Saturday, October 17, 2009

Sweden's Aftonbladet Newspaper Stonewalls on Organ Story, Lies Spread in the Middle East

CAMERA

On August 17, Scandanavia's largest newspaper, Aftonbladet, ran a libelous article claiming Israeli soldiers plunder and sell for transplantation the organs of Palestinians. Many other falsehoods and distortions marred the piece as well. On September 11, CAMERA sent a detailed letter by Fedex and e-mail to Jan Helin, editor of the paper, urging correction of the many material errors and omissions in the incendiary story. Repeated follow-up e-mails and phone calls seeking a response to the documented criticism have been stonewalled. In the meantime, the libelous allegations have spread in new forms to parts of the Middle East and beyond, with Jews depicted as organ thieves in cartoons and news accounts. In the age of the Internet, propaganda knows no language or geographic boundaries and the need for adherence to journalistic standards has never been greater. Aftonbladet's blood libel against Israel is a troubling milestone in our time, fueling the demonizing of the Jewish state that has been intensifying in the Arab world and beyond.

Aftonbladet, however, seems to believe it has no responsibility to correct the wrongs in its coverage and to redress the damage done. Below are the CAMERA letter sent to the editors and an October 15 Wall Street Journal Europe column ("Anatomy of A Swedish Blood Libel") recounting the controversy.

By their own admission, the editors have no evidence to support the central thesis of the article — that Israel has engaged in kidnaping Palestinians and harvesting their organs – either before or after killing them – to sell and/or transplant. In addition, the following errors of fact were noted:

1) Falsely identifying Bilal Ahmed Ghanem as wanted by Israel for being a mere "stone-thrower" when he was, in fact, a participant in the epidemic of so-called collaborator violence.

2) Falsely stating the casualty statistics of Palestinians for 1992 were "133 Palestinians killed in various ways that year" when there were a minimum of 356, most of whom were Palestinians killed by other Palestinians.

3) Falsely linking a 1992 organ-donor campaign in Israel with the alleged disappearance of Palestinians in the West Bank.

4) Falsely characterizing Bilal Ghanem's family members as having accused Israel in 1992 of stealing Bilal's organs.

5) Falsely stating that Bilal Ghanem was "cut up in a hospital."

6) Falsely characterizing Israel as having no prohibition against organ sales and that doctors openly engage in illegal activity, when the country has a stringent law against this practice.

7) Falsely characterizing Israel as having a huge demand for organs and as being engaged in a "vast" trade in organs, when Israel in recent years – before enactment of the organ transplant law – accounted for just over 1% of the trade in organs.

8) Falsely characterizing Israel's entire medical establishment as condoning illegal organ trading, when Israeli doctors were themselves working to expose problems and introduce legal reforms, which came to pass.

9) Falsely characterizing a Jerusalem Post story as having reported France broke off organ exchanges with Israel due to the alleged lack of ethics by the latter when nothing of the kind was reported or occurred.

The list of intentional misrepresentation of the truth, aka LIES,goes on and on. CAMERA and this blog asks you to contact the following:

Editor Jan Helin: jan.helin@aftonbladet.se

Acting CEO Pontus Gustafsson: pontus.gustafsson@aftonbladet.se

Culture Editor Asa Linderborg (in whose section the piece appeared):

asa.linderborg@aftonbladet.se

News Editor Markus Gustafsson: markus.gustafsson@aftonbladet.se

Political editor Helle Klein: helle.klein@aftonbladet.se

• Call the newspaper: 011 46 872 5 2000
Ask to speak to one of the editors. Politely urge him/her to publish corrections of the many factual errors made in the Bostrom article.

Go here to read CAMERA'S corrections piece: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=6&x_article=1752

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