The Unbearable Lightness of Racism
This is HP reader Eyal’s view on Aftonbladet’s antisemitic article
A top left-leaning Swedish newspaper published this week a story claiming that IDF troops abduct young men from the West Bank and Gaza, and harvest their internal organs.
Haaretz reports:
“They plunder the organs of our sons,” read the headline in Sweden’s largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.
The report quotes Palestinian claims that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israel Defense Forces, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs.
“‘Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,’ relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied,” writes author Donald Boström in his report.“
Simply put, the article is a blood libel. The author plays on the darkest and most perverse stereotypes of Jews, to depict IDF soldiers literally as child-eating monsters. According to the Haaretz report, the article makes a link to the recent exposure of an alleged crime syndicate in New Jersey, headed by Jewish rabbis, which was accused of organ trafficking.
Fortunately, another Swedish paper was quick to call them out on that:
“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,” writes leading columnist 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,” the opinion piece says. “Now all that remains is the defense, equally predictable: ‘Anti-Semitism’ No, no, just criticism of Israel.”
This incident is so outrageous, that even the Swedish embassy in Israel was quick to condemn it:
“Sweden’s ambassador to Israel issued a press release on Wednesday condemning the article which appeared in Aftonbladet.
“The article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes, as it is to Israeli citizens,” the ambassador, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, said on Wednesday.”
“Just as in Israel, freedom of the press prevails in Sweden,” Bonnier said. “However, freedom of the press and freedom of expression are freedoms which carry a certain responsibility.”
Seeing this story, and others like it that appear from time to time, reminds me of an old joke I heard years ago:
In Nazi Germany, a group of thugs jump an elderly Jew and pin him to the ground.
“Who’s to blame for the war?!” they yell.
“The Jews and the bicycle riders”, the Jew answers immediately.
“Why the bicycle riders?” they ask, puzzled.
“Why the Jews?”
The “joke”, of-course, being that the racists can’t fathom why a group of unrelated individuals would be held accountable for something that they obviously have nothing to do with, but are all too happy to accept the collective responsibility of Jews.
Nowadays, this behaviour is symptomatic of many ‘progressive’ groups in the left. The incredible lightness in which ‘enlightened’ people can blame Jews and “Zionists” for everything that they think is wrong with… well, anything…
Reading HP, I am sometimes absolutely dumb-stuck by how groups on the far left and on the far right find common ground by opposing ‘Zionism’. As if Zionism had some sinister globally-encompassing agenda that sent its tentacles deep into the affairs of all nations. As if opposing Zionism was the only thing that defined them. As if eliminating Zionism would solve all the problems of the world…
Fascists obviously hate Zionists because they hate Jews in general. But what amazes me is how people from the center and leftwards use “Zionism” as some sort of magical bean, some ambiguous dark entity, at which they can funnel all their hatred and bias, without being considered “racist”.
This trend of “opposing Zionism” is all too common among leftist groups. It is how supposedly progressive people associate themselves with authoritarian, right-wing or Islamist homophobes, women oppressors, and bigots. And this is how they can make themselves believe any fairy tale they hear, as long as it blames the “Zionists”.
As DavidT put it earlier this week, this is the anatomy of a lynching.
Imagine why that is.
Maybe next time something like this comes up, perhaps they will blame bicycle riders instead.
***
habibi adds:
As reported by Eyal above, Ambassador Bonnier offered some very frank remarks as the controversy began.
Well, according to this report, she has been verbally disowned by headquarters:
Sweden’s Foreign Ministry on Thursday said a response by the Swedish Embassy in Israel to a report by the Aftonbladet news saying IDF soldiers killed Palestinians in order to harvest their organs does not represent the government’s stance.
The embassy had stated that the report was “appalling”. But the Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman said, “The embassy in Tel Aviv responded in accordance to Israeli public opinion, however the Swedish government is committed to freedom of the press.”
So the ambassador “responded in accordance to Israeli public opinion” to rank antisemitism? Oh dear. How terrible.
Aftonbladet’s editor is certainly feeling free to speak up:
Following the ambassador’s remarks, Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin said: “It’s deeply unpleasant and sad to see such a strong propaganda machine using centuries-old anti-Semitic images in an apparent attempt to get an obviously topical issue off the table.
He accused the Swedish ambassador of “a flagrant assault on freedom of speech” for her criticisms and denied any suggestion of anti-Semitism from his paper.
Ah, Jews running the “propaganda machine” when they are incensed by baseless blood libels. How dare they, the enemies of free speech.
Well, here’s what the Swedish foreign ministry got up to in another freedom of speech case – the Mohammed cartoons:
Levonline’s Anna Larsson confirmed in an interview with Swedish Radio that the foreign ministry and the security service were behind the closing of the party’s website.
“We have been in touch with both the foreign ministry and Säpo, and in discussion with them have decided that this is the best thing to do,” she said.
Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds denied on Friday that the government had applied pressure on Levonline.
“If someone closes down their site, or if a newspaper decides to do so in some way, then that is their own decision, based I hope on the information that they have received. I hope that we have been able to provide information,” she said.
