Charging a mainstream media outlet with anti-Semitism is not something that we do lightly. Sometimes, however, an article appears that is so outrageous that we have to question the motivation or agenda behind the writer and the media that chooses to publish it.
Ha’aretz reports:
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 Bostrm in his report.
Bostrm’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. …
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 Skogkr 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.”
Read full coverage of this story in Ha’aretz.
This latest blood libel joins an all too long list of false charges and accusations against Israel and the IDF and would not look out of place on a neo-Nazi website or the pages of the infamous Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
While this article may have been published in Swedish, previous experience shows that even such outlandish stories take on a life of their own as translations appear on the Internet preserved for Israel’s enemies to dig up in the battle to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state.
Even though credible rebuttals may appear, as was the case with the Jenin “massacre” and The Independent’s “secret uranium bombs” (see HonestReporting’s Big Lies interactive resource), these stories continue to fester online and, sadly, it is likely to be the case with Aftonbladet’s disgraceful article.
Such a disgusting excuse for journalism is bound to create outrage. While understandable, we ask that your e-mails to Aftonbladet’s Editor-in-Chief Jan Helin – [email protected] – are as considered as possible under the circumstances and do not descend to the gutter level that this “newspaper” has sunk. Demand a retraction and an apology so that this story does not go unchallenged and unanswered.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH: CREDIBILITY CONTINUES TO DIVE
HRW’s credibility has taken a pounding in recent weeks as details of fundraising in Saudi Arabia have come to light. Now, Ma’ariv has published a devastating expose of Joe Stork, the author of HRW’s latest report. Stork has a long history of support for Israel’s destruction and Palestinian terrorism. Noah Pollak translates the Ma’ariv piece in full, which includes the following revelation:
Stork reached his peak in a statement published by the Middle East Research and Information Project, which dealt with gathering information on the Middle East conflict, and in which Stork was a leading figure. This was a statement that included explicit support for the murder of the eleven Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics:
“Munich and similar actions cannot create or substitute for a mass revolutionary movement,” the statement said, “But we should comprehend the achievement of the Munich action…It has provided an important boost in morale among Palestinians in the camps.”
Murder and terrorism, if so, are a matter of morale.
This is the man. A radical Marxist whose positions have not changed over the years.
Yet, the media continues to treat such personalities and the organizations that they represent as credible beacons of universal human rights, insulated from scrutiny and regarded as above reproach. Can HRW’s credibility sink any lower? How can mainstream media outlets continue to trust any reports that HRW publishes?
Indeed, only days after making a half-hearted effort at “balance” by criticizing Hamas, HRW reverted to form with the publication of yet another anti-Israel report authored by Joe Stork. This time HRW accuses the IDF of killing 11 Palestinian civilians who were “waving white flags” during the Gaza conflict.
ustify>The serious charge of deliberately targeting non-combatants is taken apart by NGO Monitor’s response while the IDF has released a video of aerial footage of a Hamas terrorist using civilians waving a white flag to try to evade IDF soldiers.
