Police are investigating the smashing of the windows of a kosher restaurant in a heavily Jewish part of the Dutch capital by a man wearing a Palestinian flag.
The incident at HaCarmel restaurant occurred on Thursday, the day after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The man who was holding a Palestinian flag, had a large stick and wearing a Palestinian keffiyah scarf on his head smashed the window and kicked down the restaurant’s doors as passersby and two police officers look on.
In the video, the officers wait as the man breaks into the restaurant and then returns to the street holding an Israeli flag that he took from inside, which he throws at their feet. They then finally overpower and arrest him.
Police said the man, which a spokesperson defined as a “pro-Palestinian activist,” was 29-year-old foreigner with a temporary residence permit. Police would not indicate his nationality, the WNL television channel reported. The suspect is scheduled to be released Wednesday as per the maximum detainment period afforded by the law for suspects arrested for alleged vandalism, WNL reported.
Herman Loonstein, who heads Federative Jewish Netherlands, said the incident at HaCarmel happened when no patrons were inside the restaurant and ended without injury. “But it is nonetheless an attack, a terrorist attack, carried out by a man whose behavior was that of a terrorist,” he told JTA.
“Jerusalem is recognized as the capital by the United States of America, so the windows of an Israeli restaurant in Amsterdam are smashed.” Federative Jewish Netherlands wrote on Twitter.
“Shocking! It is unbelievable that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is playing out here, and against the Jewish Dutch community,” the Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, the Dutch Jewish community’s watchdog on anti-Semitic incidents, tweeted.
Last year, a Jewish woman, Victoria Waniewicz, was stabbed in the back outside another Amsterdam kosher restaurant, the Grand Cafe Rimon, by a Brazilian man whom a judge deemed unfit to stand trial because of insanity and who was hospitalized in a psychiatric institution of his choosing for one year.
Loonstein said that the incident at HaCarmel for many Dutch Jews compounds a growing fear about frequenting kosher restaurants following the Grand Café Rimon stabbing. “I know this to be the reality, and there was also a dip in the revenues of the café where the stabbing occurred. It has improved but I expect the new attack will only increase community members’ fear,” he said.
Police beefed up their presence around the restaurant and other Jewish institutions in the capital following the incident, according to Federative Jewish Netherlands.
