Yves Herman/ Reuters
Sweden's Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.
Sweden says it can’t address ‘organ theft’ article
The Swedish government protests that it's legally prevented from commenting on press reports as Israel complains about an unsourced article alleging organ theft from Palestinians.
By Tom Sullivan | Correspondent 08.25.09
STOCKHOLM - Sweden’s Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, says he cannot legally criticize the controversial newspaper article at the center of a diplomatic spat with Israel.
In Sweden, many see the explosive Israeli response as a ploy to distract from European Union (EU) and US pressure on the country to curb settlement expansion in the occupied territories.
On Monday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Europe for what is expected to be a tough round of bilateral talks with European leaders, Mr. Reinfeldt called for a ”toning down” of the debate surrounding an article by Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest circulation tabloid newspaper.
Last week, the newspaper created an uproar among many in Israel, most notably the country’s foreign minister Avigor Lieberman, when it published an article suggesting the Israeli military had been involved in stealing the organs of Palestinians men in the early 1990s. Mr. Lieberman and others accused Sweden of antisemitism and compared the article to the medieval “blood libel” that accused Jews of bathing in the blood of Christian children. They demanded the Swedish government denounce the story, which hinged entirely on unnamed sources.
But Reinfeldt, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, said that the Swedish constitution prohibits his government from interfering in the country’s media or passing judgment on media reports. “I don’t think that democratic nations should demand one another to break their constitutional laws,” he told Swedish public television.
”When I follow the debate in Israel I feel a need to explain what type of society Sweden is, and that we do not have a uniform view of Jews or Muslims or of individual countries. We have a free and open debate - people think differently and that is permitted. Jews, Christians, atheists and Muslims live side by side in this country in mutual respect. That is something we value.”
Sweden was one of the first country’s to enact a free press law, which passed in 1766. Swedish law and the country’s constitution give far-reaching protections to journalists, ensuring that only publishers can be held accountable for the content of reports in a court of law. The law curbs political interference in the media, in the widest sense.
There is a consensus in Sweden that “politicians and/or representatives of authorities should refrain from any type of interference with publishing, including comments,” Agneta Lindblom Hulthén, chairperson of the Swedish Union of Journalists, told the Monitor. “We are very satisfied that this consensus has stood the test the last few days and that the Government has not given in to non-justified political pressure from another country,” she added.
On Monday, Hulthén’s organization reported that Israel’s embasssy in Sweden gave assurances that no restrictions will be placed on Swedish journalists, despite claims to the contrary from the head of Israel’s Government Press Office, Daniel Seaman.
Most Swedish analysts believe the current diplomatic spat will be short lived, and should be seen in the context of the challenges facing Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is squeezed between EU and US demands to freeze settlement construction and hard-line advocates for the settlers in his own government.
Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest circulation broadsheet, claimed that Israel’s “extreme right wing government” had used the article as a pretext to attack the Swedish government and sabotage its attempts to create a stronger role for the EU in the Middle East.
Lieberman also harshly criticized Norway on Monday for celebrating the 150th birthday of a Norwegian author who was a Nazi sympathizer. Some in Sweden alleged his outrage was manufactured to distract debate from the subject of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. ”Norway is just the latest example,” said Jan Helin, editor in chief of Aftonbladet. ”Next week, it’ll be another country. This is not about the contents of an article. It’s an excuse to spread populist propaganda.”
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2. Amanda Huginkis | 08.25.09
Instead of revealing evidence to disprove the harvesting of organs from slain Palestinians, Israel screams ‘anti-semetism’ yet again. What are you trying to hide, Israel? This nation seems incapable of accepting criticism, choosing instead to hide behind the Holocaust. Who is to say that the so called ‘blood libel’ is a myth? Many terrible things were done by people of all creeds in those days, not unlike the burning of withches. For a nation with a ’shoot-to-kill’ policy for Palestinian children throwing stones, it does not seem farfetched that they would go so far as to remove their organs without consent.
3. Jonathan | 08.26.09
Amanda,
What witches were burned in the 1990s? As far as the rest of your article goes, it’s pretty clear you’re drinking the cool-aid and have no grasp of the history of the region and rely solely on the canards and revisionist history so popular amongst the Palestinians and their useful idiots. I’m sure you’re very proud of your ignorant indignation.
