Swedish Article Suggesting Israeli Troops Kill Palestinians, Harvest Organs Infuriates Israel

JERUSALEM — Israel and the Swedish Embassy responded furiously Wednesday to a Swedish newspaper article that suggested Israeli troops killed Palestinians and harvested their organs.

The article published Monday in Aftonbladet, Sweden's largest circulation daily, implies a link between those charges and the recent arrest in the U.S. of an American Jew for illicit organ trafficking. Later the reporter told Israel Radio he did not know if the allegations were true

Headlined "Our sons are plundered for their organs," the story made news in Israel, where some commentators compared it to medieval libels that Jews killed Christian children for their blood. Daniel Seaman, who heads Israel's government press office, said the article played on "vile anti-Semitic themes."

The article was illustrated with a photograph of a dead Palestinian man with a line of surgical stitches running the length of his torso, apparently taken after an autopsy, as well as pictures of stone-throwing youths and Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a New York resident arrested in an FBI sting last month and charged with plotting to buy a kidney from an Israeli and sell it to an American patient for $160,000.

The writer, Donald Bostrom, based the story on accounts from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza whom he identified only by their first names. It quotes an Israeli military spokesman denying the charges and saying that Palestinians killed by Israeli forces are routinely subjected to autopsies.

Interviewed on Israel Radio on Wednesday, Bostrom said he was worried by the allegations he reported but could not vouch for their accuracy.

"It concerns me, to the extent that I want it to be investigated, that's true. But whether it's true or not – I have no idea, I have no clue," he told the station.

Aftonbladet Editor Jan Helin said, "The article poses a question – why has this body been autopsied when the cause of death is obvious? There I think Israeli authorities owe us an answer."

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Israeli legal expert Moshe Negbi said that according to Israeli law, "Autopsies are immediately performed after every unnatural death, and this is true for most other countries as well."

Helin also objected to what he called "the hate campaign that has been expressed in e-mails to me and the editorial office, but also through Israeli media."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, "This piece is so blatantly racist and can induce to hate crimes in such a way that we think authorities need to take care of the matter."

In a statement Wednesday, the Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv said the article was "as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as it is to Israeli citizens."

In Stockholm, the Swedish Foreign Ministry distanced itself from that statement. "We obviously don't think it is great to comment on what is written in the media," ministry spokesman Anders Jorle told The Associated Press.

In Sweden, the article drew a critical editorial from a rival daily, Sydsvenskan, which said it followed the "usual template of a conspiracy theory."

Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Benny Dagan, said the piece did not indicate a climate of general hostility toward Israel.

"It's certain elements," he told Israel Radio. "It's not all Sweden or mainstream Sweden or the Swedish parliament."

_____

Associated Press Writer Malin Rising reported from Stockholm.

Comments

[apolloguide]

They do this since 1967 war. It is thoroughly documented and now there are FBI tapes which have them telling how they have to "schmear" public officials in Israel and the US to get the harvested organs to the Jews who buy them for $160,000.00. Wow ! What Chutzpa. What family !

[propaganda must die]

If there is m0ney to be made, there is no telling what these people who claim to be chosen by g0d will do. We know there is 0rgan tr@fficking going on, and that m0ney is 1aundered through 1srae1. why is it a stretch to think that this is more widespread than we thought?

[BilltheLizard]

The article is anti-semitic. Not because it's accusing Israel of something bad, but because it's based more on stereotypical lies and myths, such as Jewish conspiracy and blood libel nonsense, than on minimal journalistic standards. It's akin to an article accusing Swedes of stealing young men to satsify their oversexed women, like this one: http://oddballtheatre.com/Swedishwomen.html

[LincolnParkChicago]

There is an extensive article on this subject in Counterpunch that is worth reading. Complete with names and dates and footnotes. It is in English. The conclusion is that an investigation is not just warranted but long overdue. Israeli Organ Harvesting By ALISON WEIR http://www.counterpunch.org/weir08282009.html

[oferdesade]

i'm not worried by the story - anyone who knows anything about transplants knows it's ridiculous; i'm not worried about the palestinians making stuff up (before the 2nd intifada they were certain that sharon was planning to blow up al aksa); i can understand some swedish tabloid publishing it to boost readership; hell, i can even understand how the editor let it through (nowadays it's enuf to spread your legs to get ANY kind of job).

what bothers me is the fact that the journalist - daniel bostrom - receives stipends from swedish front line museums and backing from their foreign office for his books.

