Beetle [hy/hym]

Thanks for tagging me! The student unions did a great job honestly. I think they were under a lot of pressure and there was a chance the protest would be deemed illegal and police would get violent. I’m glad that didn’t happen. Also there was a lot of solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle. A small light compared to the news of extreme police violence from yesterday’s protest against genocide in Amsterdam.

Student unions decided to take over the organisation and are calling for people to come anyways. But with the risks involved there will be less people. Small actions are also planned all over the country but because the cancellation by workers unions was so last minute everything will be pretty chaotic. Tonight the police were very aggressively beating up anti genocide protesters again so that will cause outrage as well tomorrow so it will be an interesting day.

Student unions tried to pressure the mayor to tell them exactly why she and the police think there’s a risk of violence but they won’t give any other details than what was written in my original post. This is why they decided to ignore the risk and protest anyways.

This also shows how spineless the unions are for agreeing to cancel the protest instead of challenging the mayor and police. The budget cut of 1 billion per year will be devastating for the whole higher education sector and the vote for that plan is in less than 2 weeks, meaning that the cancellation of this protest will likely make it much more likely that the plan will pass without much opposition.

A large protest against budget cuts in higher education in The Netherlands that was planned for tomorrow in Utrecht has been cancelled due to (paraphrasing:) ‘threats of violence by pro Palestine protesters who planned to hijack the protest.’

This can not be seen without the context of the unrest in Amsterdam last week. Dutch media and politicians have been trying really hard this past week to paint anti genocide protesters in a very bad light, and this situation is no different. Several pro Palestine organisations have stated that they stand wholeheartedly behind the protests against the budget cuts and were joining to show their support. People are speculating that this support is being framed as hijacking now by the mayor of Utrecht and the police.

https://nos.nl/l/2544350

Police hasn’t arrested anyone related to Thursday night attacks on hooligans (all arestees were protesters), they have a team looking at footage and witness accounts first now. I’m a bit afraid this guy will get arrested but I don’t know how much proof there is against him. Police did say that they might try to charge for terrorism as well as and antisemitism which would be wild if they succeeded.

Yes I always say, if the floods come, we deserve it.

Yeah that sucks. The videos only work for people who care about the truth.

Maccabi hooligans in Tel Aviv airport

They’re singing the same song as in Amsterdam and now I finally have a good source on the translation:

Let the IDF win and fuck the arabs

Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there.

Video evidence makes it relatively easy to refute the media lies. I’m a bit burnt out right now but maybe I’ll make an effort post later that include events + videos for context. You can look up cestmocro on Instagram, they have a good summary of the events with videos.

I’m not sure they were Ajax fans. Most of the fights were between Maccabi and locals that were angry about the islamophobia, racism and vandalism of the night before. Ajax fans beat up a pro Palestine protester last Sunday, I don’t think they’re cool enough to be pro Palestine.

Yes that rethoric is big in NL as wel currently, especially by our extreme right government. They’re inciting hate towards Moroccans and the coming weeks we’ll see the results of that through lots of racism and targeted attacks.

The atmosphere in the city has been very grim already this whole week due to the racism by Maccabi and Ajax supporters, and lots of Moroccans already didn’t feel safe in the city due to that.

https://youtu.be/ySHIOYyJ95Ag

Here’s a video from the evening itself. I think that the busses brought about half the hooligans back to their hotel, the rest probably roamed the city in smaller groups getting into confrontations with angry locals.

I made a list compiling the events from a few sources including cestmocro and plant.eenolijfboom on instagram:

1. Weekend of 2/11 and 3/11: Flyers are spread around football stadium calling for israhelli boycott in football. A pro Palestine protester wearing a keffiyeh gets beaten up by Ajax supporter and ends up in hospital.
2. Monday 4/11: There’s a call from a pro Palestine group to protest in front of the stadium during the game on Thursday.
3. Wednesday 6/11 afternoon: Mayor of Amsterdam forbids the protest in front of stadium and also forbids protests on some other locations like the Dam square. Protest is allowed on a location 1km from stadium. Protest organisers are warning protesters to not go on the streets alone while wearing keffiyeh or other Palestinian symbols due to previous attacks.
4. Wednesday evening: Maccabi supporters tear down Palestinian flags and burn at least one. They also yell racist chants and display banners and stickers glorifying the IOF and genocide. A taxi driver is beaten up by maccabi supporters and his car is destroyed. In a local taxi drivers group there is a call to mobilise in response.
5. Thursday 7/11 afternoon: Maccabi supporters are in the city chanting fuck you Palestine on Dam square resulting in some fights between pro Palestine protesters and Maccabi supporters. Police arrest some pro Palestine protesters because protesting was not allowed in that area. Other protesters are brought by the police to the assigned location where they are allowed to protest. Protesters aren’t happy with this because they are not in hearing distance of the football game they were protesting against, so in small groups they leave to protest elsewhere. Maccabi supporters on their way to the game are filmed chanting islamophobic phrases. Sources give different translations for the chants, but it’s something along the lines of fuck arabs and Israhelli army will win. According to BDS NL it’s part of a longer song that includes ‘there are no schools in Gaza because there are no children left’.
6. Thursday during game: Maccabi supporters yell through minute of silence for victims of Spanish floods.
7. Thursday evening after game: Maccabi hooligans move to city center, do normal hooligan shit but there’s a lot of tension between them and locals for obvious reasons. Lots of taxis are driving near the hooligans honking because of the taxi driver that was beaten up the evening before. Police is surrounding the hooligans while they move through the city center to protect them from locals including the taxis. The pro Palestine protesters are also still in the city in smaller groups sometimes attempting to come near the hooligans but police is holding them back. Police is trying to get the hooligans into busses to bring them to their hotel but a lot of the hooligans escape to roam through the city in smaller groups. This is where they get confronted by pro Palestine protesters who then showed them how welcome they are in Amsterdam. Several Maccabi hooligans get beaten up and get swimming lessons. 5 Maccabi supporters end up in hospital, 20-30 are wounded and 63 protesters are arrested. The police is using the videos to arrest more protesters.

Edit: added some more details on Thursday evening from the video linked.

I declare November 8th Dutch Arab appreciation day.

The disconnect between the perception of the people vs what is published by news outlets and what politicians are saying is bigger that I’ve ever experienced. This event is opening the eyes of a lot of people around me that called me crazy for saying that the media is biased. It happened during the student encampments as well but I feel like there is a much stronger campaign on social media right now to combat the disinfo that is spread by all our local news outlets.

Edit: maybe it’s good to add that this disconnect is mostly felt by young people.

The gloating is annoying but it’s moreso that I’m not USian and no space is safe from people talking about US elections. What really breaks my brain is liberals blaming the people with actual moral compasses that are most likely to help out in their own communities that didn’t want to vote for genocide Harris. Liberals talk about the necessity of ‘direct action’ and ‘organising’ but really mean electoralism and advertising for the democratic party. I’m so done I just never want to hear anything related to the US ever again.

This is a great opportunity for me to touch lots of grass for a while because the internet has become fucking insufferable (yes even hexbear)

Kinda cringe. Don’t make sexual harassing jokes even if the person on the other side is working for evil.

As a non-USian I’m in support of this idea.