Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is now likely to weigh in on the Swedish government’s refusal to condemn the article published in the daily Aftonbladet alleging - without a shred of what proper journalists would define as evidence - that IDF troops “harvested” the organs of Palestinians.
Thusfar, the Swedish government has portrayed the concept of press freedom as equivalent to the right to chuck vicious, unsubstantiated allegations at anyone you don’t like, especially if they are Israeli. The truth - and the Swedes know this - is that governments interact with and intervene in the media all the time, from off-the-record comments to press conferences, from letters of complaint and demands for clarification through to op-ed articles. If Donald Boström, the author of the Aftonbladet piece, had come up with allegations about a Swedish government minister and his secretary based on similarly invisible foundations, you can rest assured that press freedom would not be an issue.
In sum, Sweden’s government is not being asked to revoke press freedom but to comment on an article entirely built on lies that was published in the country’s principal daily newspaper.
However, there is a long-established tendency in Sweden to take Palestinian claims at face-value, no matter, apparently, how outlandish these may be. Gerald Steinberg points out that the Swedish government is a “major source of funding” for NGOs whose strategy is based upon vilifying Israel with scant regard for such pesky considerations as facts:
An NGO Monitor research report on Swedish government funding, published on June 29 2009, documented this pattern in detail, and warned of the incitement and anti-Semitic language being used routinely by these organizations. This systematic study examined over 20 major NGOs funded through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Diakonia, the multi-national NGO Development Center (NDC), and the Swedish Mission Council (SMR). Many of these NGOs routinely accuse Israel of “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “apartheid,” and some compare Israeli military and political officials to Nazis. This propaganda warfare is waged through the façade of “research” reports which routinely quote Palestinian “testimonies,” taken and repeated without question. The path from this demonization to the blood libels of Aftonbladet is short and direct.
The Israeli historian Tom Segev does not appear to be troubled by this contemporary culture, focusing his disapproval upon Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s depiction of Sweden’s record during the Second World War. “What is much more important is that Sweden saved the lives of some 20,000 Jews,” says Segev, who then goes on to recall the valiant efforts of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who disappeared into the Soviet gulag system after risking himself to save thousands of Hungarian Jews during 1944.
All this is true and no-one is denying it; indeed, Wallenberg’s heroism is an integral component of what Israeli schoolchildren learn about the Holocaust. What, then, is the implication of what Segev is saying? That this aspect of what he himself acknowledges as Sweden’s complex and often dishonorable World War Two role should block criticism of what Aftonbladet publishes now? This seems to be an inversion of what anti-Zionists routinely accuse Israel’s defenders of doing: instead of using the Holocaust to blunt criticism of Israel, it’s invoked to silence the criticisms of those who, if they thought about it properly, really ought to be more grateful.
In other words, you can’t win.
Good post. Great to have you back, Ben.
Ben - I don’t think it’s the government’s role in a free state to comment on anything a newspaper produces, even if it is based on entirely spurious foundations.
so, the Swedish PM is giving a press conference and a journalist asks him a question about a story in a national paper about some mooted economic initiative. According to you Alex, the *only* thing he could say would be “no comment”. He couldn’t even deny that the story was true - assuming that was the case - without infringing press freedom.
Adam, it’s good to be back - thanks. Alex, governments battle with the press all the time. Granted, it’s normally first person denial/defense, whereas what we’re dealing here is an offense against a third party (Israel) unrelated to the Swedish government. But that doesn’t get them off the hook.
Your formula - “I don’t think it’s the government’s role in a free state to comment on anything a newspaper produces…” - is basically a license to defame. My media outlet can publish the unsubstantiated accusation that State X, an outwardly democratic, upstanding member of international society, has an Interior Ministry that surreptitiously enables child slave trafficking. By your logic, the government of the country where my media outlet is based is prevented from criticizing or denouncing on account of press freedom.
Historically, in democratic societies, media outlets self-regulate through guidelines which set standards and should, in theory, keep the Bostrom’s of this world at bay. That hasn’t happened in this case - and because of the outrageous character of these allegations it would be appropriate for the Swedish government to step in.
BTW, today’s Ma’ariv is reporting that Bostrom has made these organ allegations before, in a book called “In’shallah,” which they say was financed by the Swedish Foreign Ministry.
Alex,
The Swedish Gov. argument is a cop out, and you know it.
