I’m sure that many of you have heard of the horrifying attacks on Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last Thursday. An antisemitism watch group has found that the attacks on Israeli Jews in the Netherlands were “orchestrated online using social media platforms including Instagram and telegram,” World Israel News (WIN) reported.
“Dozens of people were injured Thursday night when a mob of mostly Muslims attacked Israeli soccer fans outside of the Johan Cruyff Arena, the home stadium of the AFC Ajax soccer club, in Amsterdam following a match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv,” WIN detailed. “Members of the anti-Israel mob assaulted dozens of Israeli soccer fans, who had flown to Amsterdam for the match, with reports of Israelis being bludgeoned, attempted stabbings and kidnappings, attempts to run down Israelis with cars, and several instances of people being thrown into a river.”
They further went on to report that “Cyberwell, a nonprofit organization monitoring antisemitism and Holocaust denial online, said that the attacks appear to have been orchestrated and coordinated ahead of time via social media.”
CyberWell Founder and Executive Director Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, in a statement on Friday, highlighted that “this series of coordinated attacks is the rawest example of the slogan ‘Globalization of the Intifada,’ which was amplified in the Instagram stories of some of the organizing accounts.”
“While initial evidence and reports suggest that a combination of chat platforms like Telegram, Instagram, and other social media accounts were used to target central areas of foot traffic and hotels that would be frequented by Israelis after the game, several groups, including one linked to Hamas, freely organized protests against the presence of Israeli soccer fans on Instagram and used incendiary Hamas propaganda symbols to escalate tensions, call for violence and even celebrate the targeted attacks,” CyberWell further revealed.
As noted by WIN, “[the] symbol of an inverted red triangle, used since October 7th, 2023 by supporters of the Hamas terror organization, was posted over 1,000 on social media in conjunction with the word ‘Amsterdam’ during a 24-hour period, reaching over 8,000,000 users.”
As a result, ten Israelis were hospitalized, and hundreds more were huddled in hotel rooms for hours in an effort to protect themselves from the mob.
All of this came on the eve of Kristallnacht, a Nazi pogram against the Jewish people which took place in 1938. While we are thankful the Israeli soccer fans returned home safely, it is very disturbing, to say the least, that Jewish people have once again become the targets of irrational mass hatred.
The truth is that our leaders need to put an end to all the Palestinian rallies that demonize Israel. These rallies give the fuel to what we just saw in Amsterdam.
Do you want to know what drives Zionism? It’s the fact that no one is going to protect the Jewish people but the Jewish people themselves. This was Theodor Herzl’s realization and dream in the late 1800s. That the Jewish people would be regathered one day to their ancestral Homeland to govern themselves and live free from the endless hatred and persecution of living as a Jew in the diaspora. That’s what Zionism is all about.
However, there is something infinitely more powerful that is the true driving force behind Zionism: the God of this universe. He ultimately has reestablished the state of Israel. In Jeremiah 31:8-10, God says, “Behold, I will bring them from the north country, And gather them from the ends of the earth, Among them the blind and the lame, The woman with child And the one who labors with child, together; A great throng shall return there. They shall come with weeping, And with supplications I will lead them. I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters, In a straight way in which they shall not stumble; For I am a Father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn. ‘Hear the word of the Lord, O nations, And declare it in the isles afar off, and say, ‘He who scattered Israel will gather him, And keep him as a shepherd does his flock.'”
In Ezekiel 11:16-17, God further says, “‘Although I have cast them far off among the Gentiles, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet I shall be a little sanctuary for them in the countries where they have gone.’ Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord God: ‘I will gather you from the peoples, assemble you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.'”
There you have it. God is the author of Zionism. Zionism exists ultimately because the God of Israel has chosen to bring His people back from the nations of the world into their own landโa land that He swore as an Everlasting Covenant to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These people who hate Israel, who seek to kill the Jewish people, and who desire to wipe them off the face of the map are, in reality, picking a fight with God. They ought to tremble! There is a dire warning to them and all those that think that way found in Zechariah 12:9, where we read, “It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” Let that sink in!
