Reader Post: Undercover Douche – Richard Silverstein Strikes Again

The deadly attack in the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, caused widespread shock in Jewish communities worldwide and widespread shock in Belgium as well as the neighboring Netherlands.

The victims are an Israeli couple, a French woman and a Belgian man. Upon hearing that two Israelis had been murdered in the shooting, Dickie Silverstein of course couldn’t resist this excellent opportunity to smear Israel.

He starts his first post on the subject in typical Doucheblogger fashion: an anonymous source told him that both Israelis worked for the Mossad which could have potentially made them a target.

Israeli Murdered in Brussels Worked for Mossad

An Israeli source confirms a rumor that has circulated in Israeli media circles, that one of the Israelis murdered at the Jewish museum in Brussels worked for the Mossad.  Emanuel and Miriam Riva were both accountants.  He worked for an Israeli government agency called Nativ.  It works among Jews from the eastern bloc and encourages them to make aliyah.  During the Cold War, when Israel worked clandestinely to bring Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel, Nativ had a direct pipeline to Israeli intelligence.  Miriam Riva worked for the Mossad.  As far as my source knows, neither of them was an agent.  So it appears that they were not targeted because of her involvement with the Mossad (though that still remains a possibility).

User Eric Fux correctly raises the objection:

After killing the Israeli couple, the gunman went inside the Museum to murder the Museum receptionist and a Museum volunteer, no doubt also Mossad agents?

To which Dickie Silverstein, with his sloppy fact checking, responds:

@ Eric Fux: You know no more than the rest of us what happened and in what order victims were shot.

According  to De Morgen:

Omdat daar zijn eerste twee dode slachtoffers liggen, een Israëlisch koppel. (…)Hij valt de ruimte rechts, waar de balie ligt, meteen met gestrekte rechterarm binnen, schijnbaar met een klein handwapen. Hij hurkt en komt recht met een kalasjnikov. Hij vuurt en zet een paar stappen achteruit. Vrijwilligster Dominique Chabrier (60) en museummedewerker Alexandre Strens (24) worden buiten beeld neergekogeld.

Translation (by no means the most eloquent):

There [close to the entrance] lie his first two victims, an Israeli couple. (…) He goes with his right arm extended seemingly with a small hand rifle to the room on the right where the information & admission is located. He squats and then goes on with a Kalashnikov. He fires while taking a few steps backward. Volunteer Dominique Chabrier (60) and museum employee Alexandre Strens (24) were both gunned down.

I first thought that Dickie’s problem (or rather one among his many problems) is that he can’t read Dutch (or French as this is the other local language), and that he doesn’t have any “source” or contact who understands Dutch or French. But given that user Emma also mentions press releases, I can’t help but get the impression there must have been news in English about the order the victims were shot. Only investigative journalist Dickie Silverstein didn’t read it.

But this of course wasn’t enough for Dickie. He wrote another post entitled Brussels Terror Attack and Mossad Connection, where he linked to what he thinks is the homepage of the Israeli Embassy in Germany.

Brussels Terror Attack and Mossad Connection

Yesterday, I broke the story that the Rivas, an Israeli couple murdered in the Brussels Jewish museum terror attack, worked for agencies with connections to Israeli intelligence.  Miriam worked for the Mossad and Emanuel for Nativ, a unit that encourages aliyah from Eastern European countries (including Russia).  Thanks to reader Bluebird, who discovered that the Israeli embassy website in Germany lists Miriam Riva as an “attache” who worked there since 2007.  My Israeli source informed me that they were both accountants.

There are several things wrong with the supposed homepage of the Israeli Embassy in Germany. The first thing is that there is a raffle for flight tickets to Tel Aviv (see top right corner “Flug nach Tel Aviv zu gewinnen”). The cloud tag on the right includes the tags “budget flights to Israel” (“Billigflüge nach Israel”) and “car hire” (“Mietwagen”). That just doesn’t fit well with an embassy homepage. The second thing is the URL itself. It reads “Discover Israel” and just ends with “.de” for Germany.

For a comparison here’s the URL for the correct homepage: http://embassies.gov.il/berlin/Pages/default.aspx

The word “embassy” is included and it ends with “.gov.il” for an Israeli governmental institution or organisation.

Even if Silverstein or any of his “sources” or contacts can’t read German, the URL should have been a tell-tale sign that he had the wrong address.

His second post then goes on to the familiar path that his Israeli source confirmed to him the Israeli couple worked as an attaché at the embassy (though strangely enough neglected telling him that he had the wrong URL/homepage). In a flash of delusional grandeur, he also claims that he, Dickie Silverstein, broke the story about the two Israelis having worked for Israeli agencies or institutions, despite the fact the Belgian media on the very same day had already mentioned such rumors.

The unstoppable investigative journalist Silverstein then recaps what had been written in an Ha’aretz article and finishes it off with the following statement:

He also declares that based on the video footage and other factors the attack appears to have been a “professional” job rather than a disgruntled lone gunman.

