“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/

Yet, they could speak out as individuals, couldn’t they?

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.

Citizens should just do what they are told.

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.

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.