Abbas’ PA continues to propagate this blood libel
The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) has condemned the obscene blood libel repeated by the Egyptian Medical Syndicate that Israeli doctors participate in torture of Palestinians and the stealing of Arab body parts. A report in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ayyam said, “The head of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate, Dr. Hamdi Al-Sayed, said yesterday that the decisions of the [Egyptian] medical associations were based on a rejection of relations with Israeli doctors, since they took part in grave abuses against the Palestinian people. He stated, in press releases in Cairo, that the Egyptian Medical Syndicate views any type of normalization with the Israeli occupation as a crime.”
Dr Al-Sayed said, “We have no regard or respect for the Israeli doctors because the medical community has condemned them due to their participation in the torture of Palestinian prisoners …. The Israeli Medical Association has acknowledged having participated in torture, noting that it had done so with the aim of protecting Israeli citizens … [He stated that the Israeli doctors are also guilty of stealing the organs of Palestinian prisoners, and that] such people will not be permitted to take part in our medical activities.” (Al-Ayyam, Nov. 27, 2009, translation in Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, ‘Egyptian doctors join PA hate libel,’ Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), December 1, 2009).
Such bans on Israeli professionals by Egyptian professional associations are not new. In October, Egypt denied entry to Israeli cancer researchers from attending a program and workshops in Alexandria (reversed by Egypt at the eleventh hour only after protest). Only a week before that, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry also refused to grant a visa to Yossi Gordon, the head of the Association of Contractors and Builders in Israel, from coming to Egypt the previous Friday (Jacob Kanter, ‘Egypt slams door on Israeli cancer researchers,’ Jerusalem Post, October 21, 2009).
Palestinian Media Watch has noted the support for this blood libel that has issued in recent months from the Arab League itself:
· “The Arab League Council publishes resolutions supporting the Palestinian issue and demands an investigation into the theft of the organs of our Shahids (Martyrs). At the conclusion of its assembly in Cairo a short time ago, the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers published a series of resolutions in support of the Palestinian people. In addition, they demanded an investigation of Israel’s crimes of stealing organs of Palestinian Shahids (Martyrs). They demanded the establishment of a UN Fact-Finding Mission in order to confirm that Israeli government gangs have stolen the organs of many Arab inhabitants, and to provide Arab and international aid to the [Palestinian] national committees that would be set up to investigate these crimes” (WAFA official PA News Agency, Sept. 10, 2009).
It has also been repeatedly declared to be a fact by senior officials in Mahmoud Abbas’ PA:
· Issa Karake, PA Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs: “Would you believe that Israel punishes not only those who are alive, but also the dead, by holding their corpses in secret military cemeteries inside Israel for many years, and when it returns some of the Shahids (Martyrs) to their families, they come back disfigured after organs have been stolen from them” (PA TV (Fatah), Nov. 24, 2009).
· Omar Al-Ghoul, advisor to PA Prime Minister, Salaam Fayyad on national affairs: “The world has to know and to take note of Israel’s crimes, starting with the theft and trade in organs of Palestinian Shahids (Martyrs). The organs of approximately 69 Shahids were stolen. Likewise, the Goldstone report and other reports clearly indicate Israeli crimes” (PA TV (Fatah), September 29, 2009).
· Issa Karake: “Minister of Prisoners and Released [Prisoners], Issa Karake… stated that Israel hides the corpses of the Shahids (Martyrs) in order to evade responsibility for the organ theft that was carried out on these bodies…” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, September 9, 2009).
· Nash’at Al-Wahidi, general coordinator of the Popular Movement for Protection of Prisoners and a member of the factions’ Prisoners’ Committee: “… the bodies [he said] are buried in a pit 70cm deep, wrapped in sacks that offer no protection” [before adding that Israel treats the bodies as a supply for experiments, stealing the organs of Shahids (Martyrs) and transplanting them in the bodies of sick settlers] (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), August 20, 2009, translations provided by PMW report, ‘Libel: Israel steals organs from Palestinians’).
· Abd Al-Nasser Farawneh, senior official in the Ministry for Prisoner Affairs: “This is not something strange for the occupation government, and it’s not the first time that they’re killing or stealing body parts and corpses of Palestinians. Israel has been behaving this way for a long time… Israel stole many organs and bodies” (Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Fatah), August 20, 2009, translations provided by PMW report, ‘Libel: Israel steals organs from Palestinians’).
ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “This obscene blood libel that Israel harvests the organs of Palestinians is not merely a reprehensible act undertaken deliberately and repeatedly by Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas’ unreconstructed terror-supporting regime, which would be bad enough. It is not merely a matter of violating the letter and spirit of a peace agreement, in the case of Egypt, or an anti-peace act by an alleged peace partner, in the case of Abbas’ PA – it is a form of demonization of Jews designed to dehumanize Jews in preparation for further assaults upon the Jewish state of Israel. It is part of a language of genocidal hatred that fuels the Arab war on Israel.
“That both Egypt and the PA can be feted by the U.S. and the world as moderates and peace-partners and recipients of high levels of annual U.S. and international aid is a travesty.
“Neither Egypt nor the PA merit American support and billions of dollars in annual U.S. aid if they refuse to behave like peace-partners. The Obama Administration needs to make the ending of incitement to hatred and murder by all regimes that are recipients of U.S. aid a condition for the continuation of such aid.”