Swedish editor admits that he had no evidence for Jewish blood libel story

"should be investigated, either to stop the relentless Palestinian rumors, or, if the rumors prove to be true, stop the trade in body parts."

If? IF?!?!?!? How about getting the proof BEFORE you PUBLISH the ORIGINAL REPORT, Swedish reporters?!?!?

What a couple of TOOLS!

Evidence? We don' neet no stinkin' evidence!

"I'm not a Nazi," Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin wrote. "I'm not anti-Semitic."

Of course he's an antisemite (note the better spelling, please). Only an antisemite would publish such an obvious fiction, and one which reeks of the Blood Libel, the one that goes way back in many parts of Western Christendom, including the tale of Little Hugh of Lincoln. Frank Manuel, Gavin Langmuir, and my favorite -- the impassioned Malcolm Hay, a Roman Catholic Scot and historian who wrote the unforgettable "Europe and the Jews" (which has been reprinted, and ought to be better known, and widely read, and read and digested above all by those who who for one minute might fall for the notion that this Aftonbladet editor is not an antisemitic swine, but merely an ordinary swine).

Swedish elites are a disgusting bunch of hypocrites. Sweden is quite possibly the most totalitarian and politically repressive country in the entire Western world, although Britain is trying very hard to beat them to the title. Free speech does not exist in Sweden. If somebody from Israel wants ammunition to fire back at these people he can contact me. I should mention, though, that while Swedish elites do not allow Israelis to defend themselves, they do not allow their own people to defend themselves, either. The same goes for other EU countries, too.

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/08/fjordman-at-atlas-.html

The fact that the anti-Israeli and anti-American writer Helle Klein, for many years the political editor of Aftonbladet, at her blog also speaks warmly of "free speech" is such an extreme case of hypocrisy that it simply cannot go unanswered. Free speech does not exist in Sweden. Although some countries such as Britain and Belgium are trying hard to claim the title, I would personally rate Sweden as being probably the most totalitarian and politically repressive country in the entire Western world as of 2009, and Aftonbladet has made substantial contributions to this repressive climate. Sweden has huge problems caused by mass immigration, and Muslim immigration in particular, but speaking honestly about this is absolutely taboo among the mainstream media. According to journalist Karen Jespersen, Helle Klein has stated that "If the debate is [about] that there are problems caused by refugees and immigrants, we don't want it." Opinion polls have revealed that two out of three Swedes doubt whether Islam can be combined with Swedish society, yet not one party represented in parliament has been genuinely critical of the immigration policies, and there is virtually no real debate about Multiculturalism and Islam.

As I have stated in my essay Why Europeans Should Support Israel, the demonization of Israel should be rejected not just because of Israel, but because of Europe. The very same people who are demonizing Israelis are also demonizing native Europeans who resist the Islamization of their lands and the state-sponsored colonization of their countries by alien peoples. The truth is that Israelis defend themselves so that their daughters do not have to suffer rape at the hands of Muslim Jihadists, the way the authorities in Western European countries, and in Sweden in particular, allow to happen every single day. Here are a few relevant quotes from the chapter The Case of Sweden, taken from my book Defeating Eurabia. I suggest that Israelis send some of these quotes to Aftonbladet, Helle Klein and Carl Bildt and challenge them with the information it contains:

The Swedish organization Expo has demonstrated a willingness to “share information” with radical groups of “anti-Fascists” in Antifascistisk Action (AFA). The thugs of AFA in the spring of 2008 destroyed the car of an elderly woman and wrote “nasse“ (Nazi) on top of it. As it turned out, they picked the wrong car. Yet years of such attacks against private citizens have not prompted the authorities to crack down on their activities.

Leading newspaper Aftonbladet has close ideological ties to the Social Democrats, the country’s dominant party for most of the past century. Helle Klein, its political editor-in-chief from 2001 to 2007, during a demonstration organized by Islamic and anti-racist organizations in December 2006 stood in front of a banner which read “A Sweden for all - Stop the Nazi violence“ and held a speech warning against Islamophobia in the media. Klein has voiced sympathy for terrorist organization Hamas in her editorials while warning against the threat posed to world peace by Israeli aggression and the Christian Right in the USA. Hamas is a Fascist organization openly calling for mass murder of Jews. Violent attacks against Jews in Europe in 2008 are to an overwhelming degree caused by Muslim immigration, which is encouraged by the EU and the national political elites. The irony of warning against “Nazi violence” while showing sympathy for an organization that wants to finish what the Nazis started apparently doesn’t strike Ms. Klein.

