JERUSALEM, Aug. 19 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Daniel Ayalon on Wednesday submitted a formal grievance to the Swedish government, demanding the government's condemnation of a "groundless" story which accuses Israeli soldiers of abducting Palestinians to steal their organs.
"I demand the Swedish government to condemn this groundless article," Ayalon was quoted by local news service Ynet as saying.
Sweden's largest circulation daily, Aftonbladet, earlier carried a story headlined "They plunder the organs of our sons." In the story, several Palestinians were quoted as saying that Israeli soldiers kidnapped their sons and stole organs.
Stockholm, Ayalon said, "can not wash its hands of this. It is a private publication, be it an anti-Semitic one, but I can see a correlation between recent statements made in Sweden and this article. This is an outright blood libel."
Israeli Foreign Ministry is reportedly considering summoning Swedish ambassador to Israel Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier and reproving him for his government policies "which allow such a hateful publication to go without censure," according to Ynet.
Meanwhile, Bonnier issued a statement which denounces the report on the embassy's website. "Aftonbladet published an article on alleged organ trafficking in Israel on Aug. 17. It related, inter alia, claims from individual Palestinians that organs had been stolen from captured Palestinians. The given sources and a photograph of a dead Palestinian man, pertain to an incident in l992."
"The article is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes, as it is to Israeli citizens. We share the dismay expressed by Israeli government representatives, media and the Israeli public. This embassy can not but clearly distance itself from it," said the statement.
It continued its condemnation of the report saying "freedom of the press and freedom of expression are freedoms which carry a certain responsibility. It falls on the editor-in-chief of any given newspaper."
On Tuesday, Israeli Foreign Ministry responded furiously to the Aftonbladet story, saying this was a grotesque throwback to the blood libels of the Middle Ages.
"No one should tolerate such a demonizing piece of medieval blood libel that surely encourages hate crimes against Jews," local daily The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor as saying. "This is a shame to freedom of expression, and all Swedes should reject it unconditionally."
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