An Israeli professor and director of a prominent Israeli think tank has acknowledged that the demonstrations and violence in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, last week were not anti-Semitic but anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist.

The incident resulted in the beating up of many of the Israeli fans and aggressors, leading to accusations and media reports of widespread anti-Semitic ‘pogrom’-style attacks against Jews.
In a media interview, Dr Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu – the director of the Israel-Europe Relations Program at the Israeli think tank, Mitvim, and a lecturer at Hebrew University’s European Forum and Tel Aviv University’s European Union Studies Program – stated that the demonstrators opposing the Israeli fans “were not looking for Jews; their attacks were directed against Israelis. It may be that some of them are indeed anti-Semitic, but what happened here is actually anti-Zionism or anti-Israelism.”
While clarifying that there “is no justification for violence”, the counter-rioters “specifically sought revenge on the one who tore up the Palestinian flags and called for the death of the Arabs. The actions of those in Amsterdam are the result of anti-Israeli sentiment. There is a very sharp new anti-Semitism, but in Amsterdam, it was mainly anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist.”