A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a claim that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication.
"They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning
Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article. (Click
here for the original article in Swedish)
The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israel Defense Forces, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs.
"'Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,' relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied," writes author Donald Boström in his report.
Boström's article makes a link to the recent exposure of an alleged crime syndicate in New Jersey. The syndicate includes several American rabbis, and one Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who faces charges of conspiring to broker the sale of a human kidney for a transplant. (Click
here for the opinion piece in Swedish)
Boström also cites an incident of alleged organ snatching from 1992, during the time of the first Palestinian intifada. He says that the IDF seized a young man known for throwing stones at Israeli troops in the Nablus area, who was shot in the chest, both legs, and the stomach before being taken to a military helicopter which transported him to "a place unknown to his loved ones".
Five nights later, Boström says, the young man's body was returned, wrapped in green hospital sheets.
"The sharp sounds from the shovels were mixed with the occasional laughter from the soldiers who were joking with each other, waiting to go home. When Bilal was put into his grave, his chest was revealed and suddenly it became clear to the present what abuse he had been put through. Bilal was far from the only one who was buried cut-up from his stomach to his chin and the speculations about the reason why had already started," he writes.
But the liberal
Sydsvenskan - southern Sweden's major daily - had harsh criticism for the rival paper, running an opinion piece under the headline "Antisemitbladet" (a play on the name
Aftonbladet).
"We have heard the story before, in one form or the other. It follows the traditional pattern of conspiracy theory: a great number of loose threads that the theorist tempts the reader to tie into a neat knot without having been provided with any proven connection whatsoever," writes leading columnist Mats Skogkär of
Sydsvenskan."Whispers in the dark. Anonymous sources. Rumors. That is all it takes. After all we all know what they [the Jews] are like, don't we: inhuman, hardened. Capable of anything," the opinion piece says. "Now all that remains is the defense, equally predictable: 'Anti-Semitism' No, no, just criticism of Israel."
The Foreign Ministry reacted angrily on Tuesday to the report. Ministry spokesperson Yigal Palmor said the newspaper's decision to publish the story is "a mark of disgrace" for the Swedish press.
"In a democratic country, there should be no place for dark blood libels out of the Middle Ages of this type," Palmor said. "This is an article that shames Swedish democracy and the entire Swedish press."
A Foreign Ministry official said that Israel's embassy in Stockholm have communicated a harsh condemnation to the Swedish government and the newspaper itself.
Comment: Why is it that the idea that some section of Israeli government or society would be
profiting from the sale of organs of Palestinians is decried as anti-semitic?
Is the truth anti-semitic?
The IDF attack on Gaza early this year showed the world clearly that IDF forces can kill and maim Palestinians with impunity. So if some section of Israeli society had a market for human organs, it would seem natural for such types to see the opportunity to enrich themselves under cover of an Israeli military operation.
The problem however is that the Israeli governments crimes are so grevious, that no criticism whatsoever can be contenanced for fear that the full truth might leak out. Hence the cover all nonsensical defences of "anti-semitism" and "blood libel".
Israel, as everyone knows is squeaky clean when it comes to trafficking of all sorts of things:
ISRAEL: Still a destination for human trafficking
TEL AVIV, 18 June 2009 - The latest US State Department report on trafficked persons, released on 16 June, says Israel is still a destination for men and women trafficked for forced labour and sexual exploitation.
Women from the former Soviet Union and China are still being trafficked across the border with Egypt into Israel for forced prostitution by organized criminal groups.
When considered in the context of the totality of Israeli effect on Palestine, IDF and criminal Israeli harvesting of Palestinian organs is pretty far down the list of Israel's worst crimes against the Palestinian people.
Interesting choice of words to beat Aftonbladet with, given that the paper is reporting that actual, real, 3D organs are being harvested by the Israeli death machine.