Blood Libel promoted by Counterpunch, Alison Weir
This is a cross post by Adam Holland
The blog Counterpunch, which is edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, has published an article which alleges that the blood libel is true and is related to purported Israeli thefts of human organs from Palestinians. The blood libel, the charge that Jews ritually murdered gentiles and used their blood to cast spells, was a mainstay of medieval European anti-Semitism. In Europe, the blood libel led to pogroms, mass slayings and expulsions. The Counterpunch article may be the first instance of an American leftist media outlet promoting the blood libel.
The Counterpunch article (read here) supports and elaborates on spurious allegations concerning Israeli theft of body parts from Palestinians — charges originally appearing in an article by Donald Bostrom which was published in the Swedish tabloid newspaperAftonbladet. The controversy concerning that article has received extensive coverage internationally (read here). Medical experts have unanimously stated that the theft of organs from the dead for use in transplants, as alleged in the story, is medically impossible (read here). Bostrom’s article claims that Israeli soldiers hunted down a Palestinian youth, shooting him in the chest and abdomen at close range in order to steal his organs. The alleged witnesses to the events described in his article, including the families of the purported victims, have completely disavowed the story (read here). Counterpunch alleges not only that such murders and thefts of organs in fact truly occur, but that they are part of a campaign which is sanctioned by the Israeli government and other Israeli institutions and that it is connected to religious traditions allowing the ritual murder of gentiles.
The Counterpunch coverage of these allegations was written by Alison Weir, the head of an anti-Israel organization called If Americans Knew. Weir’s Counterpunch article derives in large part from articles written about the controversy by a notorious anti-Semite who goes by the assumed name “Israel Shamir”. Weir deceptively identifies Shamir in her footnotes as an “Israeli writer” in spite of widely reported revelations that Shamir is actually a Swede of Russian descent and that he is associated with Russian ultra-nationalists. Shamir has been disavowed by many on the left and in the pro-Palestinian movement as the result of his overtly anti-Semitic writings and his connections to the far-right. Research into his real background has revealed that he began his journalism career under his assumed name working for a prominent far-right, Russian nationalist anti-Semite, Aleksandr Prokhanov, chief editor of the newspaper Zavtra. Even as he presents himself to the west as a leftist, anti-Zionist, “Shamir” has continued to publish explicitly right-wing articles in Russia and Eastern Europe. Shamir’s original article in support of the spurious organ theft allegations is posted here. His advocacy of the blood libel can be read here. Shamir writes in the latter article that “‘Blood libel’ is the Jewish battle cry”, thus claiming not only that the libel is in fact true, but that to say otherwise is an act of aggression. .
In her Counterpunch article, Weir parrots Shamir’s arguments that the blood libel is no libel, and that the charge that it is libel is a ruse used by Jews to suppress the revelation of their crimes. She writes:
“In scanning through the reaction to Bostrom’s report, one is struck by the multitude of charges that his article is a new version of the old anti-Semitic “blood libel.” Given that fact, it is interesting to examine a 2007 book by Israel’s preeminent expert on medieval Jewish history, and what happened to him.
“The author is Bar-Ilan professor (and rabbi) Ariel Toaff, son of the
former chief rabbi of Rome, a religious leader so famous that an Israeli journalist writes that Toaff’s father “is to Italian Jewry as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.” Ariel Toaff, himself, is considered “one of the greatest scholars in his field.”“In February 2007 the Israeli and Italian media were abuzz (though most of the U.S. media somehow missed it) with news that Professor Toaff had written a book entitled “Pasque di Sangue” (“Blood Passovers”) containing evidence that there “was a factual basis for some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews.”
“Based on 35 years of research, Toaff had concluded that there were at least a few, possibly many, real incidents.
“In an interview with an Italian newspaper (the book was published in Italy), Toaff says:
““My research shows that in the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical prohibition and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecution during the Crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children.”
