Sunday, August 30, 2009

About That Story That Israel Steals Palestinian Organs For Transplants...

Jan Helin, the editor of Aftonbladet, has claimed that in publishing the story--that Israel stole organs from dead Palestinian for transplants--the intent was to ascertain the validity of the story:

Helin explained he had sent reporters to the West Bank to ask the family if it stood behind its story. "There were many rumors about the truth of the claims and we wanted to refute them," he said. "It may not prove anything factual, but the claims remain and this is why we published the story."

When asked why the paper did not verify the claims with the IDF Helin answered, "This is not a news report, but the opinion of a reporter who looked at the situation and held a debate on what he thought. Organ trafficking is a question he thought worth investigating. It may be considered a good or bad idea, but it's not anti-Semitic propaganda."

Apparently the use of common sense and some scientific fact did not occur to Mr. Helin:

...The story now comes full circle back to its Palestinian source to be confirmed by the Palestinian news agency Ma’an (which is, incidentally, financed by Denmark and Holland). The feature cites a certain “expert” whose evidence for the claim consists of a rather peculiar factoid, namely, that Israel returns the bodies of Hezbollah fighters minus their organs! The obvious question remains unasked: why would Israel send back these scavenged bodies if it wished to avoid detection and avert a scandal? The absurdity is palpable, but logic and common sense are clearly beyond the cognitive abilities of anti-Semites. And then, as we know, there is the inconvenient medical fact that the organs of people who do not expire under clinical conditions, when organs can be removed immediately, are not viable for transplant.

That medical fact is explained by a Palestinian doctor in a video:

It seems that Helin and his Aftonbladet take the idea of journalism in general and refutation in particular just so far.

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