 Beginning in the 1980s, fans of Ajax's rivals escalated their antisemitic rhetoric, chanting slogans like "Hamas, Hamas/Jews to the gas" ("Hamas, hamas, joden aan het gas"), hissing to imitate the flow of gas, giving Nazi salutes, etc.The eventual result was that many (genuinely) Jewish Ajax fans stopped going to games.In the 2000s the club began trying to persuade fans to drop their Jewish image, yet have achieved no success in this pursuit.