Robert Stevens

The United Nations report on the assault on the Mavi Marmara humanitarian ship is a whitewash of the May 2010 massacre by Israeli military forces, which provides a continued justification for the blockade of Gaza.

The vessel was part of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla and was in international waters when Israeli commandos raided it and brutally murdered eight defenceless Turkish citizens and a Turkish American. Many other civilians on board were seriously injured in the attack.

Turkey has responded to the publication of the UN report by expelling Israel’s ambassador from Ankara and severing military ties with Tel Aviv. Turkish officials have said they will resume full relations if Israel issues an apology for the killings.

The “Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident” follows an inquiry headed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former New Zealand prime minister. Also on the panel were former Columbian president, Álvaro Uribe, Joseph Ciechanover Itzhar, a representative of Israel, and Süleyman Özdem Sanberk, a representative of Turkey.

The New York Times, a noted pro-Israeli publication, leaked the report just prior to its publication by the UN. As was expected, the 105-page UN report was a whitewash, which gives Israel a clean bill of health, with only the mealy-mouthed complaint that the Israel Defence Force used, “excessive force”.

Most importantly, the report not only endorses the rampage aboard the Mavi Marmara but also provides the UN’s imprimatur for any further actions by the Israeli state.

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Stephen Lendman

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos willfully and maliciously interdicted Freedom Flotilla vessels in international waters, bringing humanitarian aid to besieged Gazans.

In the process, they slaughtered nine Turkish nationals aboard the mother Mavi Marmara, wounding dozens more, and arresting everyone on board.

A same day article described what happened as known at the time, accessed through this link.

It was a well planned premeditated attack against unarmed, nonviolent humanitarian activists, trying to break Israel's illegal blockade to deliver essential aid. Cold-blooded murder resulted.

Note:

Under international and US law, blockades are acts of war, variously defined as:

● surrounding a nation or objective with hostile forces;
● measures to isolate an enemy;
● encirclement and besieging;
● preventing the passage in or out of supplies, military forces, or aid in time of or as an act of war; and
● an act of naval warfare to block access to an enemy's coastline and deny entry to all vessels and aircraft.

Law Professor Francis Boyle calls blockades:

"belligerent measures taken by a nation (to) prevent passage of vessels or aircraft to and from another country. Customary international law recognizes blockades as an act of war because of the belligerent use of force even against third party nations in enforcing the blockade. Blockades as acts of war have been recognized as such in the Declaration of Paris of 1856 and the Declaration of London of 1909 that delineate the international rules of warfare."

America approved these Declarations, so they're binding US law as well "as part of general international law and customary international law." Past US presidents, including Dwight Eisenhower and Jack Kennedy, called blockades acts of war. So has the US Supreme Court.

Occupied Palestine poses no threat to Israel. In the past, Israel admitted it. As a result, imposing a blockade violates the UN Charter and other international and US laws. It's also an illegal act of aggression that under the Nuremberg Charter constitutes the "supreme international crime against peace."

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Ellen Brown

North Dakota has had the nation's lowest unemployment ever since the economy tanked. What's its secret?

In an article in The New York Times on August 19th titled “The North Dakota Miracle,” Catherine Rampell writes:

Forget the Texas Miracle. Let’s instead take a look at North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate and the fastest job growth rate in the country.

According to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, North Dakota had an unemployment rate of just 3.3 percent in July—that’s just over a third of the national rate (9.1 percent), and about a quarter of the rate of the state with the highest joblessness (Nevada, at 12.9 percent).

North Dakota has had the lowest unemployment in the country (or was tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the country) every single month since July 2008.

Its healthy job market is also reflected in its payroll growth numbers. . . . [Y]ear over year, its payrolls grew by 5.2 percent. Texas came in second, with an increase of 2.6 percent.

Why is North Dakota doing so well? For one of the same reasons that Texas has been doing well: oil.

Oil is certainly a factor, but it is not what has put North Dakota over the top. Alaska has roughly the same population as North Dakota and produces nearly twice as much oil, yet unemployment in Alaska is running at 7.7 percent. Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming have all benefited from a boom in energy prices, with Montana and Wyoming extracting much more gas than North Dakota has. The Bakken oil field stretches across Montana as well as North Dakota, with the greatest Bakken oil production coming from Elm Coulee Oil Field in Montana. Yet Montana’s unemployment rate, like Alaska’s, is 7.7% percent.

A number of other mineral-rich states were initially not affected by the economic downturn, but they lost revenues with the later decline in oil prices. North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008. Its balance sheet is so strong that it recently reduced individual income taxes and property taxes by a combined $400 million, and is debating further cuts. It also has the lowest foreclosure rate and lowest credit card default rate in the country, and it has had NO bank failures in at least the last decade.

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