Säpo’s director general, Klas Bergenstrand, said that agents had been in contact with the company and “forwarded our threat assessment to those who are responsible for the technical side of things.”
Bergenstrand refused to release details of the threat assessment to the press.
So, it seems, if there is a threat of violence, one gets serious Swedish results. If instead disgusting antisemitism is challenged peacefully, the answer is “get lost”.
Pathetic and sickening.
Comments
| 22 August 2009, 12:37 am |
I agree with Think of England. Nausating and frightening as well.
Note: I have not seen a word of this in the American Media. Has anybody seen any mention of this outrage on this side of the Atlantic.
| 22 August 2009, 12:48 am |
National Socialism rears it’s ugly head once more, but this time round it’s not just the blonde haired, blue eyed aryans with their swastika armbands, no, now we have the the neo-national socialists with their peace badges and copies of Karl Marx, the Islamofascists with the Arabic translations of Mien kampf and the intellectual elite with anti-imperialist appeasement of a clearly fascist imperialist ideology.
How did we end up back here.
“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history” George Bernard Shaw.
What a waste of potential we Humans are.
| 22 August 2009, 12:50 am |
The conclusion I draw from the way the Swedes reacted is that Israel should launch a punitive strike against Sweden targeting the offending newspaper and the Swedish Foreign Ministry. The distance involved is a bit much, but not as far as Entebbe was. It is not as if the Swedes can put much resistance. They have not fought a war since Napoleon. Once Israel establishes that it too can rain violence on those who offend it, the European states especially Sweden will be a lot more respectful of Israel.
| 22 August 2009, 1:21 am |
Note: I have not seen a word of this in the American Media. Has anybody seen any mention of this outrage on this side of the Atlantic.
I’ve seen nothing. To report on this means necessarily repeating the perverse and sickening charges. I think that may be the reason the media here is shying away from this.
| 22 August 2009, 1:53 am |
“It is not as if the Swedes can put much resistance”
The Swedes have one of the best Armies, airforces and navies in Europe; their indigenous defense industry is world class.
BTW when the Israeli special forces went into Entebbe it was to rescue innocent Jews who faced death because of the fact they were Jews.
| 22 August 2009, 2:08 am |
It is a bit silly to make sweeping generalisations about *all* Swedes, based upon the actions of one rather gullible freelance journalist.
If you would not blame all Brits for the existence and actions of the BNP, or blame all North Americans for the crimes of James W. Von Brunn, then it is plainly not logical to do the same when it comes to Swedes, all 9+ millions of them.
| 22 August 2009, 2:16 am |
DocMartyn – “The Swedes have one of the best Armies, airforces and navies in Europe; their indigenous defense industry is world class.”
But all that means is they don’t go home at 5 pm every day and take the whole weekend off.
As pointed out, the Swedes have not fought for a long time. It would be hard to know how good their Army is. An Army without the will to use it is a collection of expensive toys.
| 22 August 2009, 2:21 am |
The story has gone global, but not in the original sense, many of the articles relate to the Israeli government’s *reaction* to this nasty racist libel, not the absurd and racist nature of the initial accusation.
These parts of the media have had articles (new or re-hashed) Reuters, AP, Torygraph, Isria (seemingly a Syria news agency), obviously PressTV, Speccy, NYT via Reuters and some Arab sites.
Several Swedish outlets have been very critical: Sydsvenskan, the local.se and Stockholm News. There’s probably more, but they’d be in Swedish. So it is not as one sided as might be thought.
I have tried to blog on it as news of the story unfolded, the first sites to take it up were far Right and neo-Nazi sites.
| 22 August 2009, 2:43 am |
interwiev with israel ambassador in swedish tv
http://tv4play.se/nyheter/nyhetskanalen?videoId=1.1151258&renderingdepartment=2.40195
| 22 August 2009, 2:58 am |
It’s not the blood libel, by any means. The blood libel holds that killing children to get blood for matzah is mandated by the Jewish religion.
In the Swedish article, it’s not stated that Israel has a policy of killing people for their organs; only that some soldiers did it and some officials tolerated it. It’s not the first time such an accusation is made: the Kosovo Liberation Army has been charged with the same crime. And Jews are human beings, just like the Kosovars are.
In any event, Aftonbladet is a newspaper that represents no one but itself. In Israel, however, elected officials have openly peddled blood libels.
On 20 February 2008, Member of Knesset Shlomo Benizri stated that gays are responsible for earthquakes. None of the people who claim to be shocked by the Swedish paper’s story said a single word about that monster. And he was not charged with any criminal offense for his hateful words (although he was later convicted for taking bribes). And not a single Jew will be killed in Sweden after Aftonbladet’s report, but two people were killed at a gay center in Tel Aviv a few weeks ago.
Where is the horror when it is an Israeli who spews hate?
