Israeli Organ Harvesting

http://www.counterpunch.org/weir08282009.html

The New "Blood Libel"?

Israeli
Organ Harvesting

By ALISON WEIR
Last week Sweden’s largest
daily newspaper published an article containing shocking material: testimony and
circumstantial evidence indicating that Israelis may have been harvesting
internal organs from Palestinian prisoners without consent for many years.

Worse yet,
some of the information reported in the article suggests that in some instances
Palestinians may have been captured with this macabre purpose in
mind.
In
the article, “Our sons plundered for their organs,” veteran journalist Donald
Bostrom writes that Palestinians “harbor strong suspicions against Israel for
seizing young men and having them serve as the country’s organ reserve – a very
serious accusation, with enough question marks to motivate the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) to start an investigation about possible war crimes.”1/
An army of Israeli officials and
apologists immediately went into high gear, calling both Bostrom and the
newspaper’s editors “anti-Semitic.” The Israeli foreign minister was reportedly
“aghast” and termed it “a demonizing piece of blood libel.” An Israeli official
called it “hate porn.”
Commentary magazine wrote
that the story was “merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of European funded
and promoted anti-Israel hate.” Numerous people likened the article to the
medieval “blood libel,” (stories that Jews killed people to use their blood in
religious rituals). (The evidence that they have
been performing both ritual murder and blood sacrifice for centuries
is overwhelming). Even some pro-Palestinian
writers joined in the criticism, expressing skepticism.
The fact is, however, that
substantiated evidence of public and private organ trafficking and theft, and
allegations of worse, have been widely reported for many years. Given such
context, the Swedish charges become far more plausible than might otherwise be
the case and suggest that an investigation could well turn up significant
information.
Below are a few examples of
previous reports on this topic.
Israel’s first heart
transplant
Israel’s very first, historic heart
transplant used a heart removed from a living patient without consent or
consulting his family.
In December 1968 a man named
Avraham Sadegat (the New York Times seems to give his name as A Savgat)
(2) died two days after a stroke, even though
his family had been told he was “doing well.”
After initially refusing to release
his body, the Israeli hospital where he was being treated finally turned the
man’s body over to his family. They discovered that his upper body was wrapped
in bandages; an odd situation, they felt, for someone who had suffered a stroke.

When they
removed the bandages, they discovered that the chest cavity was stuffed with
bandages, and the heart was missing.
During this time, the
headline-making Israeli heart transplant had occurred. After their initial
shock, the man’s wife and brother began to put the two events together and
demanded answers.
The hospital at first denied that
Sadegat’s heart had been used in the headline-making transplant, but the family
raised a media storm and eventually applied to three cabinet ministers. Finally,
weeks later and after the family had signed a document promising not to sue, the
hospital admitted that Sadagat’s heart had been used.
The hospital explained that it had
abided by Israeli law, which allowed organs to be harvested without the family's
consent. (3) (The United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime includes the extraction of organs in its
definition of human exploitation.)
Indications that the removal of
Sadagat’s heart was the actual cause of death went unaddressed.
Director of
forensic medicine on missing organs
A 1990 article in the
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs entitled “Autopsies and
Executions” by Mary Barrett reports on the grotesque killings of young
Palestinians. It includes an interview with Dr. Hatem Abu Ghazalch, the former
chief health official for the West Bank under Jordanian administration and
director of forensic medicine and autopsies.
Barrett asks him about “the
widespread anxiety over organ thefts which has gripped Gaza and the West Bank
since the intifada began in December of 1987.”
He responded:
"There are indications that
for one reason or another, organs, especially eyes and kidneys, were removed
from the bodies during the first year or year and a half. There were just too
many reports by credible people for there to be nothing happening. If someone is
shot in the head and comes home in a plastic bag without internal organs, what
will people assume?” (4)
Mysterious Scottish
death
In 1998 a Scot named Alisdair
Sinclair died under questionable circumstances while in Israeli custody at Ben
Gurion airport.
His family was informed of the
death and, according to a report in J Weekly, “…told they had three
weeks to come up with about $4,900 to fly Sinclair's corpse home. [Alisdair’s
brother] says the Israelis seemed to be pushing a different option: burying
Sinclair in a Christian cemetery in Israel, at a cost of about
$1,300.”
The family scraped up the money,
brought the body home, and had an autopsy performed at the University of
Glasgow. It turned out that Alisdair’s heart and a tiny throat bone were
missing. At this point the British Embassy filed a complaint with
Israel.
The
J report states:
“A heart said to be Sinclair's was
subsequently repatriated to Britain, free of charge. James wanted the [Israeli]
Forensic Institute to pay for a DNA test to confirm that this heart was indeed
their brother's, but the Institute's director, Professor Jehuda Hiss refused,
citing the prohibitive cost, estimated by some sources at $1,500.”