“(Incidentally, an earlier book containing similar findings was published some years ago, also by an Israeli professor, Israel Shahak, of whom Noam Chomsky once wrote, “Shahak is an outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge. His work is informed and penetrating, a contribution of great value.” )
“Professor Toaff was immediately attacked from all sides, including pressure orchestrated by Anti-Defamation League chairman Abe Foxman, but Toaff stood by his 35 years of research, announcing:
“I will not give up my devotion to the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me… One shouldn’t be afraid to tell the truth.”
“Before long, however, under relentless public and private pressure, Toaff had recanted, withdrawn his book, and promised to give all profits that had already accrued (the book had been flying off Italian bookshelves) to Foxman’s Anti-Defamation League. A year later he published a “revised version.”
“Donald Bostrom’s experience seems to be a repeat of what Professor Toaff endured: calumny, vituperation, and defamation. Bostrom has received death threats as well, perhaps an experience that Professor Toaff also shared.
“If Israel is innocent of organ plundering accusations, or if its culpability is considerably less than Bostrom and others suggest, it should welcome honest investigations that would clear it of wrongdoing. Instead, the government and its advocates are working to suppress all debate and crush those whose questions and conclusions they find threatening.”
Much of the claims in that excerpt are falsehoods intended to support an unsupportable conclusion: that Jews ritually murdered gentiles. Let’s debunk some of them in order:
1) Ariel Toaff is not “Israel’s preeminent expert on medieval Jewish history”. Weir has no reason to believe that he is and provides no citation for this invented claim. Toaff is not a rabbi. Toaff did not conduct 35 years of research into the question of whether Jews conducted ritual murders of gentiles, or used blood to cast spells. All of these claims by Weir are untrue and were invented by Weir to burnish Toaff’s reputation as an expert on the subject of ritual murder and bolster his opinions about it.
2) In the first edition of the book in question, Toaff relied on faulty logic to reach the conclusion that a small group of Jews may have conducted ritual murders and ritually used blood in contradiction of Jewish law as a form of revenge for the anti-Jewish atrocities of the Crusades. He based his conclusion on testimony extracted from Jewish victims under the extreme duress of medieval torture chambers, the sole documentary record of these events. One would expect that a historian researching this subject would bring an understanding of the tainted origin of these documents and counterbalance them with that understanding and a knowledge of the historical context. In the annals of lapses of judgment by historians, Toaff’s initial credulous reliance on these documents must rank high. Neither Toaff nor Weir offer any reason for the reader to accept the veracity of statements extracted under extreme duress, and readers shouldn’t do so.
3) Toaff, since the initial publication of his book, has retracted his earlier conclusions concerning ritual murder. (Read here.) He has issued a new version of his book which states unequivocally that“Jews were not involved in ritual murder, which was an entirely Christian stereotype”. Weir neglects to mention this statement, continuing to maintain that Toaff found that “there was a factual basis for some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews. Based on 35 years of research, Toaff had concluded that there were at least a few, possibly many, real incidents.” Toaff’s retraction occured 18 months prior to Weir’s article. While Weir does mention that Toaff has issued a new version of his book, she fails to detail his more recent findings, dismissing them as a capitulation to pressure by Abe Foxman and the ADL — proof to her of a Jewish conspiracy of silence.
4) In order to shore up Ariel Toaff’s credentials, Weir quotes a Haaretz article with respect to the high regard for Toaff’s father, Rabbi Elio Toaff. Elio Toaff served with great distinction as chief rabbi of Rome in the 1950s and 1960s. He also demonstrated extraordinary bravery as an anti-fascist partisan during World War II. Weir quotes the Haaretz article to the effect that Elio Toaff “is to Italian Jewry as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris”. She fails to cite that article in a footnote, however, because to do so would have forced her to give its headline: “The wayward son“. A footnote or link also would have allowed Weir’s readers to see the following quote from Rabbi Elio Toaff in the lede paragraph:
“(T)he criticism that everyone has expressed about his book was justified. His arguments in the book were an insult to the intelligence, to the tradition, to history in general and to the meaning of the Jewish religion. It saddens me that such nonsense was put forward by my son of all people.”