Double standards are indeed in place.
| 22 August 2009, 3:03 am |
HB, why don’t you crawl back under the rock you have been hiding at the last several weeks.
| 22 August 2009, 3:12 am |
time to throw in a few jewish fatwas,these fatwas do a fantastic job,and to think that these castrated swedes were once vikings.I was in sweden for a while,and i can’t stand the bastards.too pretentious,too nasty.pathetic brown noses.
| 22 August 2009, 3:27 am |
you have to wonder whether swedish men get castrated at birth.none of them seem to have any balls.
| 22 August 2009, 3:30 am |
Even the Swedish press can see the racism in these accusations, strangely enough HB can’t:
“The message to insinuate is that Israeli soldiers kill Palestinians to overcome (take) their bodies.” (Google translation).
http://sydsvenskan.se/opinion/huvudledare/article539016/Forsok-inte-Aftonbladet.html
I am sure by now that HB and other anti-Jewish racists are probably sending out reams of emails on this topic.
| 22 August 2009, 4:12 am |
Wonder how “God is Great” sounds in Hebrew?
| 22 August 2009, 4:27 am |
These Harry’s Place posts always seek to convince, rather than persuade. Islamo-fascists and Left-wing Loons (that’s most people in the Left, these days) can’t be reasoned with but can be ridiculed, ostracized, intimidated.
| 22 August 2009, 6:15 am |
What I don’t get, is why the Swedish government cannot condemn the blood libel article. They say that “however the Swedish government is committed to freedom of the press.”
So? Why is freedom of the press curtailed by a clear statement from the government that what was printed in the Aftonbladet is clear cut antisemitic lies? It isn’t.
And this level of analysis comes from an European government! There are fucking Jew-haters everywhere in Sweden.
| 22 August 2009, 6:19 am |
“Wonder how “God is Great” sounds in Hebrew?”
“Eloim gadol”
| 22 August 2009, 6:24 am |
Excuse me, when will Jews understand
- there is NO FUTURE for Jews in incorrigibly anti-Semitic Europe
- no justice is ever to be expected for Jews from either European or Muslim countries
- the only firm allies the Jews have are (ironically) the American “Christian right”.
| 22 August 2009, 6:54 am |
What I don’t get, is why the Swedish government cannot condemn the blood libel article.
Maybe for the same reason that the Israeli government cannot condemn Interior Minister Eli Yishai, who has claimed that gays are sick people?
| 22 August 2009, 7:04 am |
Hasbara Buster’s first comment in the thread illustrates a point that Conor Foley missed: that HP allows racists enough rope to hang themselves, and leaves their worst comments up, as a warning to the world of just how depraved people get, and to avoid associating with monsters
| 22 August 2009, 7:52 am |
the only firm allies the Jews have are (ironically) the American “Christian right”
Um, no. Absolutely not. The Christian Right are very very anti-Semitic.
The support for Israel from the sector comes out of a very dark and apocalyptic vision. According to Bible prophecy as seen by much of this crowd, once the Jews have control over Israel, the stage is set for the Antichrist to return. Once the demon returns, the saved will be raptured to Heaven, while the unsaved will be doomed to toil in a Hell on Earth. Only those Jews who convert will be saved, the rest will perish, as it goes. Support for Israel, then, is part of a desire to destroy the world and the Jews with it.
Now, there are influential Israeli politicians, government ministers and other groups in Israel who seek financial support and so on from such Christian extremists, but the suspicion runs very deep and many of these folks realize the nature of who they’re dealing with. One finds him/herself soliciting money from strange places. It’s simply about money, both in direct support and in tourism. Thousands of American Christians visit Israel each year, and this provides a great source of revenue for a state without much, especially considering the situation with Europe these days.
| 22 August 2009, 8:00 am |
As an aside, I more or less agree with Philo-Semite’s second point. I think that is the redeeming feature of Zionism. Jews are encouraged to take responsibility for themselves as Jews — I think I’m paraphrasing Michael Oren, the current Israeli ambassador to the United States.
But “no future” in Europe sounds harsh. Though I’m continually shocked by what I read. I’m shocked more and more hearing from Jews in my own community about their experiences in America, which I didn’t expect to be troubling. Ah, but it is very.
| 22 August 2009, 9:04 am |
simply inform the EU that they cannot participate in ME peace negotiations until the Swedish EU president is removed.
| 22 August 2009, 9:04 am |
simply inform the EU that they cannot participate in ME peace negotiations until the Swedish EU president is removed.
| 22 August 2009, 11:12 am |
Ben Dror Yemini V Human Rights Watch, Round 2:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AWXYV56qlacKZGdwYzRoYzlfMTMzaG5mamJ3Y2o&hl=en
| 22 August 2009, 11:12 am |
Swedish FM Carl Bildt is now defending his government on his personal blog, claiming that ‘freedom of speech’ is the ultimate value of a democracy.
Somehow, that principle was apparantly not applicable when Sweden closed down a blog which showed the Danish
cartoons.
He is obviously incapable of differentiating between freedom of speech and libel/slander.
http://carlbildt.wordpress.com/
| 22 August 2009, 12:17 pm |
“Reilly Bishop…you have to wonder whether swedish men get castrated at birth.none of them seem to have any balls.”
