Israeli Authorities Admit to Organ Harvesting

(PALOS HILLS, Ore.) - The former head of the Israeli Ministry of Health was to have testified before the Knesset today to answer questions that arose after an Israeli pathologist admitted he harvested organs from Palestinians and others without family consent.

In an interview made public last weekend on Israeli Channel 2, pathologist Dr. Yehuda Hiss admitted he harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of dead Palestinians, Israeli soldiers and foreign workers without permission in the 1990s.

“We felt free,” to harvest organs, Hiss said. “Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the families.”

When doctors feared their actions would be discovered they would cover up the evidence, oftentimes gluing shut eyes to hide missing corneas, for instance, Hiss said.

This new development comes several months after the Swedish newspaper the Aftonbladet published an article by Donald Bostrom, which brought the issue to light. Bostrom's article said the IDF took organs from young Palestinian men in their custody and then buried the bodies in the dead of night.

The article created major controversy and chilled relations between Sweden and Israel. It was this controversy that prompted anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes to release the interview she made with Hiss in 2000 to Israeli Channel 2, according to published reports. Scheper-Hughes is the founder of Organ Watch, a nonprofit organization that tracks illegal organ trafficking around the world.

Scheper-Hughes said she was struck by Hiss' admissions. “The symbolism of taking skin out of a population that is considered to be the enemy and using it for skin for the military, that's something that – just in terms of symbolic weight – has to be reconsidered,” she told Channel 2. Bostrom's article was published shortly after U.S. federal agents arrested Levy Izhak Rosenbaum and charged him with illegally trying to sell a kidney from Israel to an American recipient. Rosebaum's case is pending in the U.S. District Court of New Jersey.

In August, the American Muslims for Palestine first called upon the U.S. State Department and the media to conduct an investigation into the questions raised by Bostrom's article. Today, AMP is renewing that call.

“The standards for organ donation are very clear and it is obvious some Israeli pathologists exhibited a total disregard for the rights of Palestinians and others,” said Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman and professor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. “AMP is renewing its call for an investigation into Israel's illegal organ harvesting.”

While illegal organ harvesting is deplorable, it is just one of the many human rights abuses Israel heaps upon occupied Palestinians every day. AMP calls upon the world community to hold Israel accountable for all its violations of international law. And we call upon the world community to pressure Israel to lift the siege on Gaza, to cease all settlement construction and to end the occupation.

Dr. Hatem Bazian, AMP chairman and professor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California.

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PleaseSignthePetition December 29, 2009 8:28 pm (Pacific time)

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/investigateorgantheft/

jason smelkinson December 25, 2009 12:00 am (Pacific time)

Michael Jordan... where did you get Palestinian CHILDREN? Seriously questioning your agenda, the only people who add in Children are sensationalists, I'm not calling you an anti-semite, but thats how Hitler gained power, saying he was going to take care of the children of Germany. and Americans ( i am one) haven't even brought BUSH to justice, even though after attacked by terrorists, we invade the WRONG COUNTRY! The one his Daddy was fighting in, Daddy's little man syndrome IMO, and we pay for it. We finally have Obama dealing with Afghanistan, which has gotten exponentially worse during the Bush Administration.. while they spent all of our cash on Project Concrete Block(Iraq).. and our troops die to play security guard for heartless companies like Exxon, and thats not the only country that Republican/Gas companies have been manipulating (while the people are suffering, last summer Georgia [the country] put the boot on its people and shut down the media with people in armor coming straight out of Half-Life 2!! No joke! used sound guns on their people. America just said, "Those arent for peaceful riots" while Exxon/Shell/andmore all have their logo on a huge oil pipeline in that country..)

Osotan; December 24, 2009 6:19 pm (Pacific time)

israel has done nothing wrong..,ever! Palestine however.,is guilty of Being!,so the rightious must wield the sword.,what's wrong with that? Remember the Old Testament story of the Philistines in old time Canan who wanted to join w/ israel and the israeli's demanded they get circumcised as part of the conversion deal?.,then attacked them while they recovered.,killing them all? Or there is always the story of Jesus., israel didn't listen when he was actually here on earth 2,000 years ago, documented to be from the tribe of Judah., so why should they now?

michael jordan December 24, 2009 1:53 pm (Pacific time)

At long last after several years of personally attempting to get this information past the Zionist censors of Huffington Post, Truthdig, and Commondreams and countless other venues and into the public record, the vile and horrendous practice of killing Palestinian children for their organs is finally getting the curtain lifted just a little bit. There is still much, much more to this story extending to the murders and brutal injuries by flechette munitions in the Christmas Holocaust on Gaza last year and it requires much pressure from people here in the United States to make sure that the Israeli's are brought to account for these monstrously vile acts, and made to pay in profit and prison after war crimes tribunals. There is no way for American Jews to deny that their taxes and contributions to Madoff, Merkin and others funded these war crimes against humanity. It is time to balance the books. A great day for the truth to begin to emerge...

jason Smelkinson December 24, 2009 1:17 am (Pacific time)

"trying to sell a kidney from Israel to an American recipient" From Israel or an Israeli? The bias in this article is blatant. And where is this proof of the new allegations? seems more like shock-media until they can confirm anything

Sarah Smile December 23, 2009 3:26 pm (Pacific time)

It's just like Germany in the 1930's, as this horrible regard for mankind continues, the Western powers look the other way. Last time it took the lives of countless of millions of Jews, Gypsy's, educators and activists. This time, in the new century, we have already seen Israel kill 4,000 Palestinians. The world is a shameful place, Israel's government has an evil bent, and Americans are not the defenders of freedom, they are the funders of oppression. It is not theory or conjecture, it is the simple truth.

jimmy December 23, 2009 2:16 pm (Pacific time)

"deplorable".. is that the best that they can come up with?? If it was released that Palestinians were doing the same, it would be outright war! When does the world stand up to these Israeli criminals and call them out for what they are, CRIMINALS!

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Israeli Authorities Admit to Organ Harvesting

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