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Absolutely not. Yes there were presence of racist elements, but attacks were mostly in retaliation and in defense of person and property.
One group are literally and constantly calling for the death of Arabs, children and thier schools. The other aren't saying anything nearly as horrific (theirs was a protest against an Israeli team being allowed to compete), but are defending against the cross of football hooligans and an utterly vile and racist ideology (Zionism) that's being manifested. It's really not that hard.
This whole time, you've tried to frame things as though both parties are equally too blame, when clearly this is not the case. As always, it's been disproportionately Zionist aggression and hate; the ideology had bred nothing but that since it's inception.
And not quite, the modern population of Israel are mostly European and fairly distantly related to the natives of the Levant.
infmz-
And no, the modern population of Israel are mostly European and quite distantly related to the natives of the Levant.
The point about ethnicity is that both sides claim the land is rightfully theirs and the other side are invaders, while ethnically all the peoples who originally lived there were the same, whatever their religion. The largest Jewish ethnic group in Israel, about 40% to 45% of the country’s total population, is called Mizrahi, which means “Eastern” in Hebrew. Mizrahi Jews’ ancestors hailed from Jewish communities in the Middle East, including Israel itself. Of course nobody's ethnicity gives a person more right to live somewhere than anybody else, my point is that in this conflict "ethnicity" as a reason to hate the other side is largely a social construct.
On equality of blame: hate requires hate to perpetuate. Ascribing blame to one side only never de-escalates, and won't help resolve the spilling over of violence into cities hundreds of miles away from the conflict.
The Mayor of Amsterdam has said that organised gangs were searching out Israelis and attacking them, quite separately from the violence and protests near the stadium.
William.
It is one of the tragedies of the conflict that the two sides are ethnically similar and yet their hatred is based on ethnicity. The attacks were the definition of racism, based where people had come from. An attack can be racist even if you are wrong about the race of the victim, for e.g calling a Moroccan a Hamas supporter, or calling a Ukranian a Jew, both of which happened during the violence in Amsterdam.
Racist Israelis use Hamas as an excuse to attack all supporters of Palestine and all people from arab countries, whom they hate regardless of what Hamas does. And there are people who use the actions of the Israeli state as an excuse because they hate anyone Jewish or from Israel because of who they are. Both can be true without diminishing the other, in fact they are co-dependant.