Renewed allegations of human organ trafficking haunt Israel, testament to the fact that the victims of its crimes will never cease -- even from beyond the grave -- to demand justice, writes Hassan Nafaa* It is hard to turn up an Israeli official who has not been involved in one way or another in one of the innumerable war crimes and crimes against humanity that their country has committed against the Palestinian people. Since many of these crimes have become open secrets, if not documented in considerable detail, governments and media that attempt to cover them up or refuse to speak out against them, even out of fear of provoking an adverse reaction in powerful quarters, are complicit in them to some extent. Yet, sadly, through their silence or obfuscations, no small number of Western and other governments and media continue to furnish Israel the camouflage to perpetuate and aggravate its crimes. The official positions of many Western governments on Israel's 22-day long assault on Gaza (from December 2008 to January 2009) and the skewed coverage in much of the Western press of this pure outrage against a defenceless people that was already suffering the agonies of an economic stranglehold testify to the depth of their collusion or to the extent to which they have been intimidated. One can at least understand the historic, political or material reasons that might compel some governments to aid and abet Israel in its crimes, even if such complicity is not morally justifiable. However, no such excuses can hold water when it comes to a press that boasts of its freedom, independence, professionalism and integrity and that frequently admonishes its Third World counterparts for their lack of credibility, incompetence and subservience to their governments. Simultaneously, it is impossible to deny the enormous power that Israel and the Zionist movement have to wield various forms of pressure and blackmail against all who dare to criticise Israeli policies or attempt to expose the crimes Israel perpetrates day-by-day in the occupied Arab territories and elsewhere in the region. The list of individuals and organisations that have fallen victim to Israeli/Zionist threats and retaliations is too long to enumerate. What we should note, however, is that Israel's military and political victories, especially following the occupation of large tracts of Arab territory in 1967 and over the course of the political successes it has accumulated following the 1973 War, have so augmented its sense of its own strength as to increasingly embolden its ruthlessness. This together with the charge of "anti- Semitism", which it has ever at the ready to thrust against anyone who has the audacity to attempt to shatter the aura of righteous innocence that it has so carefully constructed and sustained, have led it to believe that it is immune to all criticism and accountability. Yet, as oppressive as the climate of intimidation is when it comes to criticising Israel it has failed to muffle many honourable and courageous pens, not least of which is that of the Swedish journalist Donald Bostrom. It would be no exaggeration to say that this brave journalist's expose of a human organ trafficking ring involving Israeli soldiers who abducted Palestinian youths and killed them, thereafter harvesting their organs, destroyed once and for all the mask of morality behind which the Israeli army sought to hide a brutality unmatched by any other army in the world. Bostrom's eyewitness report of the following incident makes compelling reading: "It was almost midnight when the rumbling motors of an Israeli convoy approached the outskirts of Umm Al-Tin, a village in the northern part of the West Bank. All the 2,000 inhabitants of this village shot awake and stood as still as shadows in the dark. Some crept up to their roofs; others hid behind the curtains of their windows, or a corner of a building, or a tree -- anything that could afford them some protection but give them a full view of what would become the grave of the first martyr from their village. "The army had cut all the electricity lines around the village and sealed off the area so tightly that not even a cat could have slipped out of doors without risking its life. The deafening silence was broken only by muffled cries. I cannot remember whether it was the cold or the tension that made us shiver. Five days earlier, on 13 May 1992, an IDF Special Forces unit had set up an ambush around the workshop of the village carpenter. The person they were hunting for was 19-year Bilal Ahmed Ghanam, one of those young stone-throwing activists who made life miserable for the occupation forces. On the Israeli police's wanted list of several years, Bilal and his stone-throwing compatriots were hiding out beneath the skies in the mountains around Nablus. Arrest meant death and the stories of the torture that preceded helped little. Therefore, the young man preferred to stay in the mountains. However, for some reason he descended from the mountains one day, strolled through the village streets and passed by the carpenter's store. Not even his elder brother, Talal, knew why he had chosen that fateful day in May to appear in the village. Perhaps he had come to stock up on food after his and his companions' supplies had run out. "Everything went according to the plan of the IDF Special Forces unit. They put out their cigarettes, set their cans of coke aside, calmly lifted their rifles and took aim through the broken window. When Bilal drew close enough, they had only to pull their triggers, sending the first bullet into his chest. According to the villagers who witnessed the incident, the next bullets smashed into his legs. Then two soldiers ran out of the carpenter's shop, shot Bilal in the stomach and dragged him by his feet up the flight of 20 stone stairs and into the shop. The witnesses said that some Red Cross workers who were in the vicinity rushed up when they heard the gunfire in order to treat the wounded, only to find themselves quarrelling with the Israelis over their right to do so. The argument ended with the military unit loading the critically injured youth into a jeep that sped off to the outskirts of the village where a helicopter stood waiting to transport Bilal to some unknown destination. "Five days later, Bilal came back to the village, dead and wrapped in a green hospital body bag. As the military convoy that had come from the Abu Kabir autopsy centre outside Tel Aviv pulled to a halt in the place in the village where the body would be laid to rest, people spotted the Israeli unit commander, Captain Yahya. 'He's the worst of the lot,' someone whispered to me. After Captain Yahya's men had unloaded the body and exchanged the body bag for a white cotton shroud, a few of Bilal's male relatives were fetched in order to perform the burial tasks: digging the grave and mixing the cement. "The harsh scraping of the blades blended with the laughs on the part of the soldiers who exchanged jokes while watching the proceedings and waiting to go home. As Bilal was lowered into the ground, his chest was exposed and suddenly it became clear to those present what type of abuse he had been subjected to. The Bilal in front of them looked nothing like the Bilal they had known. A crude line of stitches ran from the bottom of his stomach up to his chin, triggering anxious speculation over the purpose of that long rent in his body." The above account appeared in the chapter "The carpenter's house" in Bostrom's Inshallah, published in 2001, which documents events in the Palestinian territories. The horrific crime he witnessed is not a unique or exceptional incident; it typifies a mode of behaviour and practices used by the IDF since the first Palestinian Intifada in 1987. What is curious about the incident above is that it attracted little attention and stirred no controversy when it was published six years ago, and it could have remained unknown had it not been for a recent event in Brooklyn, New York. In July, this year, the FBI arrested an individual in Brooklyn who was a member of a ring that engaged in money laundering and illicit human organ trafficking. When it came to light that the ring also included a couple of rabbis and that Israel was one of the main links in these illegal activities, the news triggered a huge scandal. Against this electrified backdrop, Bostrom republished portions of his "Bilal story" in the Swedish Aftonbladet on 17 August. The article also included information on the shortage in human organs in Israel and on the legal and political circumstances surrounding this subject. The article further notes that out of the 133 Palestinians killed in the same year that Bilal was killed (1992), about half were given autopsies. The Israeli government moved swiftly to counter this gash in its carefully polished façade, lashing out against the journalist as anti-Semitic and demanding that Stockholm condemn the story. When the Swedish government refused to do as told, Israel threatened to cancel a forthcoming visit by the Swedish prime minister to Israel. So far Stockholm has held out against Israeli pressures. One wonders how long Israel will continue to block the truth. * The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.
