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Israel prefers right wing over radical Islam in Europe

The shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels coupled with the rise of the extreme right in recent EU elections brings the “new anti-Semitism” into Israeli public discourse, though the context of these two events might hide another reality.
A police tape is seen over the entrance of the Jewish Museum, the site of a shooting incident, in central Brussels, May 25, 2014. Two women and a man were killed and one person seriously injured during a shooting at the Jewish Museum in central Brussels on Saturday, with Belgian officials saying anti-Semitic motives could not be ruled out.        REUTERS/Eric Vidal (BELGIUM  - Tags: CRIME LAW) - RTR3QQRS

On May 24, an unidentified person wearing a baseball cap and carrying two large bags walked into the Jewish museum in Brussels. Pulling out a gun, he shot and killed four people and fled the scene. The common turn of phrase “the police are hunting him down” is inaccurate, because the police in Belgium do not have any lead and have no idea who to run after or where. The man appears to have vanished into thin air.

Two of the people killed in this deadly rampage were an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv, Emmanuel and Mira Riva, ages 54 and 53 respectively. According to various accounts, they were on vacation, celebrating their wedding anniversary. The other victims were a volunteer at the museum and one of its employees. The Belgian authorities called it a “hate crime” and Belgian police officials say it had the hallmarks of an “anti-Semitic crime.”

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