The Haaretz article Weir quoted but failed to cite goes on to describe the reaction to the publication of the first version of Ariel Toaff’s book as “the shock currently being felt by the Italian Jewish community over this human tragedy”. Weir either completely misunderstood the point of the article or she deliberately withheld it. She either inadvertently failed to cite the quote’s source, or she deliberately suppressed it. You be the judge.
5) Weir cites Israel Shahak as a purported expert on Judaism who supported the truth of the blood libel, stating point blank that Shahak reached similar conclusions to those reached by Toaff. The footnote Weir provides for this claim, a biographical sketch of Shahak by Norton Mezvinisky on the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs website, does not in any way support this assertion. (In fact, the only aspect of what Weir wrote about Shahak whichis supported in the article she cited is that Noam Chomsky provided Shahak with an extremely generous blurb for a book cover.) Shahak, who was a chemistry professor at Hebrew University and not an authority on history or religion, was infamously the author of a polemical pamphlet concerning Judaism entitled Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years. This book, which largely consists of very obvious falsehoods, is a favorite among those who want ammunition against Jews but are not particularly concerned about accuracy. It is notable not for scholarship but for its palpable disdain for its subject. To give a sense of the tone of Shahak’s book, it literally argues that the Chmielniki massacres, in which hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed, were justified. (Read here andhere.) The book also absurdly claims that religious Jews worship Satan. It even falsely contends (at length) that Judaism permits the murder of gentiles and forbids violating the Sabbath to save a gentile’s life. (As the grandson of an Orthodox Jewish physician who routinely broke the Sabbath to care for Jews and gentiles alike, this argument is especially galling to me.) In spite of all that, I know of no instance where even Shahak alleged that the blood libel was literally true. In fact, he said the contrary. On page 30 of the electronic version of Jewish History, Jewish Religion (availablehere), he makes a point to distinguish such claims from medieval arguments against the Jewish religion with which he agrees.
“We are not referring here to ignorant calumnies, such as the blood libel, propagated by benighted monks in small provincial cities.”
It is precisely such an ignorant calumny which Alison Weir and Counterpunch have published.
Anecdotal Evidence
Weir’s article makes the case that Israel plays a disproportionate role in the illegal trade in human organs, that the government and military is involved, and (as indicated above) that this trade has its roots in Jewish religious traditions involving ritual murder of gentiles. The obvious spuriousness of her evidence for this is helpful because it puts the bad faith behind the inaccuracies of the rest of her arguments into clear focus. The rest of her arguments hardly stand up to close scrutiny even without taking her support of the blood libel into consideration.
To make her argument, Weir provides a deceptive history of the issue, citing no statistical studies of the issue, but relying exclusively on anecdotes from media coverage of a number of Israeli cases concerning illegal or unethical medical use of organs. Her version of events cites a few reports concerning claims made by anonymous sources to bloggers and activists. She cites an editorial from the Forward which details some Israeli cases involving parts taken from corpses and used for medical instruction, not transplant. The Forward editorial decries the inappropriate use of human organs for research or study as an international problem concerning treatment of the dead, and specifically reaches the conclusion that the charge that Israel is harvesting Palestinian organs for transplants is baseless. (Readhere.) Weir, as usual, selects from this piece the facts which tend to support her case and completely withholds its main point. She also cited “Israel Shamir”. Based on unreliable or cherry-picked anecdotal evidence and completely lacking supporting statistics, Weir reaches the conclusion that Israeli involvement in the illegal organ trade is uniquely widespread, and is state and institutionally sanctioned.
The first anecdote Weir cites is a case in point. It concerns the sad case of the donor for Israel’s first heart transplant, a stroke victim who had not consented to be an organ donor. His family protested this surgery and was allegedly forced by the hospital to sign a release from liability before the body was released to them. This troubling case was widely reported at the time, and rightfully led Israel to enact greater protections from such practices, which Israel, like other nations, did not properly regulate in the early transplant era. Not only does Weir not provide this historical context, she goes so far as to imply without basis that the donor was deliberately allowed to die (or worse) in order to transplant his heart, that this practice is allowed under Israeli law and that it is commonplace there.
