Was There An Attempt To Kill Sarkozy In Tel Aviv on Tuesday?

Submitted by tomsyl on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 1:58pm. Tags:

Foreign Affairs

This one is very murky, with what amounts to a virtual news blackout in the press. The official story is that an Israeli policeman shot himself near French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy as he and his wife were about to board a plane to leave Tel Aviv on Tuesday. Sarkozy had been visiting Israel on a good will mission, hoping to rebuild ties that had languished during France's liberal governments and eruptions of Antisemitism in that country.

The gunshot(s) are not audible on the videotape of the event, which barely shows the Prime Minister himself and closes with a shot of Sarkozy's wife, wife, Carla Bruni, fleeing up the stairs of their Airbus as Israeli PR Olmert is hustled into a waiting car.

According to the Israelis, the security guard, a 32 year old Israeli citizen named Raeed Ghanem, committed suicide with his own gun at the moment Sarkozy was in the open before boarding his plane. Gunshot residue was found on his hands and head, but Ghanem's family has already questioned that story, and the Druze religion, unlike greater Islam, prohibits suicide.

Versions of the event vary, particularly with regard to the distance between the dead guard and Sarkozy, which vary from 100 meters (an routine shot with a rifle) to "several hundred meters".

It's surprising that a potential assassination attempt on a foreign head of state is receiving so little press and no investigation. If anyone here has more information, please share it. This is certainly a story that is worth watching.

UPDATES: From Haaretz datelined June 25: The dead soldier was stationed on a rooftop 200 meters from Sarkozy and was armed with an M-16. Anyone who's fired that gun knows it is reasonably accurate at that range and has very little recoil, allowing follow-up shots. I've shot an M-16 at the rifle range at 100 yards with reasonable accuracy, and believe that even I could hit a target of that size at twice that distance. And when was the last time you heard of someone committed suicide with a rifle? Now the story seems to be that the soldier fell at the exact moment Sarkozy was in the open and his rifle discharged accidentally, hitting him in the head. Possible? I suppose. Sarkozy had this to say while in Tel Aviv:

He also spoke strongly against the Iranian nuclear threat. "A nuclear Iran is intolerable," Sarkozy told the lawmakers. "Anyone trying to destroy Israel will find France blocking the way."

The Jerusalem Post's article of June 24 is still calling it a suicide, but points out that that characterization came from the Shin Bet.

This video shows more of the aftermath after the shot was fired. Curiously, Sarkozy takes his time going up the airplane stairs with his back exposed, almost as if the guards accompanying him didn't think taking cover was urgent. Peres seems to be taking his time getting into his armored limo as well, even though this was still just seconds after the shot was fired.
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In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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It's a long shot. (#100633)

by Jordan on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 5:00pm

Literally, with iron sights. You'd think a determined assassin would either get closer for a confirmed kill, or use a scoped rifle at greater range for a chance at a getaway. Sounds like a suicide...pretty eyebrow-raising circumstances though.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

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Well, first the sights are calibrated well past 200 yards IIRC (#100641)

by tomsyl on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 5:20pm

not that that means a lot, since Colt claims a 500 yard range for the gun. And second, he was stationed on a rooftop, suggesting he was on anti-sniper duty, so may have had an accurized, scoped version of the rifle, which supposedly can hit 1/4 MOA levels at 100 yards (that level of accuracy in that gun sounds like a stretch to me, though). Alternatively, if he was posing as just a military guard, he could hardly be carrying a Galil with a scope. But agreed, long shot with a .223, though certainly not with a .308.

Anyway, I love a good conspiracy so I'll spin this one out a bit: the guy was under suspicion and being watched, the single gunshot came from a counter-sniper, the autopsy was done under the "guidance" of Shin Bet, and no one in Israel wants anyone to know how close this guy came to getting off a shot at the French PM.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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It's doable, maybe a probable hit (#100643)

by Jordan on Mon, 06/30/2008 - 5:51pm

at that range with a capable person at the trigger...but assassins usually go for the guaranteed thing, competent ones anyhow, and I don't think anyone could guarantee a kill shot unless he had optics on the rifle.

