Jerusalem – AP Report: Israel Harvested Organs in ’90s Without Permission

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    Jerusalem – Israel has admitted that in the 1990s, its forensic pathologists harvested organs from dead bodies, including Palestinians, without permission of their families.

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    The issue emerged with publication of an interview with the then-head of Israel’s Abu Kabir forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss. The interview was conducted in 2000 by an American academic, who released it because of a huge controversy last summer over an allegation by a Swedish newspaper that Israel was killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs. Israel hotly denied the charge.

    Parts of the interview were broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 TV over the weekend. In it, Hiss said, “We started to harvest corneas … Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family.”

    The Channel 2 report said that in the 1990s, forensic specialists at Abu Kabir harvested skin, corneas, heart valves and bones from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers, often without permission from relatives.

    In a response to the TV report, the Israeli military confirmed that the practice took place. “This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer,” the military said in a statement quoted by Channel 2.

    In the interview, Hiss described how his doctors would mask the removal of corneas from bodies. “We’d glue the eyelid shut,” he said. “We wouldn’t take corneas from families we knew would open the eyelids.”

    Many of the details in the interview first came to light in 2004, when Hiss was dismissed as head of the forensic institute because of irregularities over use of organs there. Israel’s attorney general dropped criminal charges against him, and Hiss still works as chief pathologist at the institute. He had no comment on the TV report.

    Complaints against the institute, where autopsies of dead bodies are performed, at the time of Hiss’ dismissal came from relatives of Israeli soldiers and civilians as well as Palestinians. The bodies belonged to people who died from various causes, including diseases, accidents and Israeli-Palestinian violence, but there has been no evidence to back up the claim in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet that Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians for their organs. Angry Israeli officials called the report “anti-Semitic.”

    The academic, Nancy Sheppard-Hughes, a professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, said she decided to make the interview public in the wake of the Aftonbladet controversy, which raised diplomatic tensions between Israel and Sweden and prompted Sweden’s foreign minister to call off a visit to the Jewish state.

    Sheppard-Hughes said that while Palestinians were “by a long shot” not the only ones affected by the practice in the 1990s, she felt the interview must be made public now because “the symbolism, you know, of taking skin of the population considered to be the enemy, (is) something, just in terms of its symbolic weight, that has to be reconsidered.”

    While insisting that all organ harvesting was done with permission, Israel’s Health Ministry told Channel 2, “The guidelines at that time were not clear.” It added, “For the last 10 years, Abu Kabir has been working according to ethics and Jewish law.”


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    20 Comments
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    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    My great-aunt died in Haifa and when my aunt went to id the body, the eyes were hollow and stitched closed. It was horrific.

    In the 90's??
    In the 90's??
    14 years ago

    And what is doing since? There is a real Israeli style conspiracy going with him, as he is never actually caught even tho there is tons of evidence about him.

    Matt
    Matt
    14 years ago

    I can’t believe how stupid the govt. of Israel is to not keep this info suppressed

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    And you want to know why the Chareidim protested agains him for always ordering autopsies . This is why he did it . He admits to only a small amount of the dirty things he really did . And the Zionim knew about it and allowed it to happen

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    This is just further proof that Israel is capable to do what the mother, that is accused of starving her son, claims. Let me see all you Israeli goverment protectors rush to their defence. Why the silence?

    oy, Gevald!
    oy, Gevald!
    14 years ago

    As the Navi Yeshaya said: “Meharsayich U’Machrivayich Mimeich Yetzayhu!” If this report is indeed true–and not just another attempt at Blood Libel–then, there are not enough words of contempt for such practices. It certainly points to the larger problem, that when science is divorced from humanity and ethics, then the true monster emerges from man’s heart.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    How can anyone who is a religious Jew stand for this? The medinah harvested Jews! They desecrated the bodies of Jews in Eretz Hakodesh! May HKBH forgive us, send messiach and peacefully end the state.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    Those involved in this unspeakable evil are not bnei Avraham,Yitzchak V’Yaakov, that’s an understood. When there is cruelty like that, our sages tell us that they are not the descendants of our patriarchs and matriarchs, B’H.