Where is Counterpunch headed?
It is bad enough that Counterpunch, in the name of defending human rights, would publish such patently false charges as true. It is outrageous that they would present the anti-Semitism of the middle ages as a progressive response to the Jewish people, whom they portray as intrinsically reactionary and criminal. In doing this, Counterpunch has turned the definitions of “progressive” and “reactionary” on their heads. In fact, they have completely turned logic on its head. What will they support next? The Spanish Inquisition?
NOTE: Counterpunch is publishing other articles supporting the spurious charges from Aftonbladet. One, entitled “Israeli Bodysnatchers”, was authored by Bouthaina Shaaban, chief spokesperson for President Assad of Syria and a former Syrian “Minister of Expatriates”. Shaaban describes herself as “a Nobel Peace Prize nominee”. (I love when people claim that as a credential. Literally anyone can be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, so those who cite it as an honor always do so fraudulently.) In addition to repeating the absurd organ trafficking charges, her article also baselessly blames Israel for the assassination of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh.
Comments
| 24 September 2009, 5:11 pm |
Good work. But whither the left?
| 24 September 2009, 5:20 pm |
It is depressingly predictable watching the up-til-now covert anti-semitism of these sections of the left becoming ever-more explicit.
And it is even more predictable that other, softer sections of the left, will blame this on the Jews themselves. You see, they will say, you go accusing everyone who criticises Israel of antisemitism and this is what happens.
| 24 September 2009, 5:23 pm |
Good work. But whither the left?
That IS the left.
| 24 September 2009, 5:25 pm |
I know the blood libel is a lie of historic dimensions, and the claim about the Israelis stealing body parts for transplants is obvious bunkum, but are they necessarily connected? The Chinese theft of organs from prisoners sentenced to death is a fairly well-known issue which has no connection with jews. Is it not possible that some rumour around this issue started and spread quite separately from any mediaeval superstition?
| 24 September 2009, 5:53 pm |
Not only that, but the Israelis are torturing the “legitimate” president of Honduras with gases and rays as he plots his return to power.
| 24 September 2009, 6:21 pm |
mesquito –
This is not the movement I once identified with.
Not even 5 years ago was it like this. There were elements, sure. But this is toxic and spreading.
It’s so disappointing.
| 24 September 2009, 6:30 pm |
JON: My comment was a little over the top and I regret it. Still, most of the people, especially westerners, who are peddling this garbage probably don’t believe it. They are cynical, nihilistic agitators. If it harms Israel, it’s good. That’s the only test.
| 24 September 2009, 7:17 pm |
I see Counterpunch also publishes the highly intelligent
but insane ravings of Gilad Atzmon.
This magazine & its inmates are numerically insignificant,
but if strategically positioned in the media could cause
massive damage as the new, religiously driven, nazis
make headway into parliament, both Lords & Commons.
| 24 September 2009, 7:54 pm |
I hate to see the entire Left smeared by Alison Weir and Counterpunch.
Weir is actually on the Right. She’s an ally of the Republican, Findlay, who was defeated by Senator Richard Durbin.
Findlay is anti-Israel and I would say antisemitic and “If America Knew” and Counterpunch are too.
I think antisemitism by definition, being racism, must be repudiated by the Left in toto but also by the Right. No responsible political group can support racism.
We’re seeing a really nauseating confluence of extremism – fueled by disinformation – and when rightwingers and leftwingers gang up on Jews we’re all in trouble.
| 24 September 2009, 7:59 pm |
I’d like to say something else here, and that has to do with the finger pointing between Left and Right.
This is deflecting attention from common enemies of all modern, liberal, intelligent people.
When people say, Well you leftists own the Westboro Baptist Church or (the cited blood libels) ARE the Left – that’s both innaccurate and unfair.
But worst of all, it damages our ability – whether we’re on the Right or the Left – to deal with extremism, racism, and outright lies.
