Dan Kopla, a soccer fan who was present in Amsterdam for the recent pogrom following a Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer game, shares his harrowing experiences with Real Talk host Hadassah Chen.
"It happened just before 1:00 in the morning, after the game. We came out of the stadium and took the metro to the Central Station. Some people actually warned us that there might be a group of Arabs looking for trouble. I saw two men fighting, but since they were both in black, couldn't tell if this was normal for Amsterdam or not. Five seconds later, I find myself surrounded by five to seven Muslims."
Dan says that some of the victims suffered terribly. "Those who knocked down to the ground were humiliated, kicked, punched, stabbed. It would have been a totally different story for me if I was knocked down to the ground."
Instead, he fought back. "I managed to secure my leg from being grabbed and push or kick the attackers away. One of them got me off balance with a punch, but I was able to stay on my feet and run away, and they were left just saying degrading things."
He found that there was more violence going on as he ran. "As I'm as I'm fleeing for my life I saw from the corner of my eye a youngster chased by three Arabs. They pinned him down to the ground and kicked him while he screamed his soul out - but the most terrifying thing was when he fell silent."
An unexpected friend came to his rescue. "I went down the first alley I saw, and met a man in black. He spoke to me in Hebrew, warning me not to go down a nearby road because there were Arabs there. We went from alley to alley until we got away."
He does not believe it to have been a chance incident, or even the usual explosion of emotions common between supporters of rival clubs. "It was so well planned. It wasn't just a response to Israeli fans who were trying to provoke them. Even the the taxi drivers in Amsterdam collected intelligence about where Israelis were staying, and a lot of groups actually waited outside their hotels, so even if they could flee from all of the of what they've been through yeah outside, they were waiting."
The trip to his own hotel was an ordeal. "One of the alleys took us to to a main street, and I was able to recognize it as it the the street of my hotel. I asked the man where where his hotel was, and he told me it's like 200 meters from from here. It sounds very close but when you're scared, alone, and not familiar with the with the streets, it's endless."
The hotel turned out to be far from safe harbor. "I was walking towards the hotel and there was another group that saw me. They ran and tried to chase me down because we were wearing Maccabi shirts, even my socks were Maccabi. I was able to get around them, but the luckiest thing was it was 12:50, because at 1:00 the automatic doors at the hotel are locked and you need to be buzzed in, and no one would buzz me in with people attacking me. I was able to get into the hotel, and luckily they didn't chase me."
The local authorities, he said, were of no help. "Maybe we heard sirens or saw a police station, but no policemen. A lot of citizens open their homes for scared Israelis, which was heartwarming."
Dan doesn't blame the police first, though. "I'm most disappointed in the other fans. Most of the time, our disagreements stay on the pitch. Even when it leaves the stadium, it's usually a small group, not thousands of people. I hoped we had a better relationship as fellow fans, fellow fanatics. We've been to so many games together, and they just disappeared."
He also denounced the Israeli authorities. "We understand that Israeli intelligence knew something was going to happen. They alerted the Dutch police, but why not alert the Israelis who are actually there?"
Dutch police, he says, still bear some of the blame for the riot. "The Dutch chief of police says officers are human being and they can enforce the law however they want. He gave a legal right to the police not to protect us."
He addressed the allegations that Israeli fans provoked the riot. "I heard that some of our fans were provoking them with Palestinian flags. I don't agree at all with what happened from our side. Even so, they should not be taking it out on all Jews now."
Dan mentioned two organizations that he felt had a part in helping the victims of the riots. "There's Brother of the Banner (Ahim L'Semel in Hebrew) which provides a supporting presence for Israeli sports fans, no matter what sport, place, or side, so that we always know there's someone there to help."
"There's also the Ultras organization for Maccabi fanatics - during the riot, it was these fans who went around rescuing people all through the night, not the Dutch police, not the army or special forces. They went out shouting in Hebrew 'We are Israeli, we are here to help you', and brought people who had been thrown into the river or who had been locked in Starbucks bathrooms for hours. They were the only ones who understood the situation and contacted the Israeli government and El Al for help."
"Of course, there are the players, too. We saw them when we arrived in Israel. Their families came too. It was incredible, sad but incredible."
Dan ended with a chilling warning to the Dutch. "They want to apply the Sharia law all over Europe. They will kill us, you, everyone. We know this, and Europe needs to as well."