You could make a kind of Soylent Green film about IKEA there. All the people who get mysteriously lost in those show bathrooms, the sinister reason behind all those wending displays, Charleton Heston stumbling out of the kitchens into the restaurant:
“It’s people…is made out of people. They’re making our food out of people!”
| 22 August 2009, 12:18 pm |
“Um, no. Absolutely not. The Christian Right are very very anti-Semitic”
Talk about libels; this one was invented by the left it goes like this:- We hate Israel and the Jews for their own good whereas the right support Israel and the Jews but really want them all dead.
As a right wing, former Christian, let me say fuck off Xtabentun.
| 22 August 2009, 1:27 pm |
<< The Christian Right are … <<
Christian + right is oxymoron
How many christians are ‘left’ ?
Catholic marxist Pasolini ? but hes dead long ago
| 22 August 2009, 2:15 pm |
The long-silent ‘Hasbara Buster’ climbs out of the woodwork again, to fulfil his life’s mission: covering up for the indefensible by fabricating spurious pretexts to attack Jews. You and bostrom are cut from the same cloth, except that you approach obsessive Jew-hatred from a different angle. Run along to aftonbladet — they’re sure to employ you.
| 22 August 2009, 2:28 pm |
If the ‘zionist’ lobby is so powerful, then why this antizionist parrot Hasbara Bustar is still here ?
| 22 August 2009, 2:36 pm |
@DocMartyn@
On the Website Achgut,
(http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/article/its_the_left_stupid/)
which is sometimes publishing my comments I found the article
by Soeren Kern
Senior Fellow, Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Strategic Studies Group
“European Left is More Dangerous for Jews than the European Right”
Mr. Kern declares: “Unfortunately, the Islamization of Europe, which is being promoted by an intolerant leftwing multicultural dogma that gives immigrants more rights than natives, is one of the main factors contributing to the alarming rise of truly troublesome extremist groups like the Hungarian Jobbik party.”
http://www.hudsonny.org/2009/06/european-left-is-more-dangerous-for-jews-than-the-european-right.php
This is of course the language of an extreme rightist, who wants us to believe, that Europe is being islamized and that immigrants have „more rights than natives“.
The rise of the „troublesome extremist“ group Jobbik has nothing to do with immigrants, for there are not so many immigrants in Hungary as in Western Europe. It certainly has nothing to do with „Islamization“. The leader of Jobbik Gäbor Vona (formerly Zazrivecz) maintains close relations with the Iranian embassy.
Those who incite hatred be they of the left or the right are not to be trusted. As a matter of fact, some right and left wing extremists take a common line with Islamists.
| 22 August 2009, 2:49 pm |
I was talking to an anti-Israel Swede of my acquaintance the other day, and he told me that on the Swedish left, it has been noted that Ambassador Bonnier married into a wealthy Jewish Swedish family who ‘own half the media’ in Sweden. as a result, the Swedish left are now tut tutting at the inordinate power of the Jews who can cause Swedish ambassadors to apologise.
In other words, for the Swedish anti-Israel left, this story has now become about the sinister power of the Jews, rather than an example of disgusting antisemitism in a major paper.
| 22 August 2009, 3:52 pm |
Christian + right is oxymoron
How many christians are ‘left’ ?
Catholic marxist Pasolini ? but hes dead long ago
anna, there are more than a few Christian leftists in the US (example)– although they’re not as powerful or organized as the Christian Right.
| 22 August 2009, 3:54 pm |
How wonderful that HB now admits that Jews are human (and I can appreciate his pain in doing so) – of course, only to slander them.
And, insofar as the hypocrite who is currently the Foreign Minister of Sweden… Surely, somebody in this position can distinguish not just between freedom of speech and an ugly racist slander, but also between freedom of speech and the imperative of a civilised government to rail against racism. For example, “While we recognise the right of ‘Aftonbladet’ to print this article, a right guaranteed in our Swedish constitutional system, we wish to dissociate ourselves from this ugly smear”.
Given that Carl Bildt is intelligent enough to understand all that, the only possible conclusion is that he doesn’t wish to dissociate himself from the above ugly smear. Nuff said…
By the way, the reason, I believe, that the media in USA and also (as far as I am aware) in UK and th rest of Europe didn’t take up the story is precisely because they understand the danger of disseminating anti-Semitic filth just by retelling it.
| 22 August 2009, 4:11 pm |
This incident is so outrageous, that even the Swedish embassy in Israel was quick to condemn it:
“Sweden’s ambassador to Israel issued a press release on Wednesday condemning the article which appeared in Aftonbladet.
“The article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes, as it is to Israeli citizens,” the ambassador, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, said on Wednesday.”
“Just as in Israel, freedom of the press prevails in Sweden,” Bonnier said. “However, freedom of the press and freedom of expression are freedoms which carry a certain responsibility.”
Its not a condemnation. Its an observation. I believe I read somewhere that the statement by the Swedish Embassy is not officialy endorsed as a statement on behalf of the Swedish Government.
is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes, as it is to Israeli citizens
That statement would also be accurate if the libel were true.
I don’t see any denial or apology here.
| 22 August 2009, 4:17 pm |
I’m still waiting for Barry Rubin’s article in response to Israeli Housing Minister Ariel Attias’ words to the effect that the “spread of Arab population must be stopped” in Israel.
