Anti-Semitism boils over in Sweden as top newspaper says Israeli soldiers steal organs of Palestinian children
What is a blood libel? In Europe, it usually took the form of an allegation that Jews slaughtered gentile children and used their blood in ritual sacrifice, sometimes involving cannibalism. Just as anti-Semitism in its broadest sense has now mutated into anti-Zionism so it is that the particularities of anti-Semitic discourse have themselves mutated. A disturbing, indeed shocking, example of the way in which the ancient blood libel has been reinvented for the modern world came in yesterday’s edition of Sweden’s top selling newspaper Aftonbladet.
Under the headline, “They plunder the organs of our sons” the newspaper screamed and frothed with allegations (all unsubstantiated and from Palestinians) that soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces kidnap Palestinian children to cut out their bodily organs and sell them on the black market. The article, which ran as a two-page spread in the paper’s cultural section (!), also linked the allegations to a recent story from the United States in which several American rabbis were in a group indicted for conspiring to sell a human kidney for transplant. The blood libel was thus compounded with the inference of collective guilt.
As far as I have been able to determine, these appalling developments have gone unreported in the European media, though they have raised a storm in Sweden itself as well as in Israel. According to the Jerusalem Post, a rival Swedish newspaper ran an op-ed on the subject sardonically entitled “Antisemitbladet” in a play on words with the name of the offending newspaper. As the JP reports it, the author of the condemnatory op-ed, Mats Skogkär, said:
“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 defense, equally predictable: ‘Anti-Semitism? No, no, just criticism of Israel.’”
While these words do at least show that the forces of reason and decency in Sweden have not been extinguished entirely, the whole sorry saga is indicative of a political culture where hatred and bigotry towards the Jewish state is now considered normal.
In yesterday’s entry I referred to this reality in the context of the Nazification of Israel by a prominent European philosopher writing in Britain’s Guardian. Neither author nor newspaper will have been in any way aware that they were engaged in something disreputable. That is what happens when bigotry invades the mainstream.
Hannah Arendt famously referred to the ‘banality of evil’ in her book on the trial of Adolf Eichmann. At the time it was considered controversial. In fact, it was a profound insight into the way in which the outward appearance of normality can conceal the sickness within. It is an insight we would do well to bear in mind.
Ah well though. Just another day in modern Europe, and just another step down on the descent into barbarism.
To read more on the story, click on the following links:
http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/2009/08/stop-presses-blood-libel-goes.html
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418641250&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1108604.html
Tags: Israel
August 19th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Do the posters here remember the “Snow White and The Madness of Truth” exhibit at the Museum of National Antiquities in Stockholm in 2004?
A description of this at Wikipedia:
“The installation consisted of a long pool of water coloured blood red, upon which floated a small white boat named “Snövit” (”Snow White”) carrying a portrait of Hanadi Jaradat, a Palestinian suicide bomber, which were accompanied by text written on the nearby walls, and the sound of Bach’s Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut (Cantata 199).”
http://tinyurl.com/muhgew
And something about Hanadi Jaradat:
“Hanadi Tayseer Abdul Malek Jaradat (Arabic: هنادي تيسير عبدالمالك جردات) (September 22, 1975 – October 4, 2003), a Palestinian suicide bomber from Jenin, blew herself up on Saturday, October 4, 2003 in an attack on Maxim’s restaurant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Twenty-one people of various nationalities were killed and 51 were injured. Among the dead were four Israeli children and three Arabs.[1] She was the sixth female suicide bomber of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the second woman recruited by Islamic Jihad.”
http://tinyurl.com/ltr8a4
And do you recall the widespread outrage in Sweden when Zvi Mazel, the Israeli ambassador to that nation, tipped a light into the Snow White exhibit? (Ariel Sharon, to his eternal credit, telephoned Zvi Mazel to congratulate him).
If anyone suffers from a blood lust, an instatiable desire to feed on the blood of their fellow human beings, it is the countless individuals in Sweden and elsewhere who celebrate the mass-murder of Jews.
August 19th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Here’s the latest piece at the Jerusalem Post about this matter:
Swedish writer ‘not sure’ story’s true
http://tinyurl.com/lbtq84
From that piece:
‘[Deputy Foreign Ministe] Ayalon called on the Swedish government to condemn these accusations and said Israel “sees a correlation between the Swedish government’s public statements, which are extremely critical of Israel, and anti-Semitism in the press.” ‘
And in the same way that the Swedish government is guilty of incitement, so are the Guardian newspaper and BBC. When top media outlets in the UK pour out their hatred of the Jewish state and her supporters day in day out, year after year, who can really be surprised that anti-Semitism takes off like a rocket?
