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.
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.