This is what ‘Globalising the Intifada’ looks like

Last Thursday evening, a modern-day pogrom took place in Amsterdam. In shocking scenes, Israeli Jewish football fans were targeted in a series of violent attacks.

Footage from the evening showed people running for their lives, an unconscious body being kicked in the street and a man begging for mercy as attackers yelled “Free Palestine”.

Others were run over, and at least one man apparently had to jump into a canal to avoid further attack as assailants shouted “cancer Jew”, a classic Dutch insult applied here towards Jews, with antisemitic undertones to boot.

From the information now available, it is clear that these attacks were pre-planned, using private messaging platforms, with bands waiting at designated spots with knowledge of where the fans would be and where they were staying. The attackers were reportedly armed with knives, clubs and other weapons.

The police warned Jews not to use local taxis, as drivers were providing information to the attackers, many of whom are believed to be youth gangs from the Dutch Moroccan and Dutch Turkish communities.

Aghast at the failure of police in Amsterdam to assist the victims, Israel sent two rescue places and brought 2,000 people home.

These images mirror early 20th-century pogroms in Europe and the Middle East, where Jews were sought out by mobs and either ran or faced being beaten in the streets, or worse.

Amsterdam is a city known for Anne Frank. The house in which she hid before before taken and eventually murdered by the Nazis is now a museum and one of the city’s most popular tourist destinations.

But what good is all this memorialisation when right outside the same antisemitism thrives on Dutch streets?

The King of The Netherlands declared: “We failed the Jewish community of The Netherlands during World War II, and last night we failed again.” The Western European country with the highest proportion of Jews murdered in the Holocaust was The Netherlands.

The comparisons to historic antisemitism were particularly unavoidable given that the pogrom took place in the week of Kristallnacht, which we commemorated this weekend.

What happened in Amsterdam is what “globalising the intifada” looks like.

Indeed not only were there further Palestine protests in Amsterdam in the days after the pogrom in defiance of a court ruling, but there are also reports of violent incidents from Sweden to the United States, and all eyes will be on Paris this week, where the Israeli and French national football teams are playing amid a deployment of thousands of police officers.

We are witnessing levels of antisemitism not seen in our lifetime, and it is of the utmost importance that Britain acts against the antisemitic thugs here at home who have become increasingly emboldened.

Anti-Israel demonstrators have taken over our streets week after week, calling for “intifada”. How much longer will it be before scenes like these are replicated here?

For all those who chant for “intifada” week in and week out, what just happened in Amsterdam is what they are asking for. This is what happens when lax policing for over a year repeatedly succumbs to the mob. When are we going to wake up?

Why people have such little faith in the news media

The immediate media coverage of the pogrom in Britain and across the Western world was deplorable.

The level of victim-blamimg in this now-deleted report from Sky News, for example, cannot be put down merely to mistaken reporting in the heat of the moment.

Instead, they are seeing what they want to see. They are refusing to see what they do not wish to see.

This is the essence of media bias, where the story is known ahead of time, and information will be manipulated, distorted or fabricated to fit with it, facts be damned.

Last week there was a pogrom against Jews in the most liberal city in Europe. Sky News and so many other outlets did not cover it. They covered for it.

A clear message to LSE

Yesterday, we sent a clear message to Francesca Albanese and the London School of Economics.

Someone with Ms Albanese’s history of rhetoric, which includes reference to the “Jewish lobby”, support for a “right to resist” and repeated comparisons of Israel to Nazis, is not welcome at British universities.

Thank you to everyone who joined us in letting LSE know exactly what they think of Ms Albanese.

Jewish patient allegedly refused treatment in Palestine t-shirt controversy

A Jewish patient has allegedly been refused treatment following an incident with a student nurse at a hospital in East London.

The patient reported that the incident occurred when they took a photo of a student nurse who was wearing a t-shirt with the word ‘Palestine’ on the front and a map of the entirety of Israel on the back, which could very readily be understood as support for the erasure of the world’s only Jewish state and its replacement with a Palestinian state.

It has also been alleged that a security guard at the hospital was co-opted in trying to get the patient to delete the photo.

These allegations are unbelievable. The NHS has a responsibility to ensure that its patients, who are among the most vulnerable in society, feel safe. That means restricting the display of political images and symbols, and – it is incredible that this needs restating – not refusing treatment to patients.

This alleged incident underscores how toxic life has become in Britain since 7th October, that something like this could happen to a Jewish patient.

We have called for an investigation to be opened immediately. We are also writing to the hospital to ask how this nurse was reportedly allowed to wear this t-shirt in the first place and what will be done in response to this extremely serious allegation of threatening and grossly unethical conduct.

We are in contact with the patient and our lawyers are examining the case.

If you have experienced discomfort or discrimination in the medical industry because you are Jewish or perceived to be Jewish, please contact us.

This weekend, we honoured the fallen

Kristallnacht was not the only event that we commemorated this weekend.

Sunday was Remembrance Day, and yesterday was Armistice Day, when we honour those heroes who fought for our freedoms, and reflect on the values that so many of them died to defend. Sadly, not everyone in our country will be doing the same.

A pogrom targeting Jews in one of the most developed Western countries in the world.

We had hoped that we would only be using those words to commemorate Kristallnacht this past weekend. Never forget? It seems that we already have.

People must wake up and the authorities need to be held to account. We will continue to do whatever it takes to make that happen.