Or to Rabbi Yitzhak Batzri’s statement that “only in Christianity and in pagan religions is there a concept like that – to pass a child over a fiery oven so he will burn.” (If this isn’t blood-libeling the Christians, what is?)
In other words, why do we slam a private Swedish paper, when state-paid political and religious leaders, in other parts of the world, say much worse and straightforward things? Me don’t understand.
| 22 August 2009, 4:33 pm |
simply inform the EU that they cannot participate in ME peace negotiations until the Swedish EU president is removed.
I think that is a great point.
| 22 August 2009, 4:41 pm |
Has anyone asked what the procedure for organ harvesting must be?
So IDF shoot a Palestinian and some field surgeon with a refrigeration unit pounces on the body, removes various organs, stitches up the body and the Palestinians have never mentioned anything or displayed the bodies for propaganda?
How many bodies do you need to ‘harvest’ before you find a healthy organ from someone free from disease and blood-typed to a recipient?
You couldn’t make it up!
Hang on! You CAN! What’s more there are people who will believe it.
| 22 August 2009, 4:46 pm |
RE:Me don’t understand.
And you never will.
It would help if you try, however. Let’s see. One “rabbi” says something against Christians that has no historical context whatsoever, and you have the stupidity to compare that with a mainstream newspaper essentially regurgitating a centuries-old blood libel against Jews without any proof whatsoever. And even more stupidly, you think what the rabbi said is worse!
So, if “me” still don’t understand, it’s because “me” is a blinkered, racist nutcase.
| 22 August 2009, 5:01 pm |
As a dane I’m of course prejudiced against Aftonbladet because the danish society and political discussions is regularly condemmed as racist
by editors and columnist in the newspaper.
But the political discourse (not least the one initiated by the left wing and the social democrats) in Sweden is marred by a special kind of political correctness:You support what you think is the weak and the underdogs no matter what, and then there is subjects you just don’t simply discuss. ( ex. the cost and consequences of the swedish migration policy).
If you ad a traditional anti jewish stance in the swedish upper class then you have a society that is ready to believe and publish anything.
| 22 August 2009, 5:10 pm |
Can Buster not be banned?
| 22 August 2009, 5:14 pm |
Xtabentum, that is a rather feeble paraphrase of a very complex area of apocalyptic theology, exceedingly vague and clearly cribbed from some left wing website or cheesy book somewhere. Care to give me which part of the Bible it is based on? Could you also explain where the Third Temple fits in, and how it is related to the Al Aqsa mosque? Could you also give me some examples of actual anti-semitic comments by these sinister ‘Right Wing Christians’, instead of simply providing a rather crude gloss on what they are supposed to believe?
| 22 August 2009, 5:25 pm |
Hasbara,
Calling any direct racist posting as “Israel critic” doesn’t make it truth, even if you say it hundreds of times, over and over..
| 22 August 2009, 5:30 pm |
So IDF shoot a Palestinian and some field surgeon with a refrigeration unit pounces on the body, removes various organs, stitches up the body and the Palestinians have never mentioned anything or displayed the bodies for propaganda?
Go to Aftonbladet’s original story and you’ll see a photo of a body, allegedly of a Palestinian activist, stitched from the throat to the stomach, “displayed for propaganda.”
This proves that it’s all a knee-jerk, pre-emptive blood-libel accusation, and that the accusers haven’t even bothered to read the article they denounce as antisemitic, or a translation thereof.
| 22 August 2009, 5:35 pm |
kudos Doc Martyn …
As a right wing, CURRENT Christian, I will pray that Xtabentun
finds the truth and accepts the Word. Christians – and Jews -
who are anti-Israel have broken their covenant with the Lord.
| 22 August 2009, 5:54 pm |
HB: I guess you didn’t understand the point Cookie Cutter was trying to make, but then again, you don’t understand very much do you.
| 22 August 2009, 6:10 pm |
Ehem… lets for a minute take the story at face value. What would be the point of the stitches?
“Hey, we are harvesting organs from the Palestinians, but it is all a secret. So instead of just blowing the body to smitereens and claim that he was playing with explosives, or simply burying the body somewhere, lets ask the doctor that collected the organs to stitch the guy up and then send the body back to its family. They will never guess!”
| 22 August 2009, 6:11 pm |
I see that Alberto Miyara is again insinuating that Jews are murderers. Didn’t you grow up from that?
| 22 August 2009, 6:16 pm |
Alec
22 August 2009, 5:10 pm
Can Buster not be banned? <<
Why ?
at least he is somewhat entertaining
| 22 August 2009, 6:41 pm |
Fabian from Israel
22 August 2009, 6:11 pmI see that Alberto Miyara is again insinuating that Jews are murderers. Didn’t you grow up from that?
This is one of the ways in which Harry’s Place is embarrassed by its commenters.
Fabián is trying –as usual– to “out” me as a named person (not me, to set the record straight) so that I’ll stop commenting to avoid harming someone else, or something like that.
