Alex Massie Alex Massie

You Can’t Believe Everything You Read in the Swedish Press Either…

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]

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