Despite
repeated requests from the British Embassy for the Israeli pathologist's and
police reports, Israeli officials refused to release either. (5,6,7)
Israeli government
officials raise questions
Palestinian journalist Khalid
Amayreh reports in an article in CCUN:

“In
January, 2002, an Israeli cabinet minister tacitly admitted that organs taken
from the bodies of Palestinian victims might have been used for transplants in
Jewish patients without the knowledge of the Palestinian victims’
families.
“The minister, Nessim Dahan, said
in response to a question by an Arab Knesset member that he couldn’t deny or
confirm that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli
army were taken out for transplants or scientific research.
“‘I couldn’t say for sure
that something like that didn’t happen.’”

Amayreh writes that the Knesset
member who posed the question said that he “had received ‘credible evidence
proving that Israeli doctors at the forensic institute of Abu Kabir extracted
such vital organs as the heart, kidneys, and liver from the bodies of
Palestinian youth and children killed by the Israeli army in Gaza and the West
Bank.” (8)

“In 2001,
an Israeli Health Ministry investigation found that Hiss had been involved for
years in taking body parts, such as legs, ovaries and testicles, without family
permission during autopsies, and selling them to medical schools for use in
research and training. He was appointed chief pathologist in 1988. Hiss was
never charged with any crime, but in 2004 he was forced to step down from
running the state morgue, following years of complaints.” (10)

Harvesting kidneys from
impoverished communities
According to the
Economist, a kidney racket flourished in South Africa between 2001 and
2003. “Donors were recruited in Brazil, Israel and Romania with offers of
$5,000-20,000 to visit Durban and forfeit a kidney. The 109 recipients, mainly
Israelis, each paid up to $120,000 for a “transplant holiday”; they pretended
they were relatives of the donors and that no cash changed hands.” (11)
In 2004 a legislative commission in
Brazil reported, “At least 30 Brazilians have sold their kidneys to an
international human organ trafficking ring for transplants performed in South
Africa, with Israel providing most of the funding.”
According to an IPS
report: “The recipients were mostly Israelis, who receive health insurance
reimbursements of 70,000 to 80,000 dollars for life-saving medical procedures
performed abroad.”
IPS reports:

The
Brazilians were recruited in Brazil’s most impoverished neighbourhoods and were
paid $10,000 per kidney, “but as ‘supply’ increased, the payments fell as low as
3,000 dollars.” The trafficking had been organized by a retired Israeli police
officer, who said “he did not think he was committing a crime, given that the
transaction is considered legal by his country's government.”
The Israeli embassy issued
a statement denying any participation by the Israeli government in the illegal
trade of human organs but said it did recognize that its citizens, in emergency
cases, could undergo organ transplants in other countries, "in a legal manner,
complying with international norms," and with the financial support of their
medical insurance.

However, IPS reports that the commission
chair termed the Israeli stance “at the very least ‘anti-ethical’, adding that
trafficking can only take place on a major scale if there is a major source of
financing, such as the Israeli health system.” He went on to state that the
resources provided by the Israeli health system "were a determining factor" that
allowed the network to function. (12)
Tel Aviv hospital head
promotes organ trafficking

IPS goes on to report:

“Nancy
Scheper-Hughes, who heads the Organs Watch project at the U.S. University of
California, Berkeley, testified to the Pernambuco legislative commission that
international trafficking of human organs began some 12 years ago, promoted by
Zacki Shapira, former director of a hospital in Tel Aviv.