4. Mike | 08.26.09
Perhaps Amanda should demand a probe checking if Santa Clause exists, or perhaps we should probe if Jesus actually existed or was just a figment of the imagination? Maybe we should examine carefully if the moon is made out of cheese ? What other nonsense are we required to do? That Amanda now questions the validity of the blood libel, implying it may have existed, is testimony of the anti semitic culture that brought her and her ilk up. The problem with people like Amanda is that they readily believe anything the Palestinians have to say, and then defend themselves by saying they are not anti-Israel. The fabrication that Israel shoots to kill stone throwers or the land on the west bank is occupied by Israel is another testament of how one can safely be an anti-Semite in today’s society just by claiming they are “only”anti Israel. SICK
5. Tom | 08.26.09
Is it not convenient that these charges about the early 1990s surfaced now? As to claim that the Israelis have not shown they did not harvest organs, when did Sweden’s President stop beating his wife?” There really is no way to disprove this by evidence — even digging up every dead Palestinian from the early 1990s would not solve the problem because the bodies would have decomposed, as opposed to making a current claim that could be fact-checked through exhuming the body.
6. Dangor | 08.26.09
Amanda, with all due respect, isn’t it the other way around, the one who accuses has to prove accusations?
7. turtledawn | 08.26.09
The spirit of rational humanism demands that we make inquiries into any claim set forth without supporting evidence. While difficult, it would be possible to investigate the ‘blood libel’ claims; similar work has been done for Santa Claus and yes, for Jesus. There is very, very little historical evidence for the Jesus presented in the Bible and only slim evidence that a man named Yeshua ben Yosef even lived at the time claimed. I too would like to see Israel document the whereabouts of those bodies during the time they are claimed to have been missing. Israel claims to pride itself on its thoroughness and modernity- let their paperwork support the claims.
8. Andrew | 08.26.09
Dave123, the Swedish foreign minister who shut down the website you mention, had to resign as doing this broke Swedish constitutional law. As simple that. That incident certainly made the current Swedish administration more careful.
9. Leo | 08.26.09
Andrew, the Swedish foreign minister at the time, Laila Freivalds, did not resign because she initiated the shutdown of the website (this was by the way the website of a rival political party), but because she lied to the public about this issue.
10. Riley | 08.26.09
I’m with Amanda.
And for everyone else: the reporter actually SAW the body of the Palestinian who was shot & killed, whose body was then removed by the Israeli army, only to be returned the next day with stitches running down the torso. He only brought it up now due to the illegal organ ring operated by the Jewish American man who was arrested & whose name I have now forgotten.
And for everyone who can claim that the Palestinian was simply autopsied even though he clearly died of bullet wounds, this is also offensive to Muslims, so there is nothing honorable in that argument either.
The only responsible thing for Israel to do is not to attack those who dare bring up uncomfortable issues and questions, but to look around and ask if they could perhaps do things a bit differently. The Swedish journalist actually recieved death threats for daring to say something offensive about Israel, which doesn’t really seem to make them any better than the Islamic extremists whom they hate so well.
Jews are no more perfect than any other culture in this world. Get over it and deal with the fact that there might just be some smidgeon of truth in all of the criticism.
Sincerely, someone who is sick of all the bickering in the Middle East.
11. czyrankevic | 08.26.09
just correcting a minor mistake you made about the history of the blood libel jews were not accused of bathing in blood but of using the blood of non jewish children for passover matzoh ingredients
12. David | 08.26.09
I know a Reporter who saw a Swede eat a child while the child was still alive. If the Reporter says he saw it, then it must be true. The Swedes like to eat live children.
No evidence is needed in order to make the Tabloids. Just sensationalism!
13. Jacob | 08.27.09
“The problem with people like Amanda is that they readily believe anything the Palestinians have to say, and then defend themselves by saying they are not anti-Israel.”
And you’re not guilty of the reverse, Mike? From what I read here it seems you believe everything that Israelis say about themselves being besieged by their supposedly hateful neighbors. Yes there are extremists, but Israel is greatly contributing to the conflict by taking land from the Palestinians in a misguided sense of Manifest Destiny.
14. rami | 09.02.09
Is it only me, or does anyone else see the parallel between the official Israeli reaction to the article, and official Arab and Muslim governments reaction to the “Muhammad cartoons”?
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1. Dave123 | 08.25.09
Then why did the government ban a website that was going to publish the Muhhamad cartoons