Suppose instead that the Aftonbladet had published a stream of lies concerning the Roma then *any* government would be right to
1) question the validity of the article
2) ask if it meets journalistic standards
3) argue that the mainstream media should not publish racist lies, etc
That applies to the Roma, Jews, other ethnic and social minorities, and anyone else.
And I don’t think it’s the citizens’ role in a free state to comment on anything a newspaper produces, even if it is based on entirely spurious foundations.
Citizens should just do what they are told.
“The Israeli historian Tom Segev does not appear to be troubled by this contemporary culture, focusing his disapproval upon Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s depiction of Sweden’s record during the Second World War. “What is much more important is that Sweden saved the lives of some 20,000 Jews,” says Segev, who then goes on to recall the valiant efforts of the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who disappeared into the Soviet gulag system after risking himself to save thousands of Hungarian Jews during 1944.”
Tom Segev never misses an opportunity to accuse his political opponents of playing politics with the Holocaust. Now here is doing the same. Moreover he seems to have gotten some basic facts wrong.
Sweden while helping to save thousands of Jews also traded with the Nazi regime and made money from its policies:
“Sweden also profited from the Holocaust. It is known that Wallenberg’s relatives made money converting Nazi gold into Swedish crowns and that Sweden provided iron ore and ball bearings to the Nazis. Swedish documents reveal that some Swedes actually sided with the Nazis and volunteered to fight for Hitler. Some Swedes were members of the Waffen SS and served in police batallions.”
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/Sweden.html
Moreover, many Swedish intellectuals such as Ingmar Bergmann were on the side of the National Socialists.
That the Swedish government refuses to be critical of antisemitic articles while condemning the printing of the Muhammad cartoons is a sign of its tolerant attitude towards Jew hatred.
Alex Stein “I don’t think it’s the government’s role in a free state to comment on anything a newspaper produces, even if it is based on entirely spurious foundations.”
Yet, they could speak out as individuals, couldn’t they?
Here is a forward article that covers the issue of freedom of speech:
“The Swedish Press Exposes the Invasion of the Jewish Body-snatchers”
By J.J. Goldberg
“Western culture reached a sort of a milestone August 17 with the publication in Sweden’s largest-circulation daily newspaper, the tabloid Aftonbladet, of an opinion essay suggesting that Israeli soldiers are killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Here’s how Yediot Ahronot sums up the fray.
The writer, photojournalist Donald Bolstrom, didn’t exactly say that Israelis are killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs. He merely said he had heard such claims from Palestinians, and given the latest now that an illicit organ-selling ring (actually one guy) in Brooklyn had been exposed, with links to Israel, he thinks it’s time for an investigation. He told Israel Radio on August 19 that he doesn’t know if the charge is true but he’s “concerned.”
Israel is responding with undiluted outrage. Foreign Ministry officials called in the Swedish ambassador, and have released a flood of public statements calling it a “blood libel.” The ambassador, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, issued a statement of her own saying the article was “as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as it is to Israeli citizens.” The Swedish Foreign Ministry promptly disavowed Bonnier’s statement, insisting that it was strictly her own view, “for local consumption,” and that the “Swedish government is committed to freedom of the press.”
Well, yes, freedom of the press is an essential building block of a democratic society. But, as A.J. Liebling once said, “freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one.” Not every publisher publishes everything that comes across the desk. In fact, given constraints of space, printing and mailing costs and the like, publication in a major periodical is a highly selective process. Editors are deluged every day with material that authors are desperate to see published. The editors pick the items they think will most interest the readers, best serve the public interest or best advance their own and their publishers’ convictions.
So what does it say about Sweden’s largest newspaper that it chose to publish an article speculating that Israeli soldiers might be killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs? Well, first of all, it says that Sweden’s most important gatekeepers and tastemakers think it is plausible — and that their readers will think it plausible — that Israelis are capable of such behavior. It says that the Swedish government sees nothing wrong with innocently raising a fair question. It says that the image of Israel in the eyes of mainstream Swedes has passed far beyond the negative into the realm of the demonic.”
Here is the rest:
http://blogs.forward.com/jj-goldberg/112659/
No one is asking the Swedish government to censor free speech. But the Swedish PM can surely bring it upon himself to refute and condemn such drivel. Elected officials all around the democratic world do this all the time without restricting speech (however abhorrent that speech may be).