The Israeli Government Walks into a Press Freedom Wasp Nest...

...And gets stung, badly.

The Swedish government is stubbornly sticking to its press freedom guns and refusing to intervene in a controversial article published by Aftonbladet, the country's yellowest tabloid, alleging that Israeli troops harvested organs among Palestinian in the early 1990's.

The article, which has been widely debunked as baseless and sourceless, has nonetheless triggered the ire of the Israeli government, who is demanding its Swedish counterpart to take legal action against the tabloid.

EPA photo

But Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (above) has countered by saying his country's strong press freedom laws, some of the oldest in the world, prohibit him from intervening in the publication of any article or opinion.

Others see the Israeli reaction as a smoke screen to divert attention from other, more pressing problems.

The Christian Science Monitor:

In Sweden, many see the explosive Israeli response as a ploy to distract from European Union (EU) and US pressure on the country to curb settlement expansion in the occupied territories.

On Monday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Europe for what is expected to be a tough round of bilateral talks with European leaders, Mr. Reinfeldt called for a ”toning down” of the debate surrounding an article by Aftonbladet, Sweden’s largest circulation tabloid newspaper.

Last week, the newspaper created an uproar among many in Israel, most notably the country’s foreign minister Avigor Lieberman. (...) They demanded the Swedish government denounce the story, which hinged entirely on unnamed sources.

The Monitor indicates most observers in Sweden see the Israeli indignation as a plot to undermine Sweden's leading role in the EU's attempt to pressure the Jewish state into stopping the building of settlements on Palestinian territory.

The diplomatic rift, however, places the Israeli government squarely against some of the press freedom movement's most fundamental postulates. Arbitrary government interference in the workings of a free and independent press constitutes the very essence of undemocratic regimes.

The calls for intervention also bring us back disturbing memories of Islamic countries demanding the Danish government to shut down the Jyllands-Posten newspaper after it published the Mohammed cartoons. The Danish, fortunately, also held steady under intense pressure.

But what we find most striking about Mr. Lieberman's demands is that such intervention would be deemed unacceptable in his own very country. 

As world-renown press freedom expert Floyd Abrams has said many times, against bad speech, there should be more speech.

Amen.