The IDF: Israel’s Organ Grinder

There is an old Jewish joke that tells the story of a dying Jewish merchant who calls his son to his sickbed just before he perishes. He tells him, “Listen to me Moisha’le, life is not just about money… you can also do gold and diamonds.”

Monitoring Israeli and Jewish news reveals a devastating fact, it is not “just” about money. It may also be about human organs. A few weeks ago we learned about a ring of American Rabbis who had been arrested in New Jersey upon suspicion of human organs trafficking (amongst many other crimes). Rabbi Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, we read, enticed “vulnerable people to give up a kidney for $10,000 which he would turn around and sell for $160,000.” Not too bad, I thought to myself then. We are living in hard times, financial melt down, credit crunch, Wall Street is licking its wounds, the car industry is evaporating. Seemingly, kidney trafficking is still booming.

In fact, the ring of the Rabbi in New Jersey didn’t take me by complete surprise. For years we have been hearing about Palestinians claiming that Israel is “deep into organ trafficking.” We also learned that the family of Alastair Sinclair, a Scottish tourist who hanged himself in an Israeli jail, “was forced to bring suit for his return withmissing body parts.”

In 2002, the Tehran Times reported: “The Zionist state has tacitly admitted that doctors at the Israeli forensic institute at Abu Kabir had extracted the vital organs of three Palestinian teenage children killed by the Israeli Army nearly ten days ago. Zionist Minister of Health Nessim Dahhan said in response to a question by Arab member of the Zionist Parliament ‘Knesset,’ Ahmed Teibi, on Tuesday that he couldn’t deny that organs of Palestinian youths and children killed by the Israeli forces were taken out for transplants or scientific research.”

But now the news about Israeli trafficking of human organ is spreading to Western mainstream media. Ynet, the biggest Israeli online newspaper, reported today that “Leading Swedish daily Aftonbladet claimed in one of its articles that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians in order to trade in their organs.”

A few weeks ago we had a debate here on PTT whether Zionism is a colonial apparatus or not. One of the Materialist arguments against the perception of Zionism as a colonial practice was that Palestine has never been too attractive economically; it lacks oil, gold or minerals. However, this may change now. People who specialise in organ theft may find Palestine to be heaven on earth. In the light of the latest vastly spreading accusations, the Jewish national project maybe is colonial after all.

Though the Israeli government denies the accusation, and I myself far from being qualified to know what the truth of the matter is, one cannot deny that we are facing here a shift of consciousness within the Western discourse. At the end of the day, after watching the Israeli army dumping great quantities of white phosphorous on a civilian population in broad daylight, after seeing Israelis gathering gleefully en masse on the hills around Gaza just to watch their military spreading death and physical suffering in a genocidal manner, after reading that 94% of the Israelis supported the IDF military campaign against the elderly, women and children, most of whom were refugees with nowhere to escape and seek further refuge, organ theft seems to be a ‘light crime’.

Whether or not the Swedish paper’s accusations are genuine is yet to be revealed. However, one fact has already been established: after so many years of Western inclination to dance to the relentless crying violin of the Jewish melancholic victim serenade, the Western media is now changing its appetite, it is willing to confront Jewish institutional crime.

Rather than talking about the rise of anti-Semitism, we better discuss the growth of Jewish institutional crime.

Gilad Atzmon, now living in London, was born in Israel and served in the Israeli military. He is the author of The Wandering Who and Being in Time and is one of the most accomplished jazz saxophonists in Europe. He can be reached via his website. Read other articles by Gilad, or visit Gilad's website.

11 comments on this article so far ...

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  1. kalidas said on August 20th, 2009 at 11:12am #

    Well shucks, Hashim (want to buy a used kidney) Thaci, the Prime Minister of Kosovo, had better start sleeping with one eye open.
    No pun intended.

  2. b99 said on August 20th, 2009 at 11:24am #

    As I wrote here weeks ago – poor non-Jews in the region sell their kidneys to Jews in need – beause as Jews must be buried intact there are insufficient organ donations (and not just kidneys). Commonly, the Arab and the Jew are flown (separately, of course) to Turkey where the transplant operation is performed for a tidy price.