This is a despicable practice that should lead to Fabián’s expulsion from this blog — that would lead to it if Fabián was a leftwing anti-zionist. But rightwing Zionist nutcases and unabashed racists like Fabián himself (of “I didn’t come to Israel to live with Arabs” fame) have hijacked the blog, and nothing can be done to them, because they’re “the life of the site.”
I am also posting this on the “Everything in moderation” post.
| 22 August 2009, 7:08 pm |
“Fabián is trying –as usual– to “out” me as a named person (not me, to set the record straight)”
Tito, Tito, come on. Everybody knows you, poor stupid teacher from Rosario, Argentina.
| 22 August 2009, 7:48 pm |
Everybody knows you
So tell me, do I wear boxers or briefs?
| 22 August 2009, 8:00 pm |
I re-found this very interesting interview with Zvi Mazel, the former Israeli Ambassador to Sweden from 2002 to 2004 (the one who disconnected the electricity of that “work of art” exhibit). It’s now 3 years old, from September 2006, and perhaps not more topical in some points?, but I think it’s still very worth reading.
http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=382&PID=471&IID=1609&CMD=ADDTOML
It also shows that Muslims in Sweden enjoy freedom of press and speech even when they call for jihad and the killing of Jews (for that’s “part of the everyday occurrences in the conflict in the Middle East”), but a small far-right party had closed its sites by the Foreign Ministry when it showed the Mohammed Cartoons.
A very selective “matter of principles”.
| 22 August 2009, 8:14 pm |
Freedom of speech as extolled by Carl Bildt includes the freedom to be wrong, as Aftonbladet undoubtedly is. Does Bildt consider there to be a ‘freedom to lie’ as Aftonbladet would be doing if there is no editorial retraction?
What I believe Israel needs to do is to arrange for a high-profile Swede who is up to his/her neck in this filthy smear to have an ‘accident’ and, at the same time, mention that Israel cannot guarantee the safety of Swedish anti-semites.
| 22 August 2009, 8:23 pm |
The Hasbara Buster,
[Everybody knows you]
‘So tell me, do I wear boxers or briefs?’
Freudian slip on your part there, Barbara, it wasn’t that sense of “know”.
| 22 August 2009, 9:06 pm |
Christian + right is oxymoron
How many christians are ‘left’ ?
Hugo Chavez claims to be both a leftist and a Christian. The Bill O’Reilly-esque Chavista television host Mario Silva (I believe) features a backdrop of Jesus Christ, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. Others here have featured less absurd examples, but I mean Christian Right as the Christianists — an authoritarian political faction with an exaggerated but nonetheless formidable political sway in the United States.
Frankly, this talk of an alliance between Christian and Jewish orthodoxies frightens the hell out of me. I’d stand with secularists in both countries against theocratic forces everywhere.
As a right wing, CURRENT Christian, I will pray that Xtabentun
finds the truth and accepts the Word. Christians – and Jews -
who are anti-Israel have broken their covenant with the Lord.
See, this is a very dangerous idea, that a state, which is man-made as all are man-made, is divinely appointed to carry out some supernatural mission. It’s the same with Palestine and the Islamists. We have to break out of this. There are plenty of good reasons why Israel should be defended, why Islamist tyranny should be opposed, etc. etc. etc. The rub is taking a stand against the chauvinists on your own side. That’s much more difficult. Israel is a state, just like any other, God has nothing to do with it, and the illusion that he does is a serious problem.
| 22 August 2009, 9:19 pm |
Talk about libels; this one was invented by the left it goes like this:- We hate Israel and the Jews for their own good whereas the right support Israel and the Jews but really want them all dead.
As a right wing, former Christian, let me say fuck off Xtabentun.
One of the best selling Christian books of the 20th century was the Left Behind series. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the prerequisite for the End Times the Jews of Israel — after having repossessed Jerusalem — conversion to Christianity?
Could you also give me some examples of actual anti-semitic comments by these sinister ‘Right Wing Christians’, instead of simply providing a rather crude gloss on what they are supposed to believe?
http://mediamatters.org/research/200504130003
In the March issue of American Family Association Journal, a publication of Donald E. Wildmon’s right-wing evangelical activist group, the American Family Association (AFA), author Randall Murphree suggested that a Jewish upbringing leads to hatred of Christians, and by extension, a criminal lifestyle.
[...]
The AFA Journal has long served as a platform for anti-Semitic theories and innuendo. For instance, Wildmon warned of Jewish control over popular culture, an old anti-Semitic canard, in a January 1989 article, “What Hollywood Believes and Wants.” “The television elite are highly secular,” Wildmon wrote. “The majority (59 percent) in the Jewish faith.” In a separate article in the same issue, titled “Anti-Semitism Called a Serious Problem,” Wildmon, a longtime opponent of gay rights, pointedly remarked that “Jews favor homosexual rights more than other Americans.”
Wildmon has been denounced by Jewish organizations including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress. In 1994, Wildmon was the subject of a positive feature in “The Spotlight,” a journal published by the virulently anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby.
| 22 August 2009, 10:18 pm |
You cannot judge the attitudes of Swedes towards either Israel or Jews from the behaviour of either their government or the opposition parties or a newspaper such as Aftonbladet. I’ve already posted links to show that the current Swedish government, in its current role as the leader of the EU, and thus of the Quartet, aims to use that role to take a tougher role with Israel because it wants to align itself and the EU to Obama’s coattails on the basis that this will lead to a successful Middle East peace settlement.