One of Klein’s fellow columnists at Aftonbladet, the long-time Communist Robert Aschberg, is the publisher of Expo magazine. Leading Expo member Charles Westin in October 2007 published the book Brunt! (“brown,” as in “Fascist”), where he let members of AFA contribute some of their intelligence regarding “right-wing extremists,” among them people associated with the legal party the Sweden Democrats. In addition to Mr. Westin, the book was co-authored by Mats Deland, who is a journalist in Aftonbladet. Why is it considered OK that a representative of one of Scandinavia’s largest newspapers, with ties to the country’s largest political party, thus associates himself openly with an organization known for physically assaulting members of a legal opposition party, even in their private homes?

Before the elections in 2006, the established parties cooperated in boycotting the Sweden Democrats and other “xenophobic” parties. In one of many similar incidents, which extreme Leftists bragged about on the Internet, around 30 members of the SD were attacked during a peaceful, private party outside the town of Växjö. The brave “anti-Fascists” threw tear gas into the building, forcing people outside where they were beaten with iron bars and axes. Open, aggressive and sometimes violent harassment of critics of the country’s immigration policies has been going on for years while the authorities have largely turned a blind eye to the problem. Seemingly encouraged by the silence from the establishment to political violence, extreme Leftists have stepped up their attacks to include mainstream parties. Sweden is witnessing the greatest explosion of street violence in its history, and a woman is raped every two hours. Expo, which is backed by the media and the major parties, has been campaigning against the Sweden Democrats for years. Daniel Poohl from the unelected organization Expo states that it’s “not undemocratic” to deny the SD access to political influence.

According to Jonathan Friedman, an American Jew working in Sweden for years, “no debate about immigration policies is possible, the subject is simply avoided. Sweden has such a close connection between the various powerful groups, politicians, journalists, etc. The political class is closed, isolated.” The elites are worried to see their power slip away and therefore want to silence critics, for instance the Sweden Democrats, a small party opposed to immigration: “It is a completely legal party, they just aren’t allowed to speak.…In reality, the basis of democracy has been completely turned on its head. It is said: ‘Democracy is a certain way of thinking, a specific set of opinions, and if you do not share them, then you aren’t democratic, and then we condemn you and you ought to be eliminated. The People? That is not democratic. We the Elite, we are democracy.’ It is grotesque and it certainly has nothing to do with democracy, more like a kind of moral dictatorship.”

As Bruce Bawer writes in the article While Sweden Slept: “Sweden Democrats have been the targets of events that recall China’s Cultural Revolution. Staged ‘people’s protests’ by members of the ‘youth divisions’ of other parties have led to the firing of Sweden Democrats from their jobs. A few weeks ago, a junior diplomat was dismissed when it became known that he was a member of the party and had criticized his country’s immigration policy. On several occasions, thugs loyal to the ruling parties have broken up SD meetings and beaten up party leaders.”

Couldn't Israel sue them for defamation??

I'm not a Nazi - But I play one in the press...

Will Jan Helin travel to Albania where there is actual evidence of Jihadist scum harvesting the organs of Christian Serbs in the town of Burrel?

Hell no... The Serbs are the ultimate evil doers and guilty of everything since creation.

http://de-construct.net/e-zine/?p=7264

"I'm not a Nazi - But I play one in the press..."
-- from the posting just above

A palpable hit.

B...bb..bb..but...they COULD have been doing it right??? Can the IDF prove it wasn't doing that? Huh??? Huh????? What if they did it when no one was looking - ever think of THAT???? Huh???

Sweden, England, and the rest of Europe have contracted cultural Alzheimer's or something - it's the most incredible and distressing thing I hae ever witnessed...

Swedes are such a bunch of pussies to have surrendered to islam completely. In comparison, Danes have shown such steel. BTW, Norway is not far behind Sweden. Bravo to the Danes! That's why I totally support Denmark and buy Danish whenever I can. Love Danish cartoonists.