  3. Mulga Mumblebrain said on August 20th, 2009 at 7:35pm #

    Israel is a colonial venture not in that it steals valuable land rich in resources from its indigenous population, but in that its land-theft provides a base for a transnational Israeli crime network. In another report I saw, in Somatosphere I think, it was mentioned that Rosenbaum had been denounced to the US authorities as long ago as 2002 for his organ trafficking activities. Apparently poor Moldovans were one of his targets, with ‘contracts’ enforced at gun-point.
    Israel is also known as a centre of the illegal drugs trade, particularly in ecstasy, in human trafficking, the ‘blood diamonds’ trade and as a centre for Russian-Israeli Mafia activities. It operates as a refuge for Jewish criminals who are rarely extradited once they reach safety. The full extent of Israeli controlled money-laundering, one of the New Jersey Rabbis specialties, probably dwarfs Madoff’s puny extractions.
    Israel, being a rogue state with open contempt for international law, and driven by a quasi-religious ideology of absolute supremacy to the rest of humanity, was almost bound to follow such a course. And, naturally, the constant war-time atmosphere of paranoia, maudlin self-pity and narcissitic dwelling on Jewish suffering while ignoring that of all others, especially Israel’s victims, is conducive to the ‘us and them’ mentality that makes such international criminality not only acceptable but inevitable. No wonder the Zionist state hates the idea of peace so viscerally. Peace would bring greater international scrutiny, and, if the Judaic dominated Western media was ever to investigate Israeli crime properly, Israel’s international reputation would hit rock bottom. But how do you control a Mafia armed with thermo-nuclear weapons, and which totally controls the global hyper-power?

  4. mary said on August 21st, 2009 at 5:42am #

    Lieberman* had described this story as a ‘blood libel’ and butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth would it?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8213873.stm

    Friday, 21 August 2009 12:31 UK

    Israel fury at Sweden organ claim

    Israel’s foreign minister has described the newspaper report as a blood libel (photo)

    Israel is to lodge an official complaint with Sweden over claims in a newspaper that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians to sell their organs.

    The article was published in the Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet this week.

    The Swedish ambassador to Israel condemned the newspaper article as “shocking and appalling”.

    The government in Stockholm has not issued a similar condemnation, and Israeli foreign ministry officials have reacted furiously.

    [This] reminds one of Sweden’s conduct during World War II, when it also did not intervene – Avigdor Lieberman Israeli Foreign Minister

    “It is regrettable that the Swedish foreign ministry does not intervene when it comes to a blood libel against Jews,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

    In a blog post on Thursday evening, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Carl Bildt wrote that he would not condemn the article, and that freedom of expression is part of the Swedish constitution.

    Mr Bildt added that condemnation of anti-Semitism is “the only issue on which there has ever been complete unity in the Swedish parliament”.

    The story in Aftonbladet – Sweden’s biggest-selling daily newspaper – claimed that Israeli soldiers snatched Palestinian youths and returned their dismembered bodies a few days later.

    The newspaper claimed that these incidents date as far back as 1992.

    The Israeli press is reporting that the country’s foreign ministry is considering its options in response to Sweden’s position, among them postponing a scheduled visit to Israel by Mr Bildt.

    The Swedish foreign minister is due to travel to the country in 10 days.
    _____________________________________________________

    * Lieberman is facing charges for corruption and money laundering –

    In a press release, Israeli police specified that their investigations which began in 2006 revealed illegal activities going back as far as 2000. They believe to have sufficient evidence to indict the foreign minister on charges of corruption, fraud, deceit, neglect in loyalty obligations of a State civil servant, money laundering, as well as obstruction of justice and perjury.

    In indicted, Lieberman could face up to 31 years in prison. Lieberman had denied all charges and declared himself to be the target of harrassment by the police and certain politicians who wish to see him eliminated from public service.

    One of the main targets of Lieberman’s campaign had been to have Israeli Arabs take an oath of loyalty to Israel, at the risk of losing their right and eligibility to vote. On May 31, 2009, an Israeli ministerial committee refused to endorse his proposition.

  5. balkas b b said on August 21st, 2009 at 7:05am #

    laws do not apply to an uzbek, indian, pole, irishman, german; laws apply [or must apply] to humans only.
    one breaks the law, one is judged solely on the supposed crime one may have commited.

    however, in the eyes of a ‘jew’, the label ‘jew’ does not symbolize personhood or an ethnicity ; it symbolizes godliness or a higher status of some kind than ethnicity or humaness.