“Shapira
performed more than 300 kidney transplants, sometimes accompanying his patients
to other countries, such as Turkey. The recipients are very wealthy or have very
good health insurance, and the ‘donors’ are very poor people from Eastern
Europe, Philippines and other developing countries, said Scheper-Hughes, who
specialises in medical anthropology.”
Israeli organ trafficking
comes to the U.S.?
In July of this year even US media
reported on the arrest of Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, from Brooklyn, recently arrested
by federal officials in a massive corruption sweep in New Jersey that netted
mayors, government officials and a number of prominent rabbis. Bostrom opens his
article with this incident.
According to the federal complaint,
Rosenbaum, who has close ties to Israel, said that he had been involved in the
illegal sale of kidneys for 10 years. A US Attorney explained: "His business
was to entice vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would
turn around and sell for $160,000." (15)
This is reportedly the first case
of international organ trafficking in the U.S.
University of California
anthropologist and organ trade expert Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who informed the FBI
about Rosenbaum seven years ago, says she heard reports that he had held donors
at gunpoint to ensure they followed through on agreements to “donate” their
organs. (16)
Israel’s organ donor
problems
The Swedish article reports that
‘Israel has repeatedly been under fire for its unethical ways of dealing with
organs and transplants. France was among the countries that ceased organ
collaboration with Israel in the 1990s. Jerusalem Post wrote that “the
rest of the European countries are expected to follow France’s example
shortly.”
“Half of the kidneys transplanted
to Israelis since the beginning of the 2000s have been bought illegally from
Turkey, Eastern Europe or Latin America. Israeli health authorities have full
knowledge of this business but do nothing to stop it. At a conference in 2003 it
was shown that Israel is the only western country with a medical profession that
doesn’t condemn the illegal organ trade. The country takes no legal measures
against doctors participating in the illegal business – on the contrary, chief
medical officers of Israel’s big hospitals are involved in most of the illegal
transplants, according to Dagens Nyheter (December 5, 2003).”
To fill this need former
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, then health minister of Israel, organized a big
donor campaign in the summer of 1992, but while the number of donors
skyrocketed, need still greatly surpassed supply.
Palestinian disappearances
increase
Bostrom, who earlier wrote of all
this in his 2001 book Inshallah, (20) reports in his recent article:

“While
the campaign was running, young Palestinian men started to disappear from
villages in the West Bank and Gaza. After five days Israeli soldiers would bring
them back dead, with their bodies ripped open.
“Talk of the bodies terrified the
population of the occupied territories. There were rumors of a dramatic increase
of young men disappearing, with ensuing nightly funerals of autopsied
bodies.”
“I
was in the area at the time, working on a book. On several occasions I was
approached by UN staff concerned about the developments. The persons contacting
me said that organ theft definitely occurred but that they were prevented from
doing anything about it. On an assignment from a broadcasting network I then
travelled around interviewing a great number of Palestinian families in the West
Bank and Gaza – meeting parents who told of how their sons had been deprived of
organs before being killed.”

He describes the case of
19-year-old Bilal Achmed Ghanan, shot by Israeli forces invading his
village.

“The
first shot hit him in the chest. According to villagers who witnessed the
incident he was subsequently shot with one bullet in each leg. Two soldiers then
ran down from the carpentry workshop and shot Bilal once in the stomach.
Finally, they grabbed him by his feet and dragged him up the twenty stone steps
of the workshop stair… Israeli soldiers loading the badly wounded Bilal in a
jeep and driving him to the outskirts of the village, where a military
helicopter waited. The boy was flown to a destination unknown to his
family.”

Five days later he was returned,
“dead and wrapped up in green hospital fabric.” Bostrom reports that as the body
was lowered into the grave, his chest was exposed and onlookers could see that
he was stitched up from his stomach to his head. Bostrom writes that this was
not the first time people had seen such a thing.

“The
families in the West Bank and in Gaza felt that they knew exactly what had
happened: “Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors,” relatives of Khaled
from Nablus told me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin and the uncles of
Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who had all disappeared for a number of days only
to return at night, dead and autopsied.”