Meanwhile in Denmark, one of the ruling government parties has suggested to ban the Burkha:

http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article769245.ece

Denmark and Sweden are very different countries..

One should expect a "responsible" editor to avoid printing such nonsense.

Just think about what a good job Both Bostrom and Helin have done in watering down the value of the word-responsible.

Now, when the MSM use the term "responsible" when prefacing a particular mouth-peace, are these two the ruler one measures by???

Denmark and Sweden are very different countries."

In some respects -- in the important respect being discussed at this thread -- yes. The question -- historians and students of national psychology please take note -- is why.

Like the 9/11 "truthers" are apt to say, he's just asking questions.

But how can anyone claim that they aren't anti-smites when they publish one of the world's oldest blood libels with no evidence to back it up?

And yet Bostrum and Helin will probably still continue to enjoy a reputation as responsible journalists.

Maybe. Then again, maybe not. They may preserve their own reputations but they will make it harder to believe anyone else. A single bad apple can ruin an entire barrel. Their publication deserves to lose all credibility. Someday there might be an incriminating story about Israel that needs to be told. Why would I believe them if they told it? That's the problem with consistently crying "wolf". Someday the wolf will come to devour your sheep and the village will assume you're just making it up and will ignore your cries for help.

Hugh: I have just finished reading Malcolm Hay's 'Europe and the Jews' and I found it quite masterful, shocking and very moving. It îs a relentless no-holds barred account of 2000 years of Christian hatred,persecution and murder of the Jews culminating in the Holocaust. It is essential reading for anyone concerned about the recent resurgence of antisemitism in so-called liberal Europe. The book was written in 1950 and Hay's observations and thoughts on the current wave of enmity towards Israel would have been most welcome if he were still around.
Only last week a Christian acquaintance of mine reiterated the deicide libel calling the Jews 'God killers' because the Gospels say so.
The Middle Ages seem to back with a vengeance disguised as anti-Zionism.

"I'm not a Nazi," Aftonbladet editor Jan Helin wrote. "I'm not anti-Semitic."

I would agree Mr. Helin, you are not a Nazi. Instead your are a crass, stupid, and evil Marxist who steals your talking points from the Nazis. As for being an antisemite, you most certainly are. But you don't stop with a little, old fashion Jew-baiting, but deliberately assist in spreading such vile propaganda with the goal of aiding the Islamic jihad against not only Israel, but the West as well.

The spirit of Quisling lives on in modern Sweden.

The Shoe is on the other foot! ;-}

This kind of disinformation was common during the Cold War. It is why many believe that HIV-AIDS is an American plot to quiertly wipe out all non-white peoples hatched at Fort Dietrick, Maryland; why the organs of Central American babies are harvested for the sake of rich, North Americans; etc.

Johndoe, are you telling me that secular nationalism had nothing to do with the Shoah, and that it was all "Christian" in inspiration? I thought that evolutionary science had religious obscurantism routed out of most of thinking Europe and North America by 1925.

kepha: The Shoah was the outcome of 2000 years of Christian antisemitism. Germany, Austria, Poland and the Baltic states were committed Christian societies. They were not Buddhist. The Nazi elite all grew up in devout Christian families and were poisoned with Jew hatred in their early years within a Catholic or Protestant context. Hitler stated that the 3 greatest Germans were Frederick the Great, Luther and Wagner. He dedicated Kristallnacht to Luther, who was as virulently antisemitic as the Nazis and wanted all Jewish property confiscated, synagogues burnt and the Jews expelled or murdered. Secular German nationalism was just another vehicle channelling a hatred that was introduced and inculcated over the centuries by Christianity, and that hatred is still very much there deep in the European psyche.

Years ago I met the great Israeli writer Amos Oz. He told us he never enjoyed his stays in Sweden. He prefers to be in a Fellini film to being in an Ingmar Bergman film. The Swedish people are just too anti-Israeli which means they're anti-Semites. And Amos Oz is by no means an Israeli hawk, he's a peacenik. Remember Hans Blix, the ex chief ot IAEA? He said the international community had to offer more incentives to Iran to get them off their nukes project. He's a moron, no carrot, only the stick works here. The Danes are okay, they're great people, see the Motoons and the way they saved the Jews from the Nazis. I also like to buy Danish products.

