Far-right Dutch political leader Geert Wilders on Wednesday blamed "Moroccans" for violence involving Israeli football hooligans in Amsterdam last week, claiming they "want to destroy Jews" and demanding the deportation of people convicted of involvement.
Opposition legislators accused Wilders, who leads the Party for Freedom (PVV), of "pouring oil on the fire", stressing that his statements during a parliamentary debate were not conducive to "a better society".
Violence erupted in the Dutch capital before and after last week's Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.
Though fans from both sides were involved in the unrest, notoriously racist hooligans associated with the Israeli club instigated the violence after they attacked an Arab taxi driver, chanted anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian slogans, and ripped down Palestinian flags in Amsterdam's city centre.
This then led to the hooligans clashing with pro-Palestine supporters and some Dutch Arab citizens, though Dutch authorities, citing the country’s privacy laws, have not disclosed the names or ethnic origin of any citizen involved in the violence.
After the match, a large group of Maccabi supporters armed with sticks ran around "destroying things", a 12-page report on the violence issued by Amsterdam authorities said.
The report also said that "rioters, moving in small groups, by foot, scooter or car, quickly attacking Maccabi fans before disappearing", it said.
Amsterdam police said five people were treated in hospital for injuries. Police detained dozens of people before the match, but there were no immediate arrests for violence after it.
Wilders, whose anti-Islam PVV won elections last year and now dominates the ruling coalition government, said on Wednesday that on the night Amsterdam commemorated Kristallnacht "we saw Muslims hunting Jews on the streets of Amsterdam", and blamed "Moroccans who want to destroy Jews".
Wilders provided no evidence for any of his claims. However, his reference to "Kristallnacht" - which was the widespread anti-Jewish pogrom that eclipsed Nazi Germany on 9 November 1938 and was widely considered by historians to mark the beginning of the Holocaust – is now an oft-repeated trope used by pro-Israeli voices and propagandists to refer to the Amsterdam incident.
Critics have said Israel and its supporters have used the incident for a disinformation campaign in the West, with much of the media complying with it.
Wilders advocated cancelling the Dutch passports of people convicted of involvement in the violence - if they have dual Dutch-Moroccan passports - and deporting them.
The Dutch politician is known for his extreme Islamophobic, anti-Arab and pro-Israel rhetoric, including comparing the Qur’an to Adolf Hitler’s autobiography-cum-manifesto Mein Kampf. In November of last year, Wilders was widely condemned among the Arab world after he called for Palestinians in the West Bank to be ethnically cleansed and relocated to Jordan.
The incident involving Israeli hooligans in Amsterdam has raised questions over the influence of the Israeli government and Israeli propaganda in Dutch politics.
On social media site X, users, including Marc Owen Jones, an academic at Northwestern University who specialises in studying disinformation, pointed out that members of the Dutch coalition appear to be using Israeli propaganda documents regarding the incident.
A picture shows Caroline van der Plas, leader of the Farmer-Citizen Movement that holds numerous posts in the coalition government, clutching a document on the Amsterdam incident produced by the Israeli government that absurdly claims the Dutch citizens involved in the clashes with the Maccabi hooligans "have ties to terror organisations Hamas and the [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine]".
The New Arab has reached out to van der Plas for comment but has not received any at the time of publication.
Despite the abundance of pro-Israel voices in the Dutch parliament, some lawmakers warned that Wilders’s comments only served to widen divisions in Dutch society.
"What you are doing is just stirring things up, dividing this country when this country needs politicians who bring people together, who bring solutions closer," Frans Timmermans, who leads the biggest centre-left bloc in parliament, said.
In Amsterdam, a prominent Jewish member of the City Council, Itay Garmy, said that although there’s a lot of anger and fear within the Jewish community, inflammatory remarks wouldn’t help.
"Don’t use my security or my suffering or my fear as a Jew to create political gains for yourself and make your points about integration, migration or Muslim hate," Garmy said.