Once again, one can do all kinds of things and "know" all kinds of people to get money; but the fact that the swedish establishment seems to honor him openly means that they're staffed by a bunch of Ingvar Kamprad clones.

(for anyone who didn't know - kamprad, the father of IKEA, was an active nazi well after the 2nd world war.

now i know i'm doing what everyone expects - screaming anti-s, blood libel, etc. but sometimes you gotta do wot you gotta do!

[blindlemon]

Heh, methinks somebody doth protest too much!

[oferdesade]

maybe if we'd protested more in 1939 there'd be 6 mil. more of us...
or do you consider that a problem?

[propaganda must die]

"You" were not the only ones who died in that war. There were about 40 million deaths. Stop begging for pity, unless you with to be considered pitiful.

[shmuli]

if the philistines were harvesting body parts, they would not be able to charge any money, becuase they don't know anything about medicine.

[lkim65]

What I would like to know is why are Israeli's doing autopsies on Palestinians? Are they taking the bodies back into Israel? They shouldn't be taking any bodies back to Israel except for their own citizens...

[oferdesade]

maybe it wasn't an autopsy? maybe someone cut the kid open to perform direct heart massage? do you have any problems with medical treatment of enemy agents?

[lkim65]

What I would like to know is why are Israeli's doing autopsies on Palestinians? Are they taking the bodies back into Israel? WTF? They shouldn't be taking any bodies back to Israel except for their own citizens...

[blindhog]

What the truly rich do with and for their money should not surprise anyone! What is happening in the United States is testament to that.

Today on C-span, a fairly young well coiffed former pyschiatrist at Yale, now at the American Enterprise Institute and apparently not destitute (OH, way the way, we poor taxpayers making $20,000 and even less paid for her kidney transplant because medicare takes care of that for uber rich too--crazy, huh?) is espousing paying people for their organs. Not in cash, of course (heck the greed mongers in the sewers of wall street don't have as easy access to the money that way).

Now, can you see any millionaire donating his kidney to a stranger anytime soon? I don't think so!!!!!!!!­!!!!!!!!!!­!! We all know it will be the destitute, the taxpayers and dying service people who have already paid the price for the wealthy to have their wealth with destroyed unions, lower wages, outsourced jobs, financially inaccessible quality elementary, secondary and higher education, foreclosed homes, no jobs, .

Isn't it a wonder what our once beautiful and proud country has become????­??????????­!!!!!!!!!!­!

[FCBarca]

Israel is infuriated but still guilty

[wayneliz]

Regardless of your attitude towards Israel, whether you love them, hate them, or just don't care, this story is ridiculous. Anyone who has a slight knowledge of the procedures involved in organ transplanting know that battlefield conditions are not the place for harvesting. Tissue for skin grafts or cornea transplants would be possible, but not organs. One does not have to reason very much to see the bitter slander in this story.
RN.

[mbe03]

Papers write all kinds of shit, not just in Sweden, but in all countries with democracy and freedom of speech. Futhermore the article doesnt acctually claim that Israel soldiers are removing organs, it only hints that might be the case.

The question raised in the article was why a body, of a dead palistinian soldier, who was seen being picked up by Iraeli soldiers was later found with the torso opened.

If the people actully bothered to read the article they would get a different view on this story.

[EastAsia]

This story is on the same level as the "Batboy" and "Alien abduction" stories in tabloids. If the reporter thought the story was true he should investigate and bring evidence. Casual slander like this has no place in a real newspaper.

False stories like this can cause unstable people to go out and commit crimes. Slander like this is the moral equivalent of random bloodshed.

[1TruthTeller]

The problem is that so many of Israel's other denials, like using white phosphorus, firing on UN locations, firing on civilians carrying white flags, have been proven lies, nobody trusts them now!

[LincolnParkChicago]

The Swedes used to be the Progressive conscience of Europe and the West. They took the US to task over Viet Nam and have been at the forefront of so many wonderful innitiatives. To see them now denounced in this way is shocking.
It makes me wonder how this could be.
But, if what I read and hear is correct, then antisemitism and blood libel can come from the most unexpected places. Like the Areil Toaff, Pasque di Sangue, affair.
"Ariel Toaff is a professor of Medieval and Renaissance History at Bar Ilan University. He is the son of Elio Toaff, a former Chief Rabbi of Rome." His book was denounced as blood libel and he was forced to recant and withdraw his book. (Recant. Didn't the medieval church make Copernicus and Galileo recant.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel_Toaff
It makes one wonder what is going on. I don't know what to believe.