Just adding that the publication has been reported to the Justice Chancellor who is the government prosecutor for Freedom of the Press cases. He says that they will examine the article, but adds that these cases usually don’t take long to judge.
Yes, of course. All criticism of any kind is anti-semitic.
Yes, naturally. If the IDF were running concentration camps to fatten Palestinians for feasting on, and one had absolute proof, merely mentioning the fact makes you worse than Hitler.
The problem here is that it is literally impossible to “sensibly discuss” an urban legend used to defame you. There is no way of disproving it.
The reason Israelis tend to act dismissively or angrily to such messages is that they are ubiquitous, they tend to be based on traditional anti-semitic canards, and they are widely believed to be true because they feed into a culture predisposed to believe them. It is much, I imagine, as Black people tend to react to another “discovery” that they are biologically less intelligent than White folks.
Sorry for the nonstandard quote, suddenly the quotebutton don’t work for me.
Israel is no more an ethnic group than China so in this case this isn’t being applied to an ethnic group. Nobody have accused Jews of organlegging, the article hint that Israel or groups in Israel commit this crime.
Myths about other ethnic groups abound everywhere. Jews are certainly not singled out in that respect, Gypsies, Inuit, Arabs, you will find myths and misunderstandings about all.
The article also hints that Jews not in Israel are in league with them. This feeds into pre-existing anti-semitic canards.
I rather disagree with the equivalence argument. In European and Middle Eastern culture, the treatment of Jews tends to be … special. Only the treatment of Roma comes close - certainly not Innuit or Arabs.
Well, that is the same question that I asked myself after reading it. It is a valid question.
However, in a similar vein as what Rune said about the Muhammed affair, after which the Committee on the Constitution’s commented, and their interpretation is what is being quoted now. That is, that ANY interference can cause pressure that can affect future publication decisions, and that this is unwanted.
This may well be the case; I do not know what the exact function of the Committee is. Does it make law, or does in simply announce policy?
In any event, it would appear that there is nothing in the written constitutional law that would prevent the gov’t from commenting on an article; it is more in the nature of committee-made law/policy.
The existence of such a law or policy is not the norm in Western nations. Most other national govt’s are not prevented from commenting on press articles (though in Canada I believe it is policy that the Prime Minister’s Office will not comment on articles which cite anonymous sources).
That’s the issue really - it is slightly misleading to cast it as a battle between common Western notions of press freedom vs. obscurantism, when what is at issue is a somewhat unsusual Swedish restriction.
“Europeans used to believe…” blah blah fucking blah. There are close to a billion people living in Europe, from Turkey to Norway to Spain, it’s not exactly a homogenous group.
The whole anti-semitic BS is so boring and far from reality. Please. Not many people gives a shit about jews. Why would someone bother being “anti” about jews post-Hitler? The only ones with some real anti-semitism are muslim immigrants, and how much influence do they have. Fuck all, that’s how much. Talk to the average person in the UK, Spain or Denmark about jews and they won’t know what the hell you’re on about.
The only other group that cares about jews really doesn’t care about jews, it cares about the Israeli government. Political opponents on the left critisising the extreme right wing policies and crimes against human rights committed by Israel. And the crybabies in Tel Aviv handles critisism from wherever it may come in the same way every time, they cry anti-semitism.
And is it BEYOND COMPREHENSION that the IDF would be doing something immoral? Unethical or even illegal? Give me a break. Every military force in the world does it, not just “evil” ones and not just NATO-lead ones. You don’t think Israeli soldiers rape Palestinian women from time to time? Please, what would make them so special? You don’t think there’s unjustified torture and murder? You’re living in a dream world. If you shoot a guy and he has a really expensive watch, are you gonna go back to the guys family and hand it over and apologise for killing their son but hey you were only doing your job? Yeah right.
I have no idea if the IDF has been involved in illegal organ trade, but it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities. And thinking it doesn’t make me an anti-semite. Maybe a misanthrope or cynic, but there’s a pretty fucking huge amount of empirical data to support that view of people. I doubt jews are very much better or worse than any other group of people. And they’re all pretty capable of bad shit.
It’s not being applied to all Jews, but my point was that it was not being applied only to an Israeli group, comparable to “the Russian mafia.”
Yes, it is.
HERE’S THE ARTICLE IN ENGLISH. [I don’t think a full translation has been posted so far.] The author implicates the Israeli army, health authorities, many doctors, and others. So no, he is not just implicating a group in Israel, he’s suggesting the army over there is killing Palestinians for their organs, and the government and the medical profession are involved at high levels.
With most other countries you begin with something like ‘anti-Government’ but with Israel you have more options. Not so long ago you could even be ‘anti-Sharron’ before ‘anti-Government’. Then you might move on to anti-Zionist’ or ‘anti-Imperial’ – referencing Israel’s regional supremacy. Finally, when you had no where to go, you could suggest someone ‘had a problem’ with Jews or even charge them with the ultimate, holocaust referencing ‘anti-Semitism’.
Except no one did and never have, the default position is to cite ‘anti-Semitism’ immediately and by doing so stifle debate on any issue it is deemed appropriate to stifle debate. This is one of them.
Unfortunately I am not as knowledgeable about Swedish legal matters as I should be. During my time here on the Dope and previous internet addiction I have accumulated more knowledge about the US system than our own :smack:.
My understanding though is that the Committee doesn’t make law, but they decide if a member of the government should be prosecuted in the Supreme Court. So after the Muhammed thing our FM was referred there and questioned and so on, and they issued comments which probably can be seen as policy, but not strictly law.
Hopefully somebody here knows how this works better than me, though I doubt we have any Swedish lawyers around. I will try to read up a little on the subject.
Your original contention seemed to be that this organ stealing accusation was different because it was directed at an ethnic group. Now it appears that you are saying that it is not directed towards an ethnic group. If that is the case, then how can it be anti-semetic, and how can it be a new manifestation of ancient blood libels?
This isn’t your usual case of allegedly “stifling debate” on legitimate points of difference - it is one of nailing what is very clearly a defamatory urban myth.
Fact is that the same urban myth has been peddled for years by people with an axe to grind on the subject of Jews.