The worst manifestation currently of Western anti-Semitism is a general predisposition to vilify Israel while simultaneously to whitewash the "Palestinians" as well as to obfuscate the rising tide of Islamic anti-Semitism throughout the West, particularly Europe and the UK.

The worst manifestation currently of Islamic anti-Semitism has escalated into often horrific violence (various cases of murder and torture of Jews in Europe, the UK and America), when it is not kept at a low-smoldering climate of intimidation and vandalism of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries, along with countless writings and speeches by various Muslim pundits and clerics dripping with language of collective hatred and hints at genocide. Nor is Mein Kampf a bestseller among ordinary masses anywhere in the West -- though it is in several Muslim countries.

Pace johndoe above, Jews today do not need to worry about Western anti-Semites other than as more or less passive enablers of the far more virulent Islamic anti-Semites. To worry today about another Holocaust coming from non-Muslim Westerners would be like standing at the wrong end of the tunnel looking out for a train that happens to be barrelling toward your rear.

Note to Hugh: My American Heritage Dictionary, vetted by a team of literary critics and philologists including the supremely picky John Simon, spells it "anti-Semite / anti-Semitism".

Slightly off-topic, but the subtlety of Israel hatred is manifesting itself in the grocery stores.
You might be able to, but I have found that 'Israeli Couscous' has been changed to either Grande Couscous or to Pearled couscous. It seems that Israel can't get a break.

Reply to the lexicographical note above:

Your dictionary is wrong. The word, if spelled as "anti-Semite' or "anti-semite," accords too much substance, and therefore too much dignity, to the pathological condition. It slyly assumes that there is such a thing as "semitism" which someone is "anti" when in fact, antisemites are simply people who, for all kinds of reasons, are predisposed to seek a simple answer for all that ails them, and for all that they think ails not them but the world, in the all-purpose off-the-rack scapegoat (because Judaism was the prior-in-time monotheism, which led to a badmouthing of it by early Christians in order to seize market share -- Muslims did the same with both Judaism and Christianity -- and that early attempt to seize market share eventually metastasized into something far worse, with the results we all so grimly know, with the apothesosi of it all taking place, in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Occupied Europe, with all sorts of gleeful participants sharing in the murders and the seizure of the loot, during the unforgettable period 1933-1945.

The word "anti-Semitism" is itself, I submit, antisemitic. In French (antisemitisme) and in Italian (antisemitismo) the languages behave properly, as they should. English needs a little help. I have provided that help. I am indifferent to what any collegiate dictionary, or for that matter Webster's 2nd, or the O.E.D. (first or second editions) have to say on this matter.

I am right.

"He [editor Jan Helin] did note, however, that the paper had no evidence that such horrific practices were being carried out."

So your paper is essentially a work of fiction. What's next? A report on space aliens abducting people?
You might try reporting on some horrific practices where there is plenty of evidence; such as the Moslem crime wave throughout Europe, the execution of apostates and gays in many Islamic countries, "honor" killings of women wherever there are Moslems in any number, and the attacks on Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and pagans in any one of a score of Islamic countries.

Re. antisemitism. James Parkes (a sedate and devout Anglican clergyman, and Christian Zionist) wrote 'The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue', which can stand alongside the Malcolm Hay book referenced by Mr Fitzgerald.

It should be noted that Parkes remained a convinced and devout Christian; in other words, it is possible to take the Christian canonical scriptures very seriously; to continue to identify as a Christian; and at the same time to reject every form of antisemitism, both theological and political.

Those here who can read French are also advised to obtain, and read, Jacques Ellul - 'Un Chretien Pour Israel', and 'Ce Dieu Injuste? Theologie Chretienne pour le Peuple d'Israel' in order to understand that a philosemitic (or perhaps I should say, philojudaic) reading of the canonical Christian scriptures is perfectly possible; for Ellul, in masterly fashion, conducts such a reading.

In 'Un Chretien Pour Israel' the following chapters - I: 'De Foi' ('Of Faith', which is divided into three parts: 'Gospel and Letters'; 'Theology; and 'Antisemitism et Antisionism') and chapter IV, 'Jerusalem' are particularly recommended.

