Jewish soldiers harvesting Palestinian organs? Reporter has 'no clue' if the claims are true
By Stephanie Gutmann
August 20th, 2009
The writer of the article entitled “They Plundered the Organs of Our Sons,” which ran in Sweden’s largest circulation daily newspaper earlier this week, now says he has “no clue” whether the explosive allegations he levelled at IDF soldiers are true or not. “It concerns me, to the extent that I want [Palestinian accusations of IDF theft of organs for harvesting] to be investigated, that’s true,” he told Israel’s state-run radio station on Wednesday, “But whether it’s true or not - I have no idea, I have no clue.”
CNN has helpfully weighed in, stressing over and over in its account that the Aftonbladet article was merely “an op-ed.” “[Article author Donald] Bostrom stressed that he has no proof that Israeli soldiers were stealing organs,” said CNN, “and that the purpose of his opinion article was to call for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that such activity was going on.”
If the article was just “opinion”, just musings on the passing scene, then the Swedish newspaper handles op-eds very differently than papers in the US and the UK. “They Plundered the Organs of Our Sons” was a “double truck”; in other words, it was splashed over two full facing pages, topped with a large banner headline, and illustrated with ghoulish full-colour photos. In most newspapers, such treatment is used to highlight an article whose allegations are the product of months of scrupulously careful reporting, which would mean something more substantial than the claims of several people in an area where wild conspiracy charges are common.
But all is not totally rotten in Sweden. One of the most eloquent denunciations of the Aftonbladet insinuation fest has come from rival daily, Sydsvenskan:
“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,” wrote 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. Now all that remains is the defence, equally predictable: Anti-Semitism? No, no, just criticism of Israel.”
*****************************
Swedish daily: IDF killed Palestinians for organs
Article published by Aftonbladet reporter claims soldiers snatched Palestinian youths and returned their dismembered bodies a few days later. Foreign Ministry: Shocking example of Israel's demonization
Roni Sofer 08.18.09
YNetnews
Leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet claimed in one of its articles that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians in order to trade in their organs.
On Tuesday the Israeli Foreign Ministry responded by saying that the article "is a shocking example of Israel's demonization." According to the ministry, the Stockholm-based paper accused the Israeli army of organ theft.
The report mentioned Brooklyn resident Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, who is accused of involvement in the recent human organ-trafficking case that caused a storm in the US and Israel. The report said Palestinians claim youngsters were forced to give up theirs before being executed. This suspicion, the report said, may lead to an international war crimes investigation against Israel.
The report went on to say that about half of all kidneys used in transplants in Israel since 2000 were purchased illegally in Turkey, Eastern Europe and Latin America, adding that the Israeli Health Ministry was aware of the phenomenon but did nothing to curb it.
Aftonbladet also said Palestinian youths who were snatched from their villages in the middle of the night were buried after being dismembered. The reporter, Donald Boström, said he was informed of the alleged atrocities by UN employees while he was working on a book in the West Bank.
According to Bostrom, a Palestinian from Nablus who for a number of years headed stone-throwing attacks against IDF soldiers was shot to death in May because he interfered with the activity of the "Israeli conquering forces."
The reporter quoted Palestinian witnesses as saying that Bilal Ahmad Ranian was shot in the chest, leg and stomach and then evacuated in serious condition by helicopter to an unknown location.
Five days later, Bostrom said, Ranian's body was returned to his village, wrapped in hospital bandages.
Aftonbladet published a photo of the body, which had a scar running from the face down to the stomach.
********************************
Swedish Tabloid: IDF Kills Arabs to Trade their Organs
by Gil Ronen
(IsraelNN.com)
he tabloid Aftonbladet, one of Sweden’s most popular newspapers, published a report Tuesday that claimed IDF soldiers execute Arabs in Judea and Samaria, harvest their organs and sell them. The report carried a photograph that purportedly shows the body of a victim of such an execution, with a large scar running from his chin to his abdomen. It notes the IDF’s explanation that the scar is from an autopsy which is routinely performed on people who are killed in fighting – but seems not to give it much credit and prefers a completely unsubstantiated claim by Arabs regarding forced organ harvesting.
