JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel urged the Swedish government on Sunday to condemn an article in a Swedish newspaper last week accusing the Israeli Army of harvesting organs from Palestinians wounded or killed by soldiers.
As the furor in Israel over the article gathered into a diplomatic storm revolving around questions of anti-Semitism and freedom of speech, Mr. Netanyahu told ministers at a cabinet meeting on Sunday that the article, published in the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet, was “outrageous” and compared it to a “blood libel,” referring to medieval anti-Semitic accusations that Jews ritually killed gentile children and collected their blood.
“We are not asking the government of Sweden for an apology,” Mr. Netanyahu said, according to an official who attended the cabinet meeting and who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We are asking for their condemnation. We are not asking from them anything we do not ask of ourselves.”
Mr. Netanyahu made his comments behind closed doors, but other Israeli ministers have publicly attacked the Swedish government’s refusal to take an official stand against the article. Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s outspoken foreign minister, has led the protest, saying that the Swedish government’s silence was “reminiscent of Sweden’s position during World War II, when it also did not become involved.”
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Accusation of Organ Theft Stokes Ire in Israel