The attitude towards Israel in the UK similarly cannot be judged from the current stance of the Brown government, the Guardian, the Liberal party and the BBC.
When I was in Israel last year over Succot, that festival includes an annual solidarity-with-Israel parade with groups from all over the world–many of them from churches which are very supportive of Israel and the Jewish community worldwide. The Swedish group was huge, very demonstratively affectionate towards all the people they passed, and a great deal larger than those from either the UK or the USA.
Extreme statements about the UK and Europe becoming increasingly impossible for Jews pending its Islamification are about as accurate as the SWP’s claims of the imminent collapse of capitalism (for which of course the evidence is the current credit crunch and banks crisis) and its takeover by itself as the revolutionary party of the masses.
Get a grip, those of you who recycle these Spenglerian ideas of the impending doom of the west.
| 22 August 2009, 11:25 pm |
Very well said, Judy.
| 23 August 2009, 2:34 am |
If the organ harvesting accusation wasn’t a blood libel when it was made against the Kosovars, it isn’t a blood libel either when it is made against the Israelis. Unless, that is, we somehow believe that Israel belongs in a different human category than Kosovo.
The fact that in the Middle Ages Jews were falsely accused of killing Christian children to bake matzah with their blood has logically nothing to do with Aftonbladet’s story. Here we have –according to an FBI investigation– unknown Israelis illegally providing organs from unspecified persons to an American traficker, Levy Izhak Rosenbaum. We also have an army that is not subject to accountability with regard to the prisoners it takes except when it is caught on camera. We also have proven cases of prisoners killed in cold blood after they were captured by that army. We also have a picture of an alleged Palestinian activist’s body stitched all along his chest and belly.
Enough to prove that Israeli soldiers engaged in organ harvesting? By no means! Enough to warrant a report on the Palestinians’ suspicions? Absolutely yes.
| 23 August 2009, 4:17 am |
I first heard the bicycle rider joke as a young member of the swp: from Tony Cliff. Years later I found that Hannah Arendt had referred to the joke in her ‘Origins of Totalitarianism’ (although, unlike Cliff, to disagree with its liberal premiss about the origins of anti-semitism).
As you were.
| 23 August 2009, 6:43 am |
“So tell me, do I wear boxers or briefs?”
What would be the point of either, given that one imagines that you have the genitalia of a Ken doll?
| 23 August 2009, 7:02 am |
“The Hasbara Buster” – with a name like that, do you really expect anyone to take you seriously? You’re a joke.
| 23 August 2009, 9:01 am |
HB would believe any lie, any blood libel against Jews. So facts cannot convince him and any discussion with him is a waste of time.
I found an interesting article about
“Sweden’s growing antisemitism”
on a Swedish catholic blog:
The evening paper Aftonbladet has published some sensational story about Jewish soldiers harvesting organs from dead Palestinians. The articles was written by Donald Boström, who is a well known pro-Palestinian, and therefore not anywhere near objective to start with.
As for the amount of truth in the allegations – well, who knows? In this conflict people seem to be completely blind to anything but their own preferences. But knowing what I know about Aftonbladet – a rag of a tabloid that makes the British Sun appear serious and truthful – I never take any of their articles seriously. Lies, more lies – and Aftonbladet…
But that’s not even the point. The point is the Middle East situation has made the Swedish antisemits crawl up from under their rocks; they pop up everywhere – most of all in the media.
During WWII Sweden was what was called “neutral”. In reality that meant we let German soldiers through here on their way to invade Norway. It also meant the Swedish government was the ones who actually suggested the yellow star to begin with; a star in the passports made the Swedish authorities able to bar the way of the Jewish fugitives coming here…
Of course policy changed quite a lot once the atrocities of the death camps became known. But there were many, many nazis in this country – and there still are. Neutral? That’ll be the day…
http://catholicswede.blogspot.com/2009/08/swedens-growing-anti-semitism.html
| 23 August 2009, 9:32 am |
That the paper expects to sell a lot of newspapers with such bs, says a lot about some swedes.
That no senior minister in the swedish govt chooses to call the newpaper on that article, tells much about how large a part of the swedish electorate ’some swedes’ must be.
| 23 August 2009, 10:10 am |
I learnt last night that the allegations are not only true but they have been true for several years. I listened to Dr Tillawi on Republican Radio. He’s a Palestinian who runs the most sickening antisemitic radio program on the planet.
He doesn’t talk about Israelis or Zionists, nope, its Jews. Apparently, the reason New York rabbis were involved was because the Palestinian body parts aren’t Kosher and the Rabbis have to Kosher the parts. Presumably they wash them, sprinkle salt and leave for a few hours. I learnt that there are secretive grave sites called the “Numbered Graves” where there are no names but just numbers. The Palestinians don’t allow anyone to go there for some mysterious reason. They posit that they don’t want people to see the mutilated bodies with parts missing. Yup, the Palestinians themselves are in on the conspiracy! Yes, the greatest anti-Israel propaganda coup of the millenia and the Palestinians are just sitting on it. Amazing!
