The State of the Jews

According to JTA, Aftonbladet journalist Donald Bostrom, who spectacularly accused Israeli soldiers of running a massive organ-trafficking operation preying on Palestinian youngsters, is “reconsidering” his story.

Aftonbladet's Donald Bostrom

Donald Bostrom cancelled a scheduled appearance at a conference in Beirut after a visit to Israel in which he participated in dialogue on the issue, according to Army Radio. Bostrom was in Israel last month for a media conference in Dimona.

The Beirut conference was set to be an anti-Israel hate fest, according to reports.

“The visit to Israel and the fact that I was part of a fair dialogue made me rethink the whole issue,” Bostrom reportedly told associates, according to Ha’aretz.

In an article published in August in the popular Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, Bostrom reported that Israel seized young Palestinian men and returned them to their families with missing organs.

The story, which ran under the headline “They plunder the organs of our sons,” also cited the recent arrest of a New York rabbi accused of trafficking in human organs.

During the Dimona conference Bostrom admitted that his only proof of the organ stealing came from the allegations of the Palestinian families.

Check out what Ha’aretz military reporter Anshel Pfeffer recently did to Bostrom’s story.

Anshel Pfeffer makes quick work of Aftonbladet journalist Donald Bostrom’s claims to innocence over the brutal blood libel he published about Israeli soldiers stealing and trafficking in Palestinian youths’ organs.

Donald Bostrom (Aftonbladet)

Asked at the conference why he had accused the IDF of killing Palestinians for their organs, he replied: “I never wrote that and didn’t claim that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians to harvest their organs. I wrote that Palestinian families are claiming that is the case.”

He accused the media of distorting his report and accusing him of antisemitism for political purposes.

“It is known that there is an international problem of organ trafficking and I mentioned many countries, including Israel. My report has one conclusion, that we should continue investigating the Palestinian allegations.”

But then Anshel, a smart left-leaning Ha’aretz military reporter and a friend, does something absolutely despicable. He quotes Bostrom’s original story:

Anshel Pfeffer

In Aftonbladet Bostrom wrote that while the Israeli government was running a campaign encouraging Israelis to sign organ donor cards, “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 rumours of a dramatic increase in 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.”

Bostrom wrote that he had interviewed “many” Palestinian families whose sons had been killed in this way but in the report he specifically mentions only one family.

Who me? Organ trafficking? I was just repeating what “the population of the occupied territories,” “UN staff,” “rumours of a dramatic increase in young men disappearing,” “many” Palestinian families, and “nightly funerals of autopsied bodies” were saying. I never claimed it was true!