To the editor:
In a recent letter complaining of local lectures on Israel-Palestine, published on your website last week, Barry M. Schreibman writes: “Weir claims that Israel engages in organ harvesting as a means of ‘revenge … for the Holocaust.’”
Mr. Schreibman’s very truncated quote comes from an in-depth article published by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
In this fully cited article, I quote from a lecture sponsored by New York’s PBS 13 by Dr. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Chancellor’s Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of California, the founder of Organ Watch, and the author of scholarly books on organ trafficking. She is the pundit mainstream media call upon when they need expert commentary on the topic.
Below are excerpts from my article:
“While Scheper-Hughes emphasizes that traffickers and procurers come from numerous nations and ethnicities, including Americans and Arabs, she is unflinchingly honest in speaking about the Israeli connection: ‘Israel is at the top,’ she states. ‘It has tentacles reaching out worldwide.’”
“Scheper-Hughes explained that Israeli organ traffickers, ‘had and still have a pyramid system at work that’s awesome … they have brokers everywhere, bank accounts everywhere; they’ve got recruiters, they’ve got translators, they’ve got travel agents who set up the visas.’”
“In her Forum 13 lecture Scheper-Hughes discussed the two motivations of Israeli traffickers. One was greed, she said. The other was somewhat chilling: ‘Revenge, restitution — reparation for the Holocaust.’”
“She described speaking with Israeli brokers who told her ‘it’s kind of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We’re going to get every single kidney and liver and heart that we can. The world owes it to us.’”
“Scheper-Hughes says that she ‘even heard doctors saying that.’”
While I didn’t even mention Israeli organ trafficking in my Cazenovia lecture, I’m grateful that Mr. Schreibman has given me the opportunity to inform readers on this topic.
Alison Weir, Executive Director
If Americans Knew