    We’ve already proven that israel does not have any strategic value to US; yet it is supported by west and US! Look for money then, right?! And sure enough, we find money in drugs and sale of organs.
    Israeli planes coming to US are not inspected, or are they? In any case, socalled war on drugs or terror offers cia and mossad golden opportunity to amass fortunes thru illegal and immoral activity. tnx

  6. mary said on August 23rd, 2009 at 10:42pm #

    Netanyuhu wades in by cancelling new visas for Swedish journalists and threatening to cancel a visit by the Swedish Foreign Minister. That’s right, ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ closes down any unfavourable comment and cannot tolerate a debate.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8217042.stm

  7. Mulga Mumblebrain said on August 24th, 2009 at 2:15am #

    mary, methinks they do protest too much. The old ‘blood libel’-as useful as ‘anti-Semitism’ as an all purpose vilification and intimidation. No debate, no defence mounted, just bellicose abuse and denialism, of everything. Every dead Palestinian, every murdered child, every tortured prisoner, all lies, all ‘libels’. Has there ever been a process like it? The only perfect people in history. It always reminds me of the old joke about the copper who arrests the old lag ‘For assaulting my boot with his head’.

  8. brian said on August 24th, 2009 at 8:05pm #

    itsa not just palestiniane who are the victims :

    More Horror – The Result Of Abu Kabir

    By IsraelNationalNews.com

    The family of IDF soldier Daniel Heller is calling it “organ theft,” joining the increasing list of bereaved families accusing the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute of taking organs from their loved ones without permission.

    The family rejected autopsy findings in Israel, prompting the distraught father to exhume his son’s body himself and leave it in his home until an independent pathologist was appointed. The autopsy’s preliminary results indicate many internal organs were taken from the soldier’s body without the family consent or knowledge.

    In this case, as in many previous cases, the family is demanding an investigation and the dismissal of chief pathologist Prof. Yehuda Hiss. Other cases also document that Hiss and his staff took organs without requesting or informing relatives. Jars containing body parts of civilians and soldiers have been found in the forensic institute, but to date, no government agency has taken any action against Hiss, not even the minimum – suspending him from duty pending an investigation.

    Abu Kabir’s official findings stated Heller committed suicide, a position that was rejected by the soldier’s parents. The bereaved parents believe the death was the result of an accidental discharge of Daniel’s weapon. On Wednesday, at noon, Heller will be laid to rest for a second time, in the Dimona cemetery.
    http://www.israelfaxx.com/webarchive/2003/07/3fax0730.html

  9. Edith Legrand said on August 25th, 2009 at 5:08am #

    I wonder what they do when an autopsy is required.

  10. mary said on August 25th, 2009 at 11:06pm #

    Copying this post by AlQuds43 on Medialens for corroboration of Bostrom’s article. Matthew Cassel on the Electronic Intifada had written earlier that baseless organ theft accusations are a propaganda gift for Israel, and deflect attention from its well-documented war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

    Monday, August 24, 2009
    [Kawther.Salam] The Body Snatchers of Israel

    I have previously blogged some material from Kawther Salam in The Holocaust and “Getting Off” on Abusing Palestinians. She lives in Austria and appears to be unaware of the recent arrest of NY-NJ rabbis involved in black-market international trafficking in organs. There has been no linkage of these arrests to the Swedish accusations of organ-harvesting by the IDF, but the existence of this black-market certainly makes the charges against the IDF more plausible.
    ……………………………………
    The Body Snatchers of Israel

    Aug 23rd, 2009 by Kawther Salam

    Independently of the recently published article of the Swedish journalist Donald Boström about the Israelis murdering Palestinians in order to harvesting of organs for sale, and independently of the hysteric screeching and denials by the Israelis, I want to present my readers what I witnessed, saw, observed and heard during my 22 years of journalistic work under the Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza. My personal experience confirms what Mr. Boström wrote: while I do not know the particular case which he describes, it is typical for what the Israelis do in Palestine all the time, what is “normal” since the early seventies.

    continues….
    http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2009/08/kawthersalam-body-snatchers-of-israel.html

  11. Ronald said on September 8th, 2009 at 8:35am #

    There is no reason (except antisemitism) to link the NJ Rabbi with the Tsahal abducting Palestinians in order to stole their organs. These are two unrelated stories.