The "hysterical and hyperbolic demonization of Israel" led to a pogrom against hundreds of Israeli soccer fans who were attacked in Amsterdam on Thursday while cheering on the Maccabi Tel Aviv Football Club, according to Rep. Ritchie Torres.
"The single most monstrous manifestation of antisemitism is a pogrom that is presently unfolding against hundreds of Jews who were cheering on the Tel Aviv Football Club in Amsterdam," the New York Democrat posted on X on Thursday night in response to a post from the Israeli embassy to the United States about the attacks.
"Those inciting antisemitism now have the blood of a 21st-century pogrom on their hands," he added. "The situation is so dire that the Israeli government is dispatching rescue teams for Jews in danger. I am sick to my stomach that a pogrom is happening in the 21st century."
The Israeli government said Friday it was sending two commercial planes to the Netherlands to bring the soccer fans home after they were attacked overnight in the streets of Amsterdam.
Videos posted to social media showed the police responding to the assaults, in which some of the attackers were shouting anti-Israel slurs.
Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema said the supporters were "attacked, abused, and pelted with fireworks." Riot police escorted them to hotels, and at least five people were treated in hospitals, she added.
Hundreds of people had been gathered in Amsterdam's streets Thursday while remembering Kristallnacht, the Nazis' pogrom against the Jews in Germany on Nov. 9-10, 1938.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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