Amsterdam mayor takes back 'pogrom' comments following Maccabi-Ajax violence
Amsterdam mayor takes back 'pogrom' comments following Maccabi-Ajax violence
Femke Halsema said Israel 'bypassed' Dutch authorities and that the description had been 'turned into propaganda'
The mayor of Amsterdam has taken back comments describing violence that took place following a football match between Israeli and Dutch teams earlier this month as a "pogrom", and has said Israel "bypassed" Dutch authorities regarding the details of the events.
Mayor Femke Halsema was speaking on Sunday evening on Dutch state broadcaster NPO's News Hour programme.
On 6 and 7 November, travelling Maccabi Tel Aviv fans stirred trouble in different parts of the Dutch capital by chanting racist anti-Arab slogans ahead of their Uefa Europa League match against Amsterdam club Ajax.
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A) She should have never called it a term that has that much meaning behind it.
B) She should have maybe waited to hear some facts before speaking about it.
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My ancestors suffered pogroms and survived the Holocaust. She just took this word in her mouth without any consideration towards that. Just for her political gain, to win some extra brownie points. Shame on her, but at least she took it back now, even if late.
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Damage is done. Newspapers got their headlines worldwide. Quietly walking it back after five days is so hypocritical she should have stuck with her lies.
To use such an extremely loaded term for a situation where five people were lightly wounded can not be an accident.
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She hardly even took it back, just expressed regret that the word became 'politicised' since she said it...?? No, it was disgustingly incorrect when you said it
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Rauters still has not fixed their coverage...
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First: she shouldn't have used that word.
Her words were twisted out of context by about everybody, media and politicians alike. As a left/green mayor she is under heavy fire from our extremist puppet prime minister, who hates her and wants her expelled.
So every thing she says that can be criticized, is. She's doing a great job in very difficult circumstances and has the balls to own up the mistake she made (which is unfortunately rare for politicians).
So yes she deserves criticism. But she did deserve credits for the way she remained sane and effective during a huge international proxy conflict.
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For anyone else who wasn't familiar with this term and didn't have the context to understand any of this story:
A pogrom is a violent riot incited with the aim of massacring or expelling an ethnic or religious group, particularly Jews. The term entered the English language from Russian to describe 19th- and 20th-century attacks on Jews in the Russian Empire (mostly within the Pale of Settlement). Retrospectively, similar attacks against Jews which occurred in other times and places also became known as pogroms. Sometimes the word is used to describe publicly sanctioned purgative attacks against non-Jewish groups. The characteristics of a pogrom vary widely, depending on the specific incident, at times leading to, or culminating in, massacres.