New York, NY, October 16, 2015 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today condemned as “outrageous and incendiary” a blood-libel accusation posted on social media by a Palestinian activist accusing the Israeli government of arresting Palestinian children and “stealing their organs.”
Bassem Tamimi, a Palestinian anti-Israel activist who is currently on a U.S. speaking tour, posted the allegation on his Facebook page on October 14 along with a picture of a boy with a large incision and stitches across his torso, with the message, “When Israelis arrest Palestinian CHILDREN, what is the purpose? To STEAL THEIR ORGANS. The same #Zionists doing this control the #media.”
Web sites promoting Tamimi’s speaking tour claim his trip is being sponsored by Amnesty International.
Jonathan A. Greenblatt, ADL CEO, issued the following statement:
The claim that the Israelis are harvesting Palestinian organs for profit is outrageous and incendiary. It is just another version of the anti-Semitic blood-libel that has been used to foment hatred of Jews for centuries. This is part of a broader trend of hateful lies and vicious incitement spreading in Palestinian society via social media and the street.
Whether the proponents are government officials or religious figures or community leaders, good people need to stand up and condemn incitement immediately and unequivocally.
If indeed Amnesty International is a sponsor of his tour, we expect them to condemn Bassem Tamimi’s hateful anti-Semitism and remove their endorsement. There can be no justification or support for this type of hate and incitement. There are good people, Palestinian and Israeli, who are promoting reconciliation and moderation. These are the voices who should be elevated, not those who promote incitement.
According to ADL’s Center on Extremism, Tamimi is a Palestinian anti-Israel activist who has been arrested by Israel several times while leading weekly demonstrations on Fridays in the West Bank village Nabi Saleh. Tamimi engages in the weekly demonstrations to promote nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. The demonstrations have not always been nonviolent and Tamimi has occasionally been arrested for leading children to throw stones at Israeli soldiers.