A local politician said he’d burn the Palestinian national symbol to protest the vitriol and underline authorities’ refusal to intervene.

By Canaan Lidor, JNS

At a Muslim religious event on the margins of an anti-Israel rally in Amsterdam, a man dressed like a Hamas terrorist on Saturday burned an Israeli flag as onlookers cheered.

The display at Spui, a central square of the Dutch capital, represents an escalation of the content at anti-Israel rallies that authorities are failing to confront, one researcher who studies the pro-Palestinian scene in the Netherlands told the daily, De Telegraaf.

“Utter madness, but apparently anything goes under the guise of ‘criticism of Israel.’ Another low point reached in Amsterdam,” a spokesperson for the Center for Information and Documentation in Israel, the Dutch Jewish community’s research body and watchdog on antisemitism, wrote on X.

Separately, soccer fans in Eindhoven were filmed chanting “Hamas, Jews to the gas” and “all Jews must die” after a soccer match with the Ajax soccer team. Soccer fans in the Netherlands often call Ajax fans and players “Jews.” Police detained three soccer fans in Eindhoven on suspicion of incitement to discrimination, it said.

The flag burning in Amsterdam followed a demonstration that featured chants celebrating Mohammed Deif, a senior Hamas commander killed by Israel in 2024, along with anti-Jewish slogans taken from the Quran, De Telegraaf reported, based on footage obtained by Michael Vis, a local politician.

The images prompted prominent local Jews to warn about an air of antisemitic violence in the city, where dozens of Muslim men had assaulted Israelis in a coordinated fashion in November.

“Open violence toward Jews hangs in the air in Amsterdam. And prosecutors view it as ‘an expression of an opinion,’” Ron van der Wieken, a former leader of the Central Jewish Board of the Netherlands, wrote on X.

Meanwhile, a Dutch politician said he would burn a Palestinian flag in Amsterdam on Tuesday to protest the burning of the Israeli one. “Today at 5:30 p.m. My friends and I will burn the Palestinian flag on Dam Square in Amsterdam. If they can burn the Israeli flag, so can we,” wrote Marcus Rolloos, a member of the Interest of the Netherlands right-wing party on X.

The Amsterdam prosecutor’s office ruled that setting an Israeli flag on fire was legally permissible, as it was considered an act of political criticism rather than vandalism or arson. Additionally, the chant “Death to Israel” was classified as criticism of the state rather than hate speech against a specific group, De Telegraaf reported.

According to De Telegraaf, the flag-burning event happened at an Iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast, on the margins of the political rally. A tall man wearing black fatigues and balaclava under what looked like a combat vest set fire to the Israeli flag. Onlookers waved Lebanese and Palestinian flags. The man screamed “death to Israel” as the flag burned, according to the report.

Investigative journalist Carel Brendel told De Telegraaf that some demonstrators wore military-style outfits, carried portraits of known terrorists, and waved flags of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization by the E.U. and the U.S.

Police did not intervene to take down the displays but pushed back and hushed passersby who vocally objected to the ceremony, Brendel told the daily.

Kees Broer, a researcher on Palestinian movements in the Netherlands, told De Telegraaf that PFLP has a presence in Amsterdam and that it appears to be growing bolder. “They seem to believe they can do whatever they want in Amsterdam without consequences,” Broer said. He criticized local authorities for not stepping in earlier to prevent such developments.

PGNL is not banned in the Netherlands, but Germany has taken a stricter stance against its affiliates. German authorities have cracked down on Hamas supporters, especially after discovering that the organization was seeking a weapons storage facility.

Michael Vis, the local politician for the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), criticized Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema and her administration for failing to take a firm stance against anti-Israel rhetoric and antisemitism during protests.

“It’s one thing if you cannot enforce the rules, but there is not a single voice in the city government distancing itself from this hatred,” Vis said.

Halsema has condemned a recent flag-burning incident at another pro-Palestinian rally but stated that law enforcement defers to the Public Prosecutor’s Office on whether protest slogans cross the line into criminal speech.

On Nov. 7-8, Israeli soccer fans who were in Amsterdam for a match were attacked by dozens of Muslim men who had used instant messaging and location applications to mount a coordinated attack that many local Jews have called a pogrom. Of the hundreds of people involved in the attacks, 10 have been tried. The heaviest punishment prescribed to the defendants was six months in prison.