You Can't Believe Everything You Read in the Swedish Press Either...

Wednesday, 19th August 2009

So, in addition to everything else the Israeli Defence Forces are organ-hunters, feasting on the livers and kidneys of murdered Palestinians? From Haaretz:

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.

The Swedish embassy in Tel Aviv has condemned the "report". Which is good and necessary. This is not an original accusation of course: the Serbs, if memory serves, made exactly the same claim about the Kosovars. That was nonsense then just as this is nonsense now.

Still, it's also worth observing that if we had proper organ markets - ie, if we were able to solve the organ shortage problem - then this particular sort of absurd libel would be too stupid for even stupid newspapers to publish.

[Via Mr Eugenides]

Filed under: Israel (104 more articles) , Markets (57 more articles) , Newspapers (382 more articles)

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ndm

August 19th, 2009 6:24pm Report this comment

Does this mean you missed the story about the three New Jersey Mayors, two state assemblyman and five rabbis?

-- It was replete with tales of the illegal sales of body parts; of furtive negotiations in diners, parking lots and boiler rooms; of nervous jokes about "patting down" a man who turned out to indeed be an informant; and, again and again, of the passing of cash - once in a box of Apple Jacks cereal stuffed with $97,000.

andy c

August 19th, 2009 11:19pm Report this comment

Are Palestinians Kosher?

Carson

August 20th, 2009 10:19am Report this comment

ndm,

You seem to be saying that because a couple of Jews in America

"accused of enticing vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 and then selling the organ for $160,000"

then somehow it is reasonable to blame all Jews everywhere, and all Israeli soldiers, of organ snatching?

That's funny, I thought everyone was an individual.

ndm

August 20th, 2009 6:06pm Report this comment

Carson writes:

-- ndm, You seem to be saying that because a couple of Jews in America ... then somehow it is reasonable to blame all Jews everywhere, and all Israeli soldiers, of organ snatching?

Um, no. I think you need to read my comment a bit better - and even more so the clip from the New York Times obviously written for humourous effect.

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