It was my stumbling across, and reading, that book - Un Chretien Pour Israel - (which has, by the way, unlike everything else Ellul wrote around that time, the 1980s, never been translated into English) which cleared from my head once and for all, with brisk finality, the fog of Arab/ Muslim anti-Israel anti-Jewish propaganda, to which I had previously been exposed, even in Christian circles.

I have never been so thankful for having made the effort to undertake a crash course in French (for other reasons entirely) as I was when I finished my slow, dictionary-and-grammar-aided journey through 'Un Chretien Pour Israel').

For a sample of Ellul's way of going about things: here he is, in 'Theologie', tackling that monstrous old canard, the Deicide charge...which, he concludes, is heretical.

"Il n’y a avait pas d’autre reponse au peche fondamental de l’homme que Dieu qui se livre pour reparer la destruction, Dieu qui livre son Fils et lui-meme en son Fils; il n’y a pas d’autre raison de la mort de Jesus, a savoir que c’etait la seule voie pour vaincre la mort qui est entrée dans le monde comme suite du peche. Le peche total de l’homme.

"Mais par un seul homme tous ont ete faits pecheurs. Ainsi: le peche des hommes.

" Les coupables de la mort de Jesus-Christ, c’est la totalite des hommes. S’il y avait eu un seul juste, Christ ne serait pas mort.

"Il est absurde de chercher des responsables historiques.

"La seule verite qui importe est celle de la responsabilite fondamentale.

"Mais le peche des hommes, c’est mon peche. Si j’ai a chercher un responsible de cette mort, je l’ai immediatement sous la main: c’est moi. Christ est mort parce que je suis pecheur. Et s’engager dans la voie qui consiste a declarer “le coupable, c’est lui”, c’est ajouter un double poids a mon peche: celui de me transformer en Satan (l’accusateur) et celui de l’hypocrisie (moi, je suis juste et innocent).

"Ainsi les chretiens et l’Eglise, qui pendant des siecles ont declare le peuple juif “deicide”, d

’une part jouaient le role de Satan, d’autre part tombaient exactement sous le coup de l’accusation de Jesus contre les pharisiens hypocrites.

Ce ne sont donc pas des raisons sentimentales ou liberales qui conduisent a declarer que le peuple juif n’est pas deicide, mais des raisons exactement theologiques.

Et l’Eglise ayant tolere cette accusation etait heretique."

(here is my very rough translation of the above):

'There was no other response to the basic sin of man than God, who gives Himself to repair the destruction, God who gives His son and Himself in His son; there is no other reason for the death of Jesus [than] to know that it was the only way to overcome death which entered into the world as a consequence of sin. The whole sin of man. But through just one man all became sinners. Thus: the sin of men.

'All humanity is guilty of the death of Jesus Christ. If there had been just one righteous man, Christ would not have died.

'It is absurd to look for those who were historically responsible.

'The only truth that matters is that of the fundamental responsibility. But the sin of men is my sin.

'If I had to look for the person responsible for Jesus’ death, I find him at once under my hand: it is I! Christ died because I am a sinner.

'And to set out on the path that consists in declaring “the guilty person is that one there”, is to add a double weight to my sin: that of turning myself into Satan (the accuser), and that of hypocrisy (“But I, I am just and innocent”).

'Thus the Christians and the Church, who for centuries have pronounced the Jewish people to be “God-killers”,

have on the one hand played the role of Satan

and on the other have fallen precisely under the stroke of Jesus’ accusation against the hypocrite Pharisees.

"It is not sentimental and liberal reasons that lead us to declare that the Jewish people are not “God-killers”; but reasons that are, precisely, theological.

"And the Church – in tolerating that accusation [i.e. the Deicide charge] - was heretical."

They refused to reprint the cartoons to show solidarity with their Danish neighbors when the later were pogromed, and instead moved aggressively to squash a little web site that did display them. And yet, they use "freedom of expression" as an excuse for spreading a blood libel against the only Jewish country in the world, and for organizing an "exibit" of an "artwork" glamorizing a female "Palestinian" suicide bomber who murdered 23 civilians in Haifa, Israel. On the other hand, they cover up an epidemic of rapes of Swedish women and underaged girls in their own country - suddenly, "freedom of expression" does not count there.
Sweden is competing with its other neighbor Norway for the title of Eurabia's lowliest.
Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.