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

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Good catch. (#100450)

by M Aurelius on Sat, 06/28/2008 - 10:06pm

This is one of those news stories where a totally BS explanation can work if you are sort of distracted, as I was, with your daily life.

Now that I think about it, thanks to you posting this, I see that the official presents some credibility challenges.

Of course not!

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FYI (#100226)

by HankP on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 9:17pm

most of the anti-Semitism in France doesn't come from the left.

I blame it all on the Internet

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I didn't remotely suggest that it did. (#100257)

by tomsyl on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 1:27pm

However, antisemitism in France has been broadly tolerated under various leftist regimes, including the last one (the one with the craftily grafty, soon to be indicted PM and his bouffant sidekick.) OTOH, lampoon Islam or -gasp!- the Prophet and you are D-E-D dead.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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No (#100183)

by Kierkegaard on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 5:29pm

As Peter Cook said of another politician in his comic revue "Good Night", Sarkozy "just isn't important enough to kill".

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cough cough Archduke Ferdinand cough cough nt (#100225)

by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 9:11pm

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Who was far less popular that Sarkozy (#100260)

by tomsyl on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 1:37pm

by contemporary accounts, though the celebration of Gavril Pricip Day in Austria remains just a rumor.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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Wasn't Cook stabbed by an angry audience of native (#100208)

by tomsyl on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 7:24pm

Polynesians who didn't understand his jokes? Or am I thinking of his brother?

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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You're confusing him (#100219)

by Kierkegaard on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 8:29pm

with the Rev. Stabbe, a missionary who was cooked by an angry audience of native Polynesians. A fate that might await Sarkozy, actually--only the Tahitians or Nouvelle Caledonians might think him important enough to kill.

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Quick, slick, and involving a pointy stick - the trifecta. (#100258)

by tomsyl on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 1:28pm

Neat.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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Maybe Someone. . . (#100175)

by M Scott Eiland on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 4:43pm

. . .decided it was time for a real-life redux of The Day of The Jackal--including the near-miss and the coverup of the attempt.

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we'll know that if wwe find Sarkozy's face on a melon exploded (#100176)

by tomsyl on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 4:47pm

by a rifle round, if I recall the book right.

Funny that no one in the press seems to be suggesting this may have be an attempt on Olmert's life.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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Who would bother assassinating a politician (#100177)

by brendanm98 on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 4:49pm

with a single-digit approval rating and no practical power?

Come, my friends. 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world -- Tennyson

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It was in the thirties last I saw. (#100206)

by tomsyl on Thu, 06/26/2008 - 7:21pm

But I'll take the question seriously; Unless Sarkozy's wife tore a Chanel dress on the runway, the only two targets present were him and Olmert. Sarkozy has said and done lots of things in France that have gotten Muslim immigrants there riled up. The dead man was a member of a Muslim-related splinter religion. The likelihood of someone joining the Israeli security forces and then committing suicide at that moment seem slim.

If the dead man was killed in the process of aiming a gun at either Sarkozy or Olmert, the Israelis would have various reasons to cover that up, not the least of which would be the chilling effect it might have on visits from foreign dignitaries. So I think there's enough here to at least spin some conspiracy theories. C'mon, don't let the facts get in your way.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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I'm game for conspiracy theories (#100256)

by dionysus on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 1:17pm

You need a better motive though, random druze guy is upset in solidarity with muslim algerians in the suburbs of paris? The druze and muslims kill each other in Lebanon.

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True, but nobody likes the French. (#100259)

by tomsyl on Fri, 06/27/2008 - 1:34pm

Plus, you're ignoring the String Cheese Incident.

Seriously, I was surprised to learn that the Druze religion is so closely related to Islam, as I had the impression that it had Christian elements.

Tensions between Muslim immigrants and the Sarkozy government were suggested as a possibility, not a probability. I don't pretend to understand many of the underlying tensions in that reason, but I'm struck by the fact that no one has suggested Olmert as a target. It's not as if Israelis haven't bumped off their own PM before.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.

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