Israelis have been accused by a Swedish journalist of killing Palestinians to harvest organs from them. Despite the lack of evidence (indeed, despite assertions from both Israelis and Palestinians to the contrary), the story now seems to have been recirculated in the Ukraine (see this).
This is truly reprehensible and must stop.Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet's August 2009 story (translated into English in full here) accusing the IDF of harvesting Palestinian organs caused an uproar. Donald Bostrom, the author of the offensive piece, duly demonstrated his utter lack of any basic journalistic standards when he said: "But whether it's true or not - I have no idea, I have no clue." On top of this, the story was further undermined as one of the Palestinian families interviewed said they never told any reporter that their son was missing organs.
With the credibility of the story in tatters one might have expected the outrageous accusations to have a limited shelf life or to disappear altogether. However, the Swedish blood libel is a textbook case study of how what starts as an article published in a language read by few from a country of limited international influence can turn into a poison that spreads much wider.
As Ha'aretz reports:
Stories appearing on several Ukrainian Web sites claim Israel has brought around some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the country over the past two years in order to harvest their organs.
The more things change, the more things stay the same.
Posted by: Ronnie | December 04, 2009 at 09:32 PM