The shooting dead of four people at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on Saturday was “the result of constant incitement against Jews and their state,” according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel.
“Slander and lies against the State of Israel continue to be heard on European soil even as the crimes against humanity and acts of murder being perpetrated in our region are systematically ignored. Our response to this hypocrisy is to constantly state the truth, continue a relentless fight against terrorism and build up our strength,” Netanyahu said, according to a report in the Jerusalem Post.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman also blamed anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli incitement for inspiring the attack.
European Jewish leaders are already comparing the attack to the 2012 massacre at the Ozar HaTorah school in Toulouse, France, when four people, including three children, were killed at a Jewish school by a French-Algerian Islamist.
Police have not yet arrested a suspect in the Saturday afternoon shooting, when three people were killed immediately and a fourth victim later died. However, this evening they published pictures from video surveillance cameras apparently showing the gunman.
Belgian authorities are treating the attack as racially-motivated. The interior minister, Joëlle Milquet, said: “It’s a shooting at the Jewish Museum. All of this can lead to suspicions of an act of anti-Semitism.”
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