Why autopsies?

Bostrom describes the questions
that families asked:

“Why are
they keeping the bodies for up to five days before they let us bury them? What
happened to the bodies during that time? Why are they performing autopsy,
against our will, when the cause of death is obvious? Why are the bodies
returned at night? Why is it done with a military escort? Why is the area closed
off during the funeral? Why is the electricity
interrupted?”

He goes on to write:

“We know
that Israel has a great need for organs, that there is a vast and illegal trade
of organs which has been running for many years now, that the authorities are
aware of it and that doctors in managing positions at the big hospitals
participate, as well as civil servants at various levels. We also know that
young Palestinian men disappeared, that they were brought back after five days,
at night, under tremendous secrecy, stitched back together after having been cut
from abdomen to chin.

It’s time to bring clarity to this
macabre business, to shed light on what is going on and what has taken place in
the territories occupied by Israel since the Intifada began.” (21)
The new “Blood
Libel”?
In scanning through the reaction to
Bostrom’s report, one is struck by the multitude of charges that his article is
a new version of the old anti-Semitic “blood libel.” Given that fact, it is
interesting to examine a 2007 book by Israel’s preeminent expert on medieval
Jewish history, and what happened to him.
The author is Bar-Ilan professor
(and rabbi) Ariel Toaff, son of the former chief rabbi of Rome, a religious
leader so famous that an Israeli journalist writes that Toaff’s father “is to
Italian Jewry as the Eiffel Tower is to Paris.” Ariel Toaff, himself, is
considered “one of the greatest scholars in his field.” (22, 23)
In February 2007 the Israeli and
Italian media were abuzz (though most of the U.S. media somehow missed it) with
news that Professor Toaff had written a book entitled "Pasque di Sangue" (“Blood
Passovers”) (24) containing evidence that there “was a factual basis for
some of the medieval blood libels against the Jews.”
Based on 35 years of research,
Toaff had concluded that there were at least a few, possibly many, real
incidents.
In an interview with an Italian
newspaper (the book was published in Italy), Toaff says:
“My research shows that in
the Middle Ages, a group of fundamentalist Jews did not respect the biblical
prohibition and used blood for healing. It is just one group of Jews, who
belonged to the communities that suffered the severest persecution during the
Crusades. From this trauma came a passion for revenge that in some cases led to
responses, among them ritual murder of Christian children.” (25)
(Incidentally, an earlier book
containing similar findings was published some years ago, also by an Israeli
professor, Israel Shahak, of whom Noam Chomsky once wrote, “Shahak is an
outstanding scholar, with remarkable insight and depth of knowledge. His work is
informed and penetrating, a contribution of great value.” ) (26)
Professor Toaff was immediately
attacked from all sides, including pressure orchestrated by Anti-Defamation
League chairman Abe Foxman, but Toaff stood by his 35 years of research,
announcing:
"I will not give up my devotion to
the truth and academic freedom even if the world crucifies me… One shouldn't be
afraid to tell the truth."
Before long, however, under
relentless public and private pressure, Toaff had recanted, withdrawn his book,
and promised to give all profits that had already accrued (the book had been
flying off Italian bookshelves) to Foxman’s Anti-Defamation League. A year later
he published a “revised version.”
Donald Bostrom’s experience seems
to be a repeat of what Professor Toaff endured: calumny, vituperation, and
defamation. Bostrom has received death threats as well, perhaps an experience
that Professor Toaff also shared.
If Israel is innocent of organ
plundering accusations, or if its culpability is considerably less than Bostrom
and others suggest, it should welcome honest investigations that would clear it
of wrongdoing. Instead, the government and its advocates are working to suppress
all debate and crush those whose questions and conclusions they find
threatening.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
rather than responding to calls for an investigation, is demanding that the
Swedish government abandon its commitment to a free press and condemn the
article. The Israeli press office, apparently in retaliation and to prevent
additional investigation, is refusing to give press credentials to reporters
from the offending newspaper.
Just as in the case of the rampage
against Jenin, the attack on the USS liberty, the massacre of Gaza, the crushing
of Rachel Corrie, the torture of American citizens, and a multitude of other
examples, Israel is using its considerable, worldwide resources to interfere
with the investigative process.
It is difficult to conclude that it
has nothing to hide.
Alison Weir is
executive director of If Americans Knew. A version of this article containing
citations and additional information is available at http://ifamericansknew/cur_sit/sweden.html
Notes.
1/ There are two English
translations; this article uses the first:
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8390&lg=en
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/SwedishTrans.html