    Pure unadulterated evil! The world has descended to such a low & so many things coming out of the state of Israel (the Erev Rav). What a chilul. We must all do tshuva and pray hard for Moshiach Tzdkeinu. We
    need the Geulah Shleimah desperately.

    ish emes
    ish emes
    14 years ago

    Where is Charlie Hall and the other religious bashers usually in VIN.. Do u doubt that Barak, Peres and Rabin were not capable of lying to the Yemenite parents that their children died while they actually sold them to Europe and these children are now surfacing by the thousands. Do you truly believe that Barak is Not using this Hesder Yeshiva thing for his own political gain and manipulation. These actions with the autopsies are what the Satmar Rebbe ztza’l (zechuso yogein al klal yisroel)
    was upset at the Zionists and proves he was so right. And these animals are screaming against those who protest against Shabbos (which I do not agree with their violence!) . These are the animals who leave this same person in charge of pathology/ These are the same seculars who have taught such hatred afgainst religious Jews. Charlie say something vicious against religious Jew. Or mr M where are u?? This shames all Jews the worls thruout!

    Charlie Hall
    Charlie Hall
    14 years ago

    “Do u doubt that Barak, Peres and Rabin were not capable of lying to the Yemenite parents “

    Yes, I doubt it. Barak was nine years old at the time of Operation Magic Carpet. Peres was a purchasing agent in the Defense Ministry and Rabin was an IDF officer with no political role. Check your history before you spew any more motzi shem ra.

    me
    me
    14 years ago

    The Hiss case came to light when it became known that he had a “collection” of body parts. he later admitted that he had taken barious parts and organs for his “research” collection without family approval. In any other country he would still be sitting in jail. In the Zionist Bolshevik country, HE STILL HAS THE SAME JOB!!! but they changed his titled. Stealing body parts is a crime in almost every civilized country. The man wasn’t even dismissed from ZIONIST GOVERNMENT JOB. be sure to bash chareidim for protesting chillul shabbos and turn a blind eye to this zionist who stole body parts without family permission. (Do not make him out to be a modern day Robin Hood, because he stole corneas to help the blind. He likely was paid for that as well, but who do you justify his body parts collection or the fact he still in the same job after admitting he broke the law for years?

    A. Nuran
    A. Nuran
    14 years ago

    A few weeks ago, when the Swedish press broke this story, everyone here including me screamed “Blood libel!”

    Obviously, we were wrong.

    This is a shameful thing. The Israeli government should vigorously prosecute everyone involved in this chillul Hashem.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    This is a shameful thing. The Israeli government should vigorously prosecute everyone involved in this chillul Hashem.

    mmm and how will the evil government prosecute themselves? The Israeli Government is the problem.

    Sad but not shocked
    Sad but not shocked
    14 years ago

    This reminds me when my baby, who was born way too soon, died in an Israel hospital, we signed that we don’t allow his body to be used for medical research. Friends who worked in Zaka tipped up off to grab the baby’s body back and hand it directly to Chevre Kedisha because despite the signature, they absolutely would take the body for medical research since they figured what the family doesn’t know can’t hurt them.
    Time and again it seems you just can’t trust Israel’s medical system.

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    First of all, let me say this practice was a complete abomination, and the perpetrators should be severely punished.

    BUT, no one seems to notice that this episode is being used to tar the State of Israel and by extension, its citizens of this crime, in other words assigning collective guilt to a non-collective crime.

    Let’s say one of the “foremost forensic pathology labs” in the United States (or Sweden), even one run by the federal government, committed such an act. Would the headlines scream, “United States (or Sweden) guilty of harvesting organs in the 90s without permission?” Of course not. The headlines would read, “Lab in the United States (or Sweden) found to have been harvesting organs in the 90s without permission.”

    BUT, when this happens in Israel, it’s “Israel” doing the harvesting. Get it, you antisemites????????

    Anonymous
    Anonymous
    14 years ago

    thats disgusting. As a strong supporter of Israel, i find it painful to hear some of the barbaric things t commited. a zionist country with no fear of Hashem, is not a Jewish country at all.