briefly hospitalised after “hit-and-run” attacks by men on scooters.

Dozens of people were arrested, including ten Israeli fans, with the police promising a massive probe.

‘No integration problem’

While opposition politicians have called for unity and criticised Wilders for “adding fuel to the fire”, Prime Minister Dick Schoof also singled out the attackers as having an “immigration background”.

Characterising the violence as “Jews being hunted down”, Schoof said the Netherlands had an “integration problem”.

Steaming cup of tea clasped in hand, clothes vendor Abdeslam said there was “absolutely no hatred of Jews”. Instead, he said he was “against Zionism” and “concerned about right-wing populism”.

Abdeslam only gave his first name and did not want his face to be filmed, fearing far-right reprisal.

“I find that regrettable that people are still talking about integration”, added the 42-year-old, whose stand also sells keffiyehs, the scarves that have come to symbolise support for the Palestinian cause.

“Look, if we were in the 1980s or 1990s, I could understand, but now you’re talking about youth of third, fourth, maybe fifth generation.

“So, there is absolutely no integration problem there.”

Anxiety amid discrimination

Earlier this week, Schoof met Jewish community leaders and is set to announce a raft of measures on Friday to tackle “antisemitism”, including harsher sentences for the perpetrators.

Known for being a tolerant and multicultural city, Amsterdam has struggled with the polarisation seen across Europe since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza last year.

Tensions remain high following the violence with a ramped-up police presence after hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested after demonstrating last week.

Rita Silva, 24, an art school student in Amsterdam who lives in the neighbourhood, came to buy a keffiyeh from Abdeslam’s stall.

Having taken part in pro-Palestinian protests since the war on Gaza began, Silva said the “police violence has just been rising” against protesters, who also denounced the treatment of Muslims by the Maccabi fans and politicians.

Leaning against the wooden beams of his clothes stall, Pete, 66, who used a pseudonym and has been working at the market for fifteen years, said people from the local Muslim community were “very, very anxious now”.

“They are sad, they are disappointed. The government doesn’t see them like real Dutch people, but like they are a second-class people.”