August 19th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Aftonbladet responds:
‘Asa Linderborg, an editor of the newspaper’s culture section which printed the story, told Haaretz that the publication “stands behind the demand for an international inquiry.”
“We had many discussions on whether to publish the article or not, and to the best of my knowledge, there are no facts there that are incorrect,” Linderborg said.’
http://tinyurl.com/m8u9eg
August 19th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I’ve just googled Asa Lindeborg, the Aftonbladet editor who defended the piece, and this is what I’ve came up with:
1) ‘Åsa Natacha Linderborg (née Andersson, born 20 May 1968) is a Swedish writer and historian. She writes regularly for Aftonbladet, where she works as deputy cultural editor.
Åsa Linderborg was born in the city of Västerås, where she also grew up. Her father worked as a metalworker and her mother, Tanja Linderborg, is a former politician and Member of Parliament for the Left Party – Communists. Åsa Linderborg herself became a member of the Left Party – Communists in 1980 and the following year of its youth wing, the Communist Youth. In 1987 she became an ombudsman for the Communist Youth in Mälardalen.’
2) ‘On 27 March 2008, Linderborg was presented as the new deputy cultural editor of Aftonbladet, with Karin Magnusson becoming the chief cultural editor. In 2009 Linderborg replaced Magnusson as chief editor.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85sa_Linderborg
August 20th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Joshua, thanks for the so very relevant reminder of this infamous exhibit.
August 20th, 2009 at 8:19 am
I just commented on the thread about that Israel Nazi Guardian piece asking what’s next? Child killing, horns etc.
And voila. Here it is. Child blood libel the next day.
Seriously. Are demon horns next?
Robin Shepherd says: It’s a great question. After you’ve smeared Israel as an apartheid-Nazi state which steals childrens bodily organs where, in all honesty, do you go next? I suspect the answer is that we get more of the same and that it spreads wider and deeper into mainstream society. Then again, it might well be horns and forked tongues. Watch this space….
August 20th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Robin,
I guess next we get to burn a few Jews in the occasional progrom aye?
Truly sickening how this society moves so quickly to condemn Israel for defending itself from its neighbours aggression!
Mailman
August 20th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Just up at Haaretz:
Swedish opposition slams critics of IDF organ harvest story
1) ‘Sweden’s ambassador to Israel has been denounced in her home country for interfering with freedom of speech after she criticized a newspaper article claiming Israel Defense Forces harvested the organs of Palestinians.
Swedish opposition leaders on Tuesday slammed Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier for calling the article by the country’s largest newspaper Aftonbladet “shocking and appalling”.’
2) Green Party spokesman Per Gahrton says Borsiin Bonnier should be recalled and taught the basics of Swedish freedom of speech
http://tinyurl.com/mnuwy7
This story has really opened the floodgates. Here’s “FutureTaoiseach” at Politics.ie with an example of the kind of thing that is being said:
“The Zionazis have their own Holocaust-denial, namely denial of their Holocaust against the Palestinians since 1948. All Holocausts should be condemned and acknowledged, not just those that are politically-convenient to deny by the Zionazi Reich in the name of acquiring Lebensraum and making the Palestinian territories Arabfrei.”
http://tinyurl.com/mmhug8
Robin Shepherd says: Thanks very much for this. I may do an update tomorrow depending on what else is happening.
August 20th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
This is simply shocking. The Greens and the socialists all jumping on the anti-Semitic bandwaggon to defend this vile and despicable article. Have these people no shame? So what is everyone going to do about this?
August 24th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
I am always appalled by what people believe. The person that writes an article like this has their own set of personal problems. There is not much that can be done to stop a publication of this nature. Those that believe something as ludicrous as this are the ones that need a reality check. Where is the government, refuting what has been said and covering up their embarrassment? That would at least show some form of remorse for the stupidity of one of their citizens. As much as I hate to say this (I am not Jewish), it seems that the Jewish People will never have rest from persecution and false accusations. I do not know why that is the case, because they are some of the nicest and most intelligent people that I have met. I wish them my best and assure them that I will not add to their suffering.
The History Man
http://wwwhistoryman.blogspot.com/