Israeli and Swedish officials responded furiously Wednesday to a Swedish newspaper article that suggested Israeli troops killed Palestinians and harvested their organs.
The article published in the Aftonbladet newspaper on Monday, headlined "Our sons are plundered for their organs," implied a link between those charges and the recent arrest in the U.S. of an American Jew for illicit organ trafficking.
In the article Israeli soldiers were accused of snatching Palestinian youths and returning their dismembered bodies days later.
A photograph of a dead Palestinian man with a line of surgical stitches running the length of his torso, apparently taken after an autopsy accompanied the report.
Other pictures in the article were of stone-throwing youths and Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, a New York resident arrested in an FBI sting last month and charged with plotting to buy a kidney from an Israeli and sell it to an American patient for $160,000.
In Sweden, the article drew a critical editorial from a rival daily, Sydsvenskan, which said it followed the "usual template of a conspiracy theory."
Israel objects
Israel on Wednesday complained to Sweden over what it called a anti-Semitic "blood libel" by a Stockholm newspaper that claimed Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians in order to sell their organs.
"We protested against this article during a meeting with the Swedish ambassador," said foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, adding that a formal complaint would be issued.
Deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon expressed outrage over what he called anti-Semitic claims. "I demand the Swedish government condemn this groundless article," he said.
Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper claimed on Monday that Israeli soldiers snatched Palestinian youths and returned their dismembered bodies a few days later.
"This article reeks of racism and recalls blood libels and accusations of ritual killings from the Middle Ages," said Palmor.
"We are dealing with the lowest type of propaganda that doesn't have even one shred of truth in it. It is a blot on the press, and all of Sweden's citizens should vehemently reject this racist outburst that has no place in a democratic society," he said.
Sweden's ambassador to Israel also expressed outrage, saying the article "is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes, as it is to Israeli citizens."
