Danon asks UN to condemn organ-harvesting ‘blood libel’
Chief Palestinian delegate at the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, described what he said was the alleged harvesting of body parts of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces.
By DANIELLE ZIRIUpdated: NOVEMBER 6, 2015 04:37Danny Danon addressing the UN Security Council, October 22, 2015(photo credit: UN PHOTO/KIM HAUGHTON)
NEW YORK –Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon called on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the recent Palestinian accusations that Israel harvested the organs of Palestinians killed in October.Palestinian representative at the UN Riyad Mansour wrote a letter to British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, the president of the Security Council for November, earlier this week, seeking to “draw attention to the grave situation in Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem.”In the letter, Mansur wrote that “after returning the seized bodies of Palestinians killed by the occupying forces through October, and following medical examinations, it has been reported that the bodies were returned with missing corneas and other organs, further confirming past reports of organ harvesting by the occupying power from the Palestinian victims of its brutality.”The document also mentions “Israel’s lethal and illegal policies and measures against the defenseless Palestinian civilian population, with no one considered too young or too old to be spared.“The situation remains precarious due to Israel’s insistence on use of violent force and oppression measures,” Mansur wrote.He appended a list of recent “crimes perpetrated daily by the Israeli occupying forces and terrorist settlers,” including the organ-harvesting accusations, toward the bottom of the page.In addition, Mansur stressed that the Palestinian mission to the UN wished to “reiterate [its] call for immediate international action,” and that “if this aggression and stoking of tensions continues, the situation will surely deteriorate further, despair will deepen and any ounce of hope left for a political horizon will disappear.”Danon called Mansur’s accusations of organ-harvesting “sinister” and urged Ban to repudiate them and “condemn the ongoing incitement by Palestinian leaders.”“This blood libel by the Palestinian representative exposes his anti-Semitic motives and his true colors,” Danon said. “Anti-Semitism has no place in the halls of the United Nations and must be denounced.”Danon has asked the United Nations to denounce Palestinian incitement on many occasions since he took up his post.
On October 22, at his first Security Council meeting, Danon said Palestinian children have been “receiving lessons in hatred from their leaders, in their schools and on children’s television programs.The secretary-general and the Security Council have not commented on the accusations.