Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
23 December 09
In recent days, an open and unambiguous medieval-style blood libel has been regurgitated in the mainstream British media. This has been full of the sensational report that Israeli doctors had been ’harvesting’ the organs of Palestinians. The implication was that a) this was only being done to Palestinians and b) the Palestinians had been alive when it was done. Neither calumny was remotely true.
What had actually happened was that – as Tom Gross has noted -- some 15 years ago one rogue Israeli doctor had been transplanting minor organs like cornea and skin from dead Israelis – mainly Jewish Israelis, but also a few Arab ones – without obtaining permission from the families. This is on a par with a similar scandal in Britain, where it was discovered that doctors had been removing organs from dead children as a matter of routine without informing their parents.
In the Israelis case, there was no use of organs from living patients. There was no singling out of Palestinians. Yet that was the impression created by one disgusting media report after another. As Gross observes, so far it is only the Guardian which has had the grace to acknowledge its error and put out a correction. No-one else seems to have bothered.
(Full article)
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