On Saturday, May 24, a lone gunman walked into the entrance of the Jewish Museum in Brussels and opened fire with a Kalashnikov assault rifle. Three people, including an Israeli tourist couple—Mira and Emmanuel Riva—and Dominique Sabrier, a French woman volunteer at the museum, were immediately killed in the attack. A fourth shooting victim, Alexandre Strens, a Belgian employee of the museum, died the following day.
Emmanuel reportedly worked as a covert agent for Nativ, a little-known Israeli agency that promoted emigration to Israel from the Soviet Union. Nativ, along with Mossad and Shin Bet, reported directly to the Prime Minister’s Office.
Initial reports by the Belgian VTM news agency that Belgian authorities arrested the suspected gunman turned out to be false.
The museum, which was open on the Jewish Sabbath, is in the Sablon district of Brussels, the home to a number of dealers of expensive antiques.
The shooting took place as Europeans began voting for members of the European Parliament. A number of neo-Nazi and fascist parties fielded candidates. European leaders such as French President Francois Hollande, immediately used the attack for political purposes to condemn those who would vote for anti-EU nationalist parties accused of anti-Semitism. In the European election, the French National Front, which has eschewed its former anti-Semitic trappings, came in first in the vote count, beating the Socialists and the conservative party of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The attack on the museum also came as Pope Francis I was due to arrive in the Holy Land, including a stop in Palestine.
French and Middle East sources have expressed shock that such an attack could have been carried out in broad daylight without any suspect or suspects being arrested. There are suspicions that the attack may have been the work of any number of intelligence operations interested in providing a pre-election “black eye” to parties such as the National Front in France and other xenophobic right-wing parties to cost them votes in the election. However, if the attack on the museum was a false flag operation, it not only had no effect on the election but the National Front of France and Danish People’s Party had first place victories. And if it was a false flag operation in order to generate abhorrence for the European far right, four people needlessly died because the attack had no effect on either the European electorate or Pope Francis’s support for the State of Palestine.
Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.
Copyright © 2014 WayneMadenReport.com
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and nationally-distributed columnist. He is the editor and publisher of the Wayne Madsen Report (subscription required).
Yeah, right.