According to this cockroach and his American echo in another studio these are FACTS! So when challenged by a caller peturbed at the one-sided barrel of lies challenges them on ‘the facts’ they dump him and say “These ARE the facts. Prove me wrong”.
They go on to make a few antisemitic ‘jokes’ and wonder what would happen to them at Fox if they said the same things (giggle).
Its freedom of speech folks.
“God Bless America!”
| 23 August 2009, 11:03 am |
Israel has just denied entry to Gaza for a photographer and a reporter from Aftonbladet, saying that that paper’s reporters will not get visas for the next 3 months.
| 23 August 2009, 12:52 pm |
paper’s reporters will not get visas for the next 3 months.
I believe they expressed it as “it can take up to 3 months to do a thorough check etc – and we will be VERY thorough”
LOL!!
My worry is if the herring trade (pickled, shmaltz and chopped) is going to suffer!
| 23 August 2009, 1:09 pm |
This thread is doing funny things to people. With abject surprise, I have to agree to every single word of Judy. What next?
It is not as if Europe per se was anti-Semitic or if there was a huge tidal wave of anti-Semitism, or even anti-Zionism afoot. Those of us who actually live here (i.e. in Europe) can tell it from our personal experience.
Yet, the Aftonbladet affair is vitally important and it is absolutely vital to react to it and expose it for the toxic smear it is.
Racism (and, folks, anti-Semitism is neither more nor less than plain, stupid racism) is based on racist tropes, from the outright objectionable (oily Greeks, hook-nosed Jews, idle Blacks, stupid Irish, smelly Italians, treacherous Arabs) to the thoroughly, absolutely nasty (Jews slaughtering Gentile children to use their blood, Blacks raping blonde virgins, …). Such tropes are emphatically not some sort of harmless background: they are the major vehicle of desensitization, so that people become inured to racism and willing to break social and personal taboos to advance their hate.
Now, it is of course possible for an individual Jew, like for any other individual, to kill a non-Jew for his-or-her organs. Unlikely, but possible. It is equally possible, say, for a Black to rape a blonde virgin (although statistically it is hugely more likely for a blonde rapist to do so). But, firstly, there is a huge difference between an individual perpetrating this sort of crime and an accusation that it is done collectively: that, say, the Blacks of Chicago, or Jews of Israel are engaged, purposefully and together, in this sort of enterprise (as claimed by Aftonbladet).
Secondly, everybody but a hardened racist will realise the sheer danger in this sort of blank accusation. Hence, everybody but a hardened racist will require hard evidence from reliable sources. The only “evidence” in the Aftonbladet article is that bodies of Palestinians who have been killed in encounters with IDF have been returned to their families “with stitches along their abdomen”. Well, even the author would have known perfectly well that in every organised country (yes, even in Sweden) everybody who has died an unnatural death will be autopsied (in Israel, by the Forensic Medicine Institute in Abu Qabbir, in South Tel Aviv) – and stitches along the abdomen are (as everybody who has viewed any of all these morbid police procedural dramas will know) characteristic of an autopsy. To use this (knowingly!) as the sole source for a canard based on long-standing anti-Semitic trope is a deliberate act of anti-Semitism of the highest order.
And this precisely is why there should be a reaction. Not a violent one, not burning Swedish embassies or boycotting IKEA (founded by a member of the Swedish Nazi Party) or boycotting Swedish academics. Ther should be reaction which is dignified, but resolute. Until the Swedish elites recognise the sort of racist viper that they have nourished at their bosom.
| 23 August 2009, 1:15 pm |
“So tell me, do I wear boxers or briefs?”
He proudly wear jewish (’zionist’) jeans and have bald patches in his long hair
| 23 August 2009, 11:07 pm |
I wouldn’t be surprised if Hasbara Buster has the headline “Israel steals children’s organs” plastered on it. Since I have no intention of puking, I’m not going to find out.
Wasn’t that racist scum banned? Why is he back?
| 24 August 2009, 11:20 am |
JoshB, leave the HB troll alone. Don’t give it the oxygen of being noticed at all, let alone reacted to.
SO Muffin, a dignified reaction wouldn’t register. Given that most western governments shiver with fright if Islamists as much as whisper threats, I am beginning to wonder whether their reaction would be the same, and they would act against Jew-hatred, if Jews threatened to riot in a like fashion.
The Israeli government has not even recalled its ambassador to Sweden as a form of protest and it should have done so when this excrement appeared. What sort of message does that send out? I know that the international press has no ethical standards worthy of the definition, so Aftonbladet will not be disciplined. What sort of “dignified but resolute” action do you have in mind and do you think that such an action would have any effect whatsoever?
| 24 August 2009, 5:53 pm |
Fabian From Israel, 22nd Aug. 1939, 6:19 AM:
replied to my question,
“Wonder how ‘God is Great’ sounds in Hebrew?”
“Eloin gadol”
Thanks, Fabian!
“Pathetic and sickening,” the most apt description of European left “thinking” these days.