Israel Matzav

Israeli victims in Belgium were targeted for 'intelligence work'?

Haaretz is reporting that two Israelis who were killed in Saturday's terror attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum may have been specifically targeted due to their 'intelligence work.' Since Haaretz is behind a paywall, this is from the London Daily Telegraph.

"It's possible that the murder in Brussels was not a hate crime or an anti-Semitic attack, but a targeted assault ... a battle in a covert war, though perhaps there was a misidentification of the intended victims," [Amir Oren] wrote in Haaretz.

But he denied they were spies, and described their tools as "numbers and computers, not cloaks and daggers."

"Both were accountants who were employed separately by government bodies."

Mr Riva, 54, had worked in the finance ministry as well as at an organisation called Nativ – which was founded in the 1950s to covertly encourage Jewish education in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and to drive immigration to Israel. Once accused by the KGB of spying, Nativ falls under the remit of the prime minister's office.

Now Nativ's mission is to encourage immigration to Israel among Russian-speaking Jews living in western Europe, particularly in Germany.

His wife Miriam, 53, worked for an unspecified "government agency," Haaretz said.

"There, and also when she was stationed at one of the agency's missions in Europe, her post was solely administrative.

"She wasn't Mata Hari," it added, referring to the Dutch-born dancer, seductress and spy who was executed by a French firing squad during World War I. 

...

The Israeli defence ministry denied the couple had been working for them, while the prime minister's office declined to comment on the report.

Hmmm.

Labels: Belgium, European anti-Semitism, Islamic terrorism, Mossad

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:33 PM