Swedish Paper Doubles Down On Blood Libel

A Swedish media outlet Aftonbladet published a blood libel last week, accusing Israel of killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs. It was an unmitigated blood libel without the slightest bit of proof, and now this paper has doubled down, claiming that it is up to Israel to prove that the libelous statements are untrue.

Sunday's article maintains that the matter "should be investigated, either to stop the relentless Palestinian rumors, or, if the rumors prove to be true, stop the trade in body parts."

The article Sunday also called Swedish Ambassador in Israel Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier's condemnation of the article a "disgrace." The Swedish government later retracted the ambassador's condemnation.

Åsa Linder Borg, author of Sunday's article, titled "Dare to examine Israel," opines that no one is "sympathetic to the idea that Israel should be able to steer American public discourse," also stating that "not many deeply sympathize with [Prime Minister] Binyamin Netanyahu's policies."

Meanwhile, a grassroots online petition in Israel was calling to boycott IKEA, a global home furnishing giant also very popular in Israel.

Sorry, but this is backwards. It was up to the Swedish paper to first determine whether the accusations were even remotely plausible. They aren't; but that didn't stop this outlet from going ahead and spreading deadly lies.

The Palestinians are notorious in promoting blood libels, as are many in the Arab world, claiming the time-tested smear that Jews use Arab blood to make matzahs or Purim treats, and that Jews wantonly murder Palestinians, including the infamous al-Dura affair, which claimed Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian kid, Mohammad al-Dura, and yet video showed that only Palestinian terrorists could have fired a shot that could have killed him (but such information was purposefully buried by the French media outlet that had video footage of the incident.

Of course, blood libels aren't confined to the Arab world either, and include Russia (which also happened to produce the most infamous blood libel of all time - the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion). Even the UN pushes this nonsense, claiming that Israel purposefully targets civilians.

UPDATE:
Israellycool points out that the person responsible for writing this story (and I am loathe to call this guy a journalist) is now appearing on Iranian television to spread his hateful nonsense.

Carl In Jerusalem notes that the Swedish Foreign Ministry actually funded Donald Bostrom's prior work entitled Inshallah (Allah Willing).

The Swedish are incorrigibly anti-Semitic, and don't see what they're doing is not only disgraceful, but dangerous. It's one thing to question Israel's human rights record, but quite another to make baseless lies and state them as fact. These are completely unsubstantiated smears purposefully designed to inflame the public and sway public opinion against Israel.