Blood libel poster
Blood libel posterIsrael news photo

A Canadian Muslim newspaper accused Jews of harvesting children’s organs and then issued a qualified apology for “causing hurt” without stating that the charges are a lie.

Canadian Muslims last week adopted the spreading practice of renewing the ancient blood libel against Jews when the community's Al Ameen Post published an article accusing Jews of kidnapping “some 25,000 Ukrainian children into the occupied entity over the past two years in order to harvest their organs.”

The source material for the article was Iran’s Press TV network.

B'nai Brith Canada called the AlAmeen posting a "hideous blood libel against the Jewish community and has no place in Canada or anywhere else."

Mohammed Bhamji, the managing editor of Al Ameen, said he did not think the story was racist or inflammatory "because it was reported in the media. [But] I don't have the facts. When we got that story on the Internet we assumed it was true. We are not professional journalists. We are just a community-based newspaper about anything that has to do with Islam.”

Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith, replied that Press TV is "the official mouthpiece of the terrorist-sponsoring Iranian regime."

The Al Ameen website offered a qualified apology on its website. It explained, “The leading Canadian Jewish organization, is not pleased with the content of the article, and have [sic] asked for an apology.

The editorial board of Al Ameen Post, without prejudice, extends its honest and sincere apology to our fellow Jewish Canadians for any hurt,” but the site then added, “Defending our news article at this juncture would mean causing further divide in our harmonious multicultural fabric, which goes against our own values, but it is needless to say that the issue of ‘Organ Harvesting in Israel’ was being discussed at the time of our last publication, by major media outlets, and not just Al Ameen.” 

It did not state that the charges were lies.

The British Columbia Muslim Association (BCMA) issued a statement denying any official association with Al Ameen but B’nai Brith noted, “We are still very concerned about the fact that an established Islamic organization such as the BCMA. has not apologized to the Jewish community for the distribution of the anti-Semitic blood libel published in Al Ameen, which was disseminated in mosques operated by the BCMA.

The Canadian National Post, where the report of the blood libel first appeared, has called Al Ameen the “house journal of the BCMA."

The phenomena of blood libel, a common practice against Jews in Medieval times and by many Christians since then, has spread rapidly since last year’s Swedish newspaper report that Israeli soldiers harvested organs of terrorists. Hamas has constantly used blood libels in propagandizing to Palestinian Authority Arabs, and the Muslim world has increasingly used the tactic in the past decade.

Turkish television broadcast a soap opera this week that portrays Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) agents kidnapping children, prompting a diplomatic crisis between Jerusalem and Ankara.