Melhem Asad, a Druze-Israeli who is also a fan of the Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team, saved many Jewish fans on Thursday from the pogrom in Amsterdam.
The pogrom began following a game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax. According to Asad, the security provided for the Israelis ended with the game, and the violence began shortly afterwards.
Asad, a resident of Kisra-Sumei in the Upper Galilee, told to Kan Reshet Bet that he did not hesitate to help his friends when he noticed the violence, and explained, "Before the game, we were at Dam Square, and there was good security. They really accompanied us the whole time before the game. After the game ended, we left the field on the way to the hotel, and there was no security. There was nothing."
"I saw people speaking Arabic. They said, 'Anyone who has a Maccabi shirt and Israeli symbols - beat him to kill.' I tried to confuse them with my language, to tell them that the Jews left. I spoke in Arabic so that they would recognize us as 'with an Arabic accent,' I told the fans to hide their Maccabi Tel Aviv shirts and not to speak Hebrew."
Melhem repeated these actions several times, but he did not manage to help everyone: "I went to restaurants in the area and I did it again, three or four times. Around me there were people on the floor, who had been beaten, and I could not help them. I was afraid."
"I was afraid that they would recognize me and kill me. The Council called me and my parents were worried about me but I didn't want to answer the phone, so that they would not hear me or see that I am an Arab-Israeli and begin to beat me."
He concluded, "This is our culture - the Druze, we support our country." But he also complained that despite the Druze population's great contribution to Israel's security and Israeli society, "we do not receive rights, they don't give us respect, and we give everything to our country."