We’ve got to bury the hatchet – by we I mean logical, educated, moderate people on all sides of the political spectrum – and unite to defeat the forces of extremism and darkness that threaten us all.
| 24 September 2009, 9:39 pm |
Alexander Cockburn
Am I the only one noticing the name here? Come on people. You know you want to! Even if it’s childish and stupid doesn’t anyone have any witty remark about the guy’s name?
| 24 September 2009, 9:49 pm |
We’ve got to bury the hatchet – by we I mean logical, educated, moderate people on all sides of the political spectrum – and unite to defeat the forces of extremism and darkness that threaten us all.
Dah-dah-dah-dum!!! Justice League to the rescue!
But seriously she’s right pointing fingers won’t make things any better.
| 24 September 2009, 9:52 pm |
Bloody hell! Seeing the heading of this post I thought immediately of the British historian Alison Weir, of whom I am a great fan. Very relieved.
| 24 September 2009, 9:56 pm |
Just what is going to happen when Labour fragments after the next election?
| 24 September 2009, 11:08 pm |
“Weir is actually on the Right.”
Yes, the people on the right are the nasty ones and the people on the left are the good ones. A young Democrat in Michigan explained to me the discord between the relationship between Israel and the Republicans vs. Democrats. The Republicans only support Israel so that when Jesus comes he can kill them all; whereas Democrats want Israel to give up its nukes, withdraw to the 67 ‘boarders and allow the ‘right to return’ so that the Arabs will stop hating the Jews.
So the republicans only pretend to like the Jews and the Dems are only being nasty for their own good.
| 24 September 2009, 11:42 pm |
Should not be surprised by the promotion of the blood libel by “Counterpunch”. Cockburn* is after all a die-hard unrepetant admirer of Stalin who was responsible for quite a bit of thinly disguised anti-Semitic propaganda.(Under the cover of being against “Cosmopolitianism”)
*The Left wing American political journal, “The Nation” has a regular column by Cockburn entitled, “Beat the Devil”. Evidently the Nation’s editors feel a need to appeal to whatever old Communists and their Fellow Travellers that are still around.
| 25 September 2009, 12:39 am |
Well-done article, especially the extensive debunking and setting the record straight on a number of inaccuracies/lies.
As to the need of individuals feeling the need to resuscitate the blood libel myth in the effing 21st Century: Disguisting. All the more reason to expose (certain, not all, to be fair) leftist “champions of justice” for what they are, and ridicule them as they deserve.
| 25 September 2009, 6:45 am |
You’re right Sophia, this bs can come from both far left and far right, and also from part of ‘new age’ and ‘old religion’ ( ie druid etc ) groupings.
Thanks for the extensive debunking.
| 25 September 2009, 8:37 am |
Thanks to Adam Holland for exposing this racist filth. The world needs to know the depths to which Cockburn’s cancerous little rag has sunk.
| 25 September 2009, 12:16 pm |
Mesquito, you comment was not over the top; it IS the left. Jon, you are right, it IS toxic and it IS spreading. Keep your eyes open (and your powder dry!)
The left, while full of good intentions, is traipsing down a path from which it will never recover unless it forthrightly disavows and combats this type of filth.
Remember, the Jews are the canaries in the mine.
Oh, yeah, Fr. Niemoller, too.
| 26 September 2009, 12:07 am |
Doc Martyn: Are you on stupid pills? Sophia says — correctly i believe, but that’s not the point — that Weir (note: not Counterpunch, not all anti-semitic lefties, just Weir) is on the right, and you immediately conflate to: yes, people on the right are the nasty ones…..
I mean, are you really that fucking stupid?
And, no, this is NOT a disease of the entire left. Many liberals and social democrats (i.e. the centre-left) are just as supportive of action against Islamism etc. You all should know this, since the Posters here, David T, Gene, etc. fit into that category, as does Terry Glavin, and too many others to name. Think Euston Manifesto, and then stop talking drivel.
| 26 September 2009, 9:40 am |
In Ireland between about 1996 and 2004 we had a large number of allegations that children had been killed in industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy. These included accusations in a major Sunday Newspaper of mass killing (’a Holocaust’) at Letterfrack in Co. Galway. Not a single claim has
proved to be correct. This is not surprising as several relate to periods when no child died of ANY cause. I coined the phrases ‘Murder of the Undead’ and “Victimless Murders” (check Internet).