The
original Swedish article in Aftonbladet can be viewed at
http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/article5652583.ab
2/ New York Times, Feb. 3,
1969, p. 8, Column 6 (53 words)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1046041.html
3/ 40 years after Israel's
first transplant, donor's family says his heart was stolen
By Dana
Weiler-Polak, Haaretz Correspondent, Dec. 14, 2008
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0490/9004021.htm

4/
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1990, Page 21, The Intifada:
Autopsies and Executions
http://www.jweekly.com/

5/ October 30, 1998,Bizarre
death of Scottish tourist involves suicide, missing heart
by NETTY C. GROSS,
Jerusalem Post Service
http://www.forward.com/articles/112915/

6/ The Forward,
Illicit Body-Part Sales Present Widespread Problem, By Rebecca Dube, Aug. 26,
2009
http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/msg114437.html

7/
Masons, Muslims, Templars, Jews, Henry and Dolly.
http://ccun.org/Opinion

8/ Al-Jazeerah: Cross-Cultural
Understanding, Khalid Amayreh, August 20, 2009

9/ http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/12699

10/
http://www.forward.com/articles/112915/

11/ http://www.economist.com/

12/ The Economist, Organ
transplants: The gap between supply and demand, Oct. 9, 2008

12/http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=22524
BRAZIL: Poor
Sell Organs to Trans-Atlantic Trafficking Ring
By Mario Osava, IPS, Feb. 23,
2004
13/ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/935092.html
Haaretz,
Two Haifa men sentenced to jail for organ trafficking, By Fadi Eyadat, Dec. 18,
2007

14/ http://www.jpost.com/Police uncover illegal organ trade
ring
By REBECCA ANNA STOIL, July 23, 2007

15/
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/671687
Sting rocks U.S.
transplant industry, David Porter, Carla K. Johnson, ASSOCIATED PRESS, july 25,
2009

16/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1102799.html
U.S. Professor: I told
FBI about kidney trafficking 7 years ago
By Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz
Correspondent, August, 3, 2009

17/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3388529,00.html
A mitzvah
called organ donation, Efrat Shapira-Rosenberg, 10.6.07

18/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3265889,00.html
Orthodox in
uproar over organ donation incident, Neta Sela, 06.22.06

19/
http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Body_Snatchers.htm
The Return of the
Body Snatchers, By Israel Shamir,

20/
http://www.bokus.com/b/9789170370939.html

21/
http://www.tlaxcala.es/pp.asp?reference=8390&lg=en
22/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/829381.html
Ha’aretz. The Wayward Son, by
Adi Schwartz, March 1, 2007
23/ http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/824152.html
Ha’aaretz,
Bar-Ilan to order professor to explain research behind blood libel book
By
Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Service and The Associated Press, Feb 11, 2007

24/ http://www.bloodpassover.com/toafftableofcontents.htm

Israeli writer Israel Shamir reports that some years ago “…a leading Chabad
rabbi, Yitzhak Ginzburgh, gave his religious permission for a Jew to
take a liver from a non-Jew even without his consent. He said that ‘a Jew is
entitled to extract the liver from a goy if he needs it, for the life of a Jew
is more valuable than the life of a goy, likewise the life of a goy is more
valuable than the life of an animal.’
25/ http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/824152.html
Haaretz, Bar
Ilan to order professor to explain research behind blood libel book, by Ofri
Hani, Feb. 11, 2007.
26. http://www.wrmea.com/archives/august-september01/0108011.html
Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 2001, page 11, In Memoriam:
Israel Shahak (1933-2001), By Norton Mezvinsky

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