Middle East/Iran Inside Line: Israel says "IAEA Has Another Classified Report"

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Israel: Somewhere A Report Proves Our Case. Really: Not satisfied with the latest report of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli officials have insisted that the IAEA is sitting on another classified report on Iran’s nuclear programme and called on the Agency to release it.

Italy Jumps Into Israel-Sweden Dispute: Haaretz reports that Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, told the newspaper that he and Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt would work to pass a resolution strongly condemning anti-Semitism and taking action against any manifestation of it throughout the European Union at the EU foreign ministers' meeting next week.

As for the claim in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers had harvested the organs of dead Palestinians, Frattini said it was within the definitiation of“anti-Semitism": “There are limits to freedom of the press that stem from respect for the truth and the duty of every journalist to prove his claims....[These are] terrible conclusions, lying and hurtful, and they have the power to assist all those who seek to incite against Jews or who oppose the existence of the State of Israel.”

On the issue of Sweden's position after the Aftonbladet claim, Frattini said, “The Council of Ministers meeting is the correct forum for Sweden to prove, with concrete steps, its determined stance against anti-Semitism." While the Swedish side is keeping its silence, Yigal Palmor of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said, “Every initiative against anti-Semitism is welcome… But if the declaration is general and does not specifically relate to the article in Aftonbladet, it will not resolve anything.…All we asked of Sweden and the Swedes is that they reject and decry the content of the report. And our position has not changed."

Middle East Inside Line (30 August): Israel-Gaza Tension Rising, Sweden and Israel Still Fighting

Israel Tension with Hamas Rising: The tension between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Gaza has been increasing since Monday. Palestinian militants fired a Qassam rocket into the Western Negev. A 20-year-old Palestinian was shot dead when he approached a security fence separating Israel and the northern Gaza Strip; the Israeli military claimed that gunmen were placing a bomb near the security fence and opened fire. After the Palestinian's death, mortar shells fired from the Gaza Strip injured an Israeli soldier; the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), a Palestinian militant group, claimed responsibility.

On Tuesday, two Israeli jets dropped bombs on smuggling tunnels in the southern town of Rafah. The IDF said that the airstrike, which killed three Palestinian brothers and wounded seven others, was in response to Monday's mortar shell fire at Israel on Monday.

Israel-Sweden Fight Continues:

After recent tension over Palestine and the "stolen organs" controversy, diplomatic storm clouds are still over Stockholm and Tel Aviv. On Friday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit gave a clear yet a provocative statement in Sweden:

East Jerusalem must be included in a freeze of settlement activity before Middle East peace talks can restart....Jerusalem is Arab and it will continue to be so.

Meanwhile, Washington has denied reports that the Obama Administration dropped the demand for the freezing of settlements in East Jerusalem in exchange for the Israeli concession of a 9 to 12-month settlement freeze in the West Bank.

When Democracies Fight: Israel and Sweden, Round 2

Israel and Sweden: When Democracies Fight

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Last weekend, we wrote about an article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet by Donald Bostrom, calling for an investigation into numerous claims in the 1990s that Israeli soldiers stole the organs of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and the furious response from Israeli diplomatic circles. Although the Swedish Embassy in Israel distanced itself from the report, the Swedish government. Stockholm refused to condemn the article, saying briefly that Sweden has a “free press".

Israel has maintained its criticism. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz claimed:

This is an anti-Semitic blood libel against the Jewish people and the Jewish state. The Swedish government cannot remain apathetic… We know the origins of these claims. In medieval times, there were claims that the Jews use the blood of Christians to bake their Matzas for Passover. The modern version now is that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldiers use organs of Palestinian to take money.

Then, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman compared today’s Sweden with the country of the 1940s, telling Sweden’s ambassador on Thursday evening:

It's a shame that the Swedish Foreign Ministry fails to intervene in a case of blood libels against Jews… This is reminiscent of Sweden's stand during World War II, when [it] had failed to intervene as well.

Predictably, politics is now on the streets, with thousands of Israelis signing an online petition to boycott the Swedish furniture retailer IKEA.

What should not be forgotten, as we noted in the earlier article, is that this dispute overlays diplomatic frictions over Israel's policy toward Palestine and possible political advantage in displacing that issue. So expect the rhetorical battle between neo-Holocaust scenarios, in which the Israeli military is victimised,  and the claims of freedom of the press to continue for some time.

Israel and Sweden: When Democracies Fight

UPDATE 1300 GMT: The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, spreads his message by Twitter: "Calling on the Swedish government to strongly condemn these accusations"

Warning lights are blinking for the diplomatic relationship between Sweden and Israel. First, the "shocking" news came from a Swedish court in April that an Egyptian-born Palestinian found guilty of terror attacks against U.S. and Jewish targets in the 1980s could have his life sentence commuted to a 30-year prison term.

Then, on 4 August, Sweden criticized the State of Israel via the Swedish President of the European Union said, "The presidency of the European Union reiterates its serious concerns about the continued and unacceptable evictions in east Jerusalem, notably the evictions by Israeli authorities of two families….House demolitions, evictions and settlement activities in east Jerusalem are illegal under international law."

After the release of the report of the Jerusalem-based conservative NGO Monitor criticising “Swedish government funding for radical NGOs under the guise of human rights and humanitarian aid", eyes returned to Stockholm when the Swedish government declared on August 12 that 50 million Kronor ($6.9 million) would be given to the Palestinian Authority to help pay wages and pensions of local officials.

And that is not the end of the story. On Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz printed Donald Boström’s claim, from his article in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, that Israeli soldiers are abducting Palestinians to steal their organs:

"Our sons are used as involuntary organ donors," relatives of Khaled from Nablus said to me, as did the mother of Raed from Jenin as well as the uncles of Machmod and Nafes from Gaza, who all had disappeared for a few days and returned by night, dead and autopsied.

Israeli diplomatic circles reacted with fury. Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Yigal Palmor called the newspaper's decision to publish "a mark of disgrace": "In a democratic country, there should be no place for dark blood libels out of the Middle Ages of this type….This is an article that shames Swedish democracy and the entire Swedish press."

There has been no reaction from the Swedish Government to the latest Israeli statements.