Bob Douwe was scheduled to perform at Jom Ha Voetbal—a blend of Hebrew and Dutch meaning “Soccer Day.”
By Canaan Lidor, JNS
A singer scheduled to perform at a Jewish soccer event in Amsterdam on Sunday refused to take the stage, telling the audience he could not perform for them after witnessing “expressions of Zionism” at the venue that he said conflicted with his principles.
“I’ve come here to perform. I saw a lot of expressions of Zionism here on posters and such. So I’ve decided not to,” said Bob Douwe, who represented the Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016.
Douwe was scheduled to perform at Jom Ha Voetbal—a blend of Hebrew and Dutch meaning “Soccer Day.”
The incident, which was captured on video, sparked angry reactions from many Dutch Jews and others. The community is already grappling with unprecedented levels of antisemitic violence not seen since the Holocaust, including a series of assaults that many locals describe as pogroms.
Dilan Yeşilgöz, leader of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)—the party of former prime minister Mark Rutte—said Douwe’s actions echoed antisemitism from the Nazi era.
“Eighty years after ‘Never again,’ it’s happening again. Daily. In Amsterdam. Children are denied a performance because of who they are: Jewish. It won’t even make the news. That’s how common Jew-hatred has become. Pure hatred, in plain sight,” Yeşilgöz wrote on X.
Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing Party for Freedom, noted on X that Yeşilgöz has not ruled out forming a coalition with the Labor-Green Left party, which recently submitted a parliamentary resolution calling for a total arms embargo on Israel—including components for its Iron Dome missile defense system.
“Says the woman who doesn’t rule out cooperating with the Jew-haters at Labour-Green Left. What cowardly hypocrisy,” Wilders tweeted.
The Netherlands is set to hold a general election in October.
Ronny Naftaniel, a former leader of Dutch Jewry, said he was grateful that children at Jom Ha Voetbal—an annual community event co-sponsored for decades by the local Maccabi sports club—responded to Douwe’s remarks by mocking his ignorance.
“You wouldn’t wish [Douwe’s] stupidity on anyone!” Naftaniel wrote on Facebook. “First go back to school, Douwe, and learn what Zionism means,” added the retired longtime director of the Center for Information on Israel (CIDI), the country’s main watchdog on antisemitism.
Douwe began his announcement by saying, “I love Jewish culture, it’s beautiful,” adding, “I’m an Amsterdam Jew myself, in a manner of speaking.” However, he continued, “I’m against Zionism, and that’s what was being sold here, which is why I can’t play here now.”
On Instagram, he later clarified that his claim to a Jewish identity stems from having had a five-year relationship with a Jewish person. “I always feel, as an Amsterdam resident, connected to the Jewish people,” he added.
“I think it is scandalous that a children’s party is hijacked by political organizations,” he said, referring to a “Zionist pamphlet” without providing further details. He also wrote that he was booed and told to leave after making his announcement.
In November, hundreds of Arabs and Muslims coordinated a series of attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam through group chats filled with antisemitic rhetoric. At least 120 individuals took part in the assaults, with some perpetrators referring to the attacks as “Jew hunts.”
Last year, CIDI documented 421 antisemitic incidents, a record high that surpassed the previous all-time peak by 11%, which was reported in 2023. The majority of the increase is linked to Israel. Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre, which sparked a regional war, led to a rise in antisemitic incidents across Europe and beyond.