You may already have guessed that there’s the next problem: Belgian authorities had stated on the 25th of May that based on their (early) investigation, the perpetrator likely had acted alone. But why should Belgian Police be trusted if the Doucheblogger says otherwise?

What Silverstein neglects to mention in both his posts covering the shooting is that there is a possibility the perpetrator had a camera strapped to his chest to film the blood bath – just like Islamist murderer Mohammed Merah had when he went on a killing spree in France.

So to summarise Dickie’s hypothesis, which at hardly any point appears to touch reality: a group of people (contrary to Belgian investigations) who are merely anti-Israel or anti-Mossad stumble across a homepage about tourism in Israel, mistaking it for the official embassy homepage, nominate a person to carry out the attack, use the opportunity of Israelis visiting a museum in a lively tourist area shortly before the European elections, shoot dead the Israelis and then murder a volunteer and a museum employee because they don’t like Israeli politics.

I can’t say I’m particularly surprised Silverstein seized this opportunity to spread his agenda, even though the error frequency is high even by his standards. What I found mindblowing was the amount of arrogance he employed: He’s so self-assured, he doesn’t even double-check his conclusions with what news the police released and doesn’t see any problem with the fact his conclusions directly contradict the information provided by the police. But in his opinion, he has to be right, and everyone who disagrees with him must be wrong, even if it is the police force investigating the crime.

Last but not least (and not related to Dickie’s slopppiness): If you are a member of the public and would like to express your sympathy, please email: [email protected]

Aussie Dave adds: Besides the sloppiness, let’s not ignore his whole reaction to this despicable crime: to imply the victims had it coming and blame it on Israel.

Contrary to what some pro-Israel readers might say, this is not a justification for terror. It is a recognition that some in the Middle East believe in the principle of blood for blood (Israel certainly does). If one side sheds blood, then the other will do the same. This is a principle that, unfortunately, seems programmed into the region’s DNA. It will only stop when Israel drops the idea that it can get what it wants without paying a price; when Israel understands that it must reach a peace agreement with its neighbors and that to do so it will have to give up things that it may hold sacred (as will the other side)

Not that he hasn’t reacted like this to terror attacks before.

15 thoughts on “Reader Post: Undercover Douche – Richard Silverstein Strikes Again”

  1. When Jews are murdered, Richard Silverstein rushes to rationalize it (‘if one side sheds blood, then the other will do the same” and then blithely blames Israel.

    When Arabs are killed — even if it is not clear why the Arabs died or who killed them — Richard Silverstein shows no such pretense of “balance” — instead spewing hate-generating verbiage like ” Israeli war crimes and cold-blooded murders of Palestinians .. foul crime” (these are but some of his words on the topic last week after the Betunia incident).

    He is not without talent as a writer — but he is, unfortunately, without scruples or a shred of intellectual honesty.

    1. Indeed. Whenever Jews are killed, even innocent civilians, he is very cold and calculating, but when even a Muslim terrorist is killed in warfare his angry rhetoric and vitriol goes into overdrive.

  2. I imagine that Dickie on the other hand is extremely protective and jealous for the rights of European Muslims, no matter what happens in the Middle East and Muslim world

      1. the original arrest wasn’t the suspect was arrested for another case but he apparently fits with what the police expects the gunman to be like.
        (It jsst sounds too good to be true that they by pure chance can arrest someone responsible for two crimes but i really would that the shooter is now off the streets)

        thanks for the compliment about my break down. In a way I was anticipating that Silverstein would not take any critique aboard. But then again there was a glimpse of hope that maybe he at least would be willing to look at one or two points especialyl under the circumstances. But clearly not.

        The best one is Felix who states that the day before yesterday the tourism homepage had some statement that made it clear that homepage is connected with the embassy. but now they’re only promiting tourism which is the same as the embassy does.
        So in other words: I’m right yet I am still not right.

        1. Any updates on the investigation? Western media (that I’ve read) seems to have dropped the story.

          1. yupp. The suspect is released.
            Unfortunately it seems that the killer is still running free.

            The only local updates here are images of the gunman in high quality alongside repeated appeals for the public to come forward if they happen to know anything remotely related to the incident.

            Other news stories just cover the hightened security at Jewish insitutions.

            Also by word of mouth: some Dutch synagogues are also stepping up on their security.

            1. ok, good news: Austrian paper reported that the gunman was arrested in France.
              he was in posession of an Islamist flag

  3. Kim: great breakdown & it’s unfortunate that Richard chose to attack you rather than respond to your legitimate issues w/ his reporting.

  4. His Douchebagality is still at it – now the “proof” that the murdered couple were Mossadnikim is that a government minister attended their funeral, and that their jobs are listed as under the PM Office. Right. That’s enough to catalog anyone as a Mossad operative!
    His delusion knows no bounds.

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