One body was exhumed and proved to be a death from natural causes but the resulting publicity resulted in dozens of child abuse claims within a couple of weeks against the institution.
The child killing allegations were not made by isolated nutcases but by major newspapers (including the very “liberal” Irish Times) and by leading members of child abuse organisations. They have also been repeated by a mainstream Irish historian:
The following is from page 393/94 of Diarmaid Ferriter’s book “The Transformation of Ireland 1900-2000″ (copyright dated 2004 and 2005).
“In the 1990s, it was discovered that the most glaring omissions from the archive files of the industrial-school system related to information concerning the deaths of children – it is highly unlikely that those missing or unaccounted for wandered innocently outside the gates of industrial schools and became lost and untraceable. [Note 104]. It is more probable, though difficult to prove conclusively, that a small number of Irish children were beaten to death in state-financed, religious-run institutions.”
Note 104: Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan “Suffer The Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools”, (Dublin, 1999), page 233-4 and 271-274″
Ferriter may well have written these words in 1999 when the allegations were at their height but they appeared in the hardcover edition of his book in 2004 and the paperback in 2005. He was not criticised as Cockburn has been and as I said, he is mainstream, not a left wing nutcase.
| 26 September 2009, 10:49 am |
Further to my last sentence, I should have said that Ferriter is regarded as mainstream and neither an extremist of the left OR the right. I see that Alison Weir is supposed to be right-wing whereas Cockburn is of course very left.
In Ireland I have tried to interest a number of Jewish individuals in our very own Blood Libel scandal. They have no interest – probably because the libels are directed at Catholic brothers and nuns rather than Jews. This is stupid and self-defeating.
Incidentally in Ireland, Blood Libels are exclusively the province of left wing and liberal activists and are always directed at the Catholic Church. There is no right wing or Catholic equivalent.
| 26 September 2009, 11:59 am |
>> Yes, the people on the right are the nasty ones and the people on the left are the good ones.
No. If Weir is on the Right, then a need to place her on the Left suggests a similar pathopsychology to the need of the Left to claim the sugar and spice and all things nice whilst leaving the Right with the slugs and snails and puppy dog tails.
Next week, I will teach your granny to suck eggs.
| 26 September 2009, 12:09 pm |
From the article:
In 1998 a Scot named Alisdair Sinclair died under questionable circumstances while in Israeli custody at Ben Gurion airport.
His family was informed of the death and, according to a report in J Weekly, “…told they had three weeks to come up with about $4,900 to fly Sinclair’s corpse home. [Alisdair’s brother] says the Israelis seemed to be pushing a different option: burying Sinclair in a Christian cemetery in Israel, at a cost of about $1,300.”
The family scraped up the money, brought the body home, and had an autopsy performed at the University of Glasgow. It turned out that Alisdair’s heart and a tiny throat bone were missing. At this point the British Embassy filed a complaint with Israel.
The J report states:
“A heart said to be Sinclair’s was subsequently repatriated to Britain, free of charge. James wanted the [Israeli] Forensic Institute to pay for a DNA test to confirm that this heart was indeed their brother’s, but the Institute’s director, Professor Jehuda Hiss refused, citing the prohibitive cost, estimated by some sources at $1,500.”
Despite repeated requests from the British Embassy for the Israeli pathologist’s and police reports, Israeli officials refused to release either. (5,6,7)
I admit I’m unfamiliar with this, but it’s a bit rich to present a country which passed the 1832 Anatomy Act with the intention of stealing whole bodies from poor-houses and which has seen the likes of Alder Hey as a victim of Jewish vampires.
| 26 September 2009, 11:14 pm |
‘Oh, yeah, Fr. Niemoller, too.’
PASTOR Niemöller.
Very interesting post but Counterpunch’s anti-Semitism is not news.