The report, which appears under the heading, in quotes, "Our sons plundered for their organs,” begins with snippets from a transcript of an FBI recording of a Jewish man who was arrested in July, in connection with a corruption scandal in New Jersey involving elected officials, rabbis, money laundering and illegal organ trading.
Immediately after providing a short description of the FBI’s suspicions against that group, reporter Donald Boström takes his readers across the ocean to discuss the organ trade in Israel, without explaining what connection there may be between the two matters. He describes “a strong suspicion” among Palestinians that young men’s organs were harvested by the IDF “as in China and Pakistan.” Boström repeats that this is “a very serious suspicion” and suggests that the International Court of Justice should open an investigation into it.
The paper says that half of the kidneys that are used in transplants in Israel are purchased illegally from Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America and that Israeli health authorities have full knowledge of the matter, but do nothing to stop it. It then connects the shortage of body parts in Israel to stories of Palestinian men who, it says, are killed and returned to their villages five days later by the IDF.
17 year old eyewitness account
The reporter then gives what he says is his own eyewitness account from 1992 -- 17 years ago -- of an IDF raid on a village in which a rioter named Bilal Achmed Ghanaian was shot and severely injured. He was taken away by a military helicopter and brought back by the army five days later, dead. As his family members buried him, they saw a large scar running from his stomach to his chin.The report then quotes Arabs who claim that their sons were used as forced organ donors but provides no support for this claim.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the newspaper had “turned the demonization of Israel into a sacred cause.” He called upon Swedish citizens to express their disgust with “the incitement to hate crimes that the report includes.”
Aftonbladet claims to be the leading daily newspaper in Sweden and in Scandinavia, with a readership of more than 1.5 million.
********************************************
and to ensure we get the truth, why not a report from the Palestinians themselves ...
Aug 23, 2009
Palestinian news agency 'confirms' organ snatching story
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
The Bethlehem-based Palestinian news agency Ma'an published a report over the weekend which it said confirmed allegations that IDF soldiers kill Palestinian civilians to harvest their organs.
The charges appeared last week in Sweden's left-leaning Aftonbladet newspaper and have since been widely quoted in Palestinian and Arab newspapers.
"They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.
Ma'an, which is funded by Denmark and the Netherlands, headlined its feature:
"Disappearances, Holding Bodies, Organ Theft - Intertwined Crimes."
The feature is based on an interview with Abdel Nasser Farwaneh, a former security prisoner in Israel who is described by the news agency as an "expert on prisoners' affairs."
Farwaneh is quoted as saying that the "findings" published by the Swedish newspaper are true.
"All the facts, evidence and testimonies over the past few decades regarding the way the occupation forces were treating and killing innocent civilians don't leave room for doubt about the credibility of the report in the Swedish newspaper," he said.
The "expert" claimed that hundreds of Palestinian and Arab prisoners have disappeared in Israeli detention centers and prisons.
"This policy of hiding prisoners is surely connected to what the Swedish newspaper published," Farwaneh said. "It's possible that all those missing prisoners, or a large number of them, were deliberately killed so that their organs could be stolen and used illegally. The remains of these prisoners are then hidden in secret cemeteries known as the Cemeteries of Numbers."
Farwaneh told the agency that there was also good reason to believe that the allegations were true because many bodies of Hizbullah gunmen that were returned by Israel were missing organs.
He also claimed that IDF soldiers had "executed" more than 50 civilians after arresting them during the second intifada, which began in September 2000. "This could be related to what the Swedish newspaper reported about organ harvesting," he said.
Farwaneh expressed deep admiration for the Swedish newspaper and the journalist who reported the allegations, Donald Bostrom, and called on the international media to follow suit and expose Israeli "atrocities and war crimes" against Palestinians.
I am sure if we look into the columns written in the Swedish and Palestinian newspapers, we would find evidence to prove the existence of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and aliens. Palestinians and Swedes - on top of every breaking story.
I am waiting for a new rash of stories on the Israelis sending prostitutes with AIDS into Egypt to force Arab males to contract AIDS unwillingly, and the unquestioned truism for many in the Arab world, that the Jews use the blood of non-Jewish babies in their pastries. All these stories are reported and retold as if fact also, right up there with organ harvesting and aliens.
Arabs
Posts
