Swede’s grim fairytale is a blood libel
IS Israel the victim of a blood libel? Of course it is. The telltale signs are present in the Swedish tabloid fable that started off the furore. The story has it all: suspicion of murder and mutilation under the cover of sinister secrecy, absence of any proof and perpetrated by inhumane monsters masquerading as normal people.
VIEWPOINT/AHRON SHAPIRO
IS Israel the victim of a blood libel? Of course it is. The telltale signs are present in the Swedish tabloid fable that touched off the furore. The story has it all: suspicion of murder and mutilation under the cover of sinister secrecy, absence of any proof, all conspired by inhumane monsters masquerading as normal people.
In the offending article, a freelance journalist accused the Israel Defence Forces of stealing body organs from Palestinian men after killing them.
That the story was even published in a major publication was bad enough, but the Swedish government made the situation worse by rebuking its ambassador for condemning the story.
As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday, “The Swedish government crossed a red line when it did not condemn the article,” adding that Israel had always known how to deal with blood libels and “we expect the Swedish government to deal with it as well”.
Netanyahu is correct.
The story, completely devoid of factual basis, is such a malicious lie that even the Palestinian Authority’s official news organ did not have the temerity to confirm the accuracy of the allegations. That said – recognising an opportunity to debase Israel when it saw one – it naturally found an “unorthodox” researcher to interview to give plausibility to the notion.
Even the Palestinian family whose testimony the story is supposedly based upon said this week that they never told the Swedish reporter they believed the prisoner’s organs had been stolen. However, now that the reporter has gone ahead and made the allegation, they are demanding a full international investigation.
This predictable response can be directly attributed to Sweden’s reluctance to condemn the article.
This is what happens when blood libels are not condemned immediately. This is what occurs when anti-Semitic fantasies are permitted to creep into the mainstream: now the claim has merit, now we have to investigate it, now we have to debate it.
Has the world gone utterly mad?
The Swedish government, upholding its libertarian traditions, is entitled to hide behind its excuse that it is not its place to condemn stories in its press.  However, it must understand that by effectively condoning the propagation of anti-Semitism in its media, there will be serious diplomatic consequences.
There have been suggestions that Israel has overreacted to the story. Some of these sentiments have been expressed by members of the Swedish Jewish community, a development that might be giving a whole new dimension to the term “Stockholm Syndrome”.
Israel is hardly overreacting. On the contrary, it is doing exactly what must be done.
Israel must stand firm and demonstrate to the world, by example, how blood libels should be dealt with. They are not to be pandered to, probed, investigated, debated, or reasoned with. Anti-Semitic blood libel allegations must be pulverised and shamed back into the fetid cesspool of blind hatred from which they slithered. End of story.
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This story is being discussed in Ahron Shapiro’s blog.
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