On the heels of Sweden's most widely read newspaper, Aftonbladet, publishing and then defending what most consider an antisemitic article about Israeli troops harvesting organs from Palestinians, an Israeli lawyer is suing the paper in New York City for libel:
The $7.5 million suit, which names the paper and writer Donald Bostrom, was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, according to [Guy] Ophir, who said the article's allegations were anti-Semitic and amounted to "racist blood libel" against Jews and Israeli soldiers.
For a more complete background of this incident, see my diary from a few days ago: Excuse for antisemitism: 'No evidence, but it's possible...'
Ophir filed the lawsuit in Manhattan because Aftonbladet has offices there and distributes copies of the newspaper in the city.
In most definitely not a lawyer and I have no idea whether Ophir has a legitimate case or if this is just posturing and getting his name in the news, but there is no doubt (other than from the true fringe of anti-Israel activists) that the Aftonbladet story was bogus and a pure lie:
The mother denied that she had told any foreign journalist that her son's organs had been stolen.
Plus, the science doesn't even work:
Al Roth, the Harvard economist whose work on matched-pair organ donations has started to transform the organ-transplantation scenario, told me he found the accusation unbelievable because of the logistics of organ harvesting itself. "Organs don’t last very long and have to be matched rather particularly," he said, "so it would be hard to take them on spec for an international market. So I think black market organs must mostly be from live donors. Live donors can take blood tests well in advance and travel to where the patient is. Deceased organs have to be put on ice, and the clock starts ticking immediately and fast."
Whether this is enough to make a libel claim legitimate or not is certainly debatable, but regardless of its merits, it will be interesting to watch how this case unfolds.