As a Jewish Israeli living in Amsterdam and working in Leiden, I have always felt quite safe. That has changed – not because of the violence targeted at supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv in my city, but because of how politicians framed the event. This framing, picked up by the (inter)national media before all facts were known, seems intentionally designed to further inflame tensions between groups in the country, making us all less safe for the political gain of those propagating it.

I awoke the morning after the violence to dozens of worried messages from family in Israel. “A ‘pogrom’ in Amsterdam,” read the headlines of the Israeli reports they sent me. When I caught up on the facts, the picture that emerged was far more complex: The violence was scary and appalling, but developed out of tensions that had been building for over 24 hours, and some of the attacks’ targets had themselves engaged racist harassment or even direct violence.

Fortunately for me, friends and colleagues never blamed me for the violence or racism of the Maccabi supporters, my country people. No politician did that either. But my Muslim friends and colleagues did not enjoy the same privilege. Already at 6:03 Friday morning, Geert Wilders tweeted a very specific narrative: A “pogrom” by “Muslims with Palestinian flags hunting down Jews.”

What was this narrative based on? It is unlikely that Wilders had enough information to conclude this. Only an hour after that tweet, at 7:00, did his Prime Minister finally get back to Mayor Halsema to coordinate the response. If Wilders’ priority had been ensuring the safety of the country’s residents and visitors, why was his first action to post such an inflammatory tweet?

If he had the relevant information, he likely knew that some of those arrested for violence on Thursday were actually Israeli, indicating a more complicated chain of events. But he was also cunning enough to know well that framing the violence as a pogrom by Muslims against Jews would make everyone more afraid of Muslims, and more supportive of collective punishment. He knew and still knows that cracking down on Muslim communities will likely fuel resentment against Jews, who may be blamed for the increased repression. He probably also knows the escalating tensions is much easier than later de-escalating them and restoring peace. And he most certainly knows that both communities will pay the price of heightened tensions—and that the greater the tensions, the higher his own political gain.

This narrative has also been parroted by Benjamin Netanyahu, who has used it as ammunition in his propaganda war against international criticism of Israel’s unrestrained attacks in Gaza. The Amsterdam driehoek’s decision to ban protests in the wake of the violence followed Wilders’ narrative and fed it, casting pro-Palestinian protesters as somehow implicated in violence they had nothing to do with. As an Israeli who is opposed to Netanyahu’s leadership—which has been devastating for everyone in the Middle East—I resent this implication, and I resent the Dutch government adopting the same tactics Netanyahu has used for decades to delegitimize minorities.

The true interest of the population of the Netherlands is to ensure all its communities’ safety. Unfortunately, the current Dutch leadership has the polar opposite interest. Instead of doing everything in their power to subdue the flames and restore a sense of safety, Schoof, Wilders, van der Plas and others have actively fueled them, calling for changes in policing and legislation that clearly—and unfairly—target Muslim Dutch people.

In doing so, they have weaponized the term “antisemitism” as a tool to demonize and discriminate against the country’s largest religious minority. But what was the antisemitism of the 1930s in Europe if not the demonization and discrimination of a religious minority cast by politicians as a threat to society? And what could be more cynical than using the term “antisemitism” to this end?

We need to decry violence, prejudice, and identity-based discrimination from everyone – especially public figures and leaders. The true danger to religious and ethnic minorities comes from those in the positions with power to incite others and enforce discriminatory practices.

To make sure our leaders don’t weaponize our fears and turn us against each other, we have to recognize their self-serving motivations in demonizing many for the actions of few.

We have not accused all people with a Dutch background of antisemitism due to the publicized antisemitic rhetoric of FvD members, nor should we have. We have not viewed all native people with a Dutch background as racist, despite the devastating discriminatory policies enacted as part of the child benefits (toeslagen) scandal. And we should definitely not use information about specific individuals to assume the worst about entire minority groups. No matter how much our politicians try to convince us to.

This article was originally published as an opinion piece in Dutch newspaper NRC:
Nederland neemt de tactieken over die Netanyahu gebruikt om minderheden te delegitimeren