The Intifada Was Globalized in Amsterdam
by Alan M. Dershowitz and Andrew Stein • November 15, 2024 at 5:00 am
There is no moral or legal equivalence between non-violent mischief — such as tearing down flags and shouting racial insults — and committing life-threatening assaults upon people based on their religion and ethnicity. The anti-Israel rioters were hunting down Jews...
Muslim extremists have a long history of hurling spears in response to non-violent insults. Recall the numerous deadly attacks — shootings, stabbings, bombings and lethal fatwas—against those who allegedly insulted the prophet by picturing him or authoring books about him. There was also violence against those who burned Korans or otherwise demeaned Islam. Even cartoons provoked deadly responses.
The law in no Western nation grants the victims of non-violent insults the right to respond by violence. If a Jew were to physically assault the many Muslims who have repeatedly demeaned Judaism or its nation-state during recent protests, they would be appropriately punished, as some have been.
[W]e are likely to see more anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish pogroms in other parts of the world as antisemitism moves from the fringes to the mainstream.
Protestors – both pro- and anti-Israel – have the right to express their views verbally and even symbolically, but they have no right to attack individuals or groups based on religion, ethnicity or national origin. Those who engaged in physical assaults – and many were caught on video – must be prosecuted and, if convicted, imprisoned or deported. A clear line must be drawn between lawful, even if immoral, protests, and criminal violence.... It is a bright-line distinction that many in the media are deliberately trying to blur.
The U.S. has a stake in stopping this violence: the call to "globalize the intifada" is not limited to Europe. Those who advocate globalization are inciting violence against Americans of Jewish heritage. The incitement may be too general to be denied First Amendment protection against criminal punishment, but the single standard demands that universities apply the same standard to calls for intifada than they would to calls for lynching of blacks or assaulting of gays. The real difference is that no university student or faculty member would ever call for the latter, and if they did, they would be disciplined or expelled. Yet today it is entirely acceptable, indeed expected, that radical students will call for the lynching and assaulting of Jews and Israelis. That, after all, is what an intifada entails.
On university campuses throughout the world, there have been chants demanding that the violent intifada – which killed thousands of Israeli children, women and other civilians – be "globalized." Last week, we witnessed the first significant manifestation of that demand in Amsterdam, where large groups of predominantly Arab and Muslim rioters physically attacked Israelis and Jews who had been cheering for an Israeli soccer team.
Although some of the media tried to blame the attacks on Israelis, the evidence strongly suggests that this pogrom was planned well in advance and would have taken place even if there had been no provocation by Israeli fans.
