Attack on demonstrators after pro-Palestinian demonstration in Amsterdam, seven arrests

NOS News•yesterday, 3:47 PM•Amended yesterday, 9:58 PM

This afternoon there were another demonstrations for the Palestinians on Dam Square in Amsterdam. According to local broadcaster AT5, there were several thousand demonstrators carrying Palestinian and other flags and shouting slogans.

At the end of the afternoon a fight broke out at Museumplein. According to the police, a group of ten people ran towards the demonstrators out of nowhere and started “kicking and punching indiscriminately”. Illegal fireworks were also thrown at the demonstrators. The police have arrested seven people.

There have been pro-Palestinian demonstrations all week, both in Amsterdam and Utrecht. But these were more or less spontaneous demonstrations. This afternoon’s demonstration was already announced a month ago. The organization reported that it was officially a commemoration of what the Palestinians call the Nakba (the ‘catastrophe’). This happened when the state of Israel was founded in 1948. An estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their land.

It is estimated that around 15,000 Palestinians were also murdered during that time, out of a population of 1 million. “This commemoration is always important, but today it has a specific urgency,” the organizers of today’s demonstration wrote. According to them, the “ethnic cleansing” of that time still continues. “The brutality of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is not a sudden development. It is the continuation of a century of colonial violence.”

After the meeting on Dam Square there was a march through Amsterdam. Near Mayor Halsema’s official residence on the Herengracht, the demonstrators shouted “Halsema, shame on you” and “Halsema resign”. The mayor must resign from the demonstrators because of the police violence this week against what they call “peaceful demonstrators”.

In recent days there have been numerous demonstrations against the war in Gaza, especially at the University of Amsterdam. On Monday afternoon, a group of students occupied a campus on Roeterseiland. The so-called Gaza Solidarity camp was cleared at night by the mobile unit.

On Tuesday afternoon, demonstrators occupied another UvA site in the city center. The riot police intervened there too. A pro-Palestine demonstration in Utrecht was broken up by the police on Wednesday. On Thursday there was another pro-Palestinian demonstration in Amsterdam, a sit-in on the Spui. During the demonstrations, the demonstrators demanded that the universities cut all ties with Israel, but the universities did not respond to this.

The Royal Academy of Arts (KABK) in The Hague has decided to cancel a collaboration with the Bezalel Academic of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. The academy is the first Dutch educational institution to stop collaborating with an Israeli course.

There were no demonstrations at the art academy. The student association KABK started an online petition in December with the request to sever all ties with Bezalel. The management rejected that request at the time, but has now complied.

“Silence regarding possible human rights violations can be seen as an indirect form of support for those who violate their rights,” the KABK management said.