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Jeffrey Goldberg, a correspondent for the Atlantic, cast a spotlight on yet another disgustingly overt example of pure bias in the mainstream media, particularly at the anti-Semitic Reuters newswire. He points to a Reuters news item which contains the following despicable sentences: Police said it was a “terrorist attack” — Israel’s term for a Palestinian [...]
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Israel Naval Blockade Is Legal, According to the U.N.
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Tom Gross, an renowned and influential journalist with years of expertise in Middle East reporting, reported on the recent UN commission that found Israel’s naval blockade to be legal, as reported in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. As he often does, Gross added some great commentary of his own to the story:
The Israeli paper Ha’aretz reports that “The final findings of the UN commission that investigated the events concerning the Turkish-led flotilla in May 2010 do not call for Israel to apologize, and conclude that the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza is legal and is in accordance with international law and a country’s right of self-defense.”
The UN committee investigating the events of last May’s Gaza flotilla is headed by the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Geoffrey Palmer, who is an expert on international maritime law.
The UN report also sharply criticized the Turkish government’s behavior in its dealings with the committee. Palmer added in the report that Israel’s independent commission led by Judge Turkel had investigated the events in a “professional, independent and unbiased” way.
By contrast, Palmer concluded that “the Turkish investigation was politically influenced and its work was not professional or independent.”
The Palmer Committee also criticizes the IHH group that organized the Gaza flotilla as well as its ties to the Turkish government, suggesting Turkey did not do enough to stop the flotilla last year. (By contrast, the Turkish authorities cooperated with Israel this year to ensure the flotilla didn’t sail from Turkey – Tom Gross.)
According to the final draft of the UN probe, Israel has not been asked to apologize to Turkey, but the report does recommend it expresses regret over the casualties.
Palmer said that although international law permits the interception of ships outside territorial waters, Israel should have taken control of the flotilla when the ships were closer to the limit of the naval blockade – 20 miles off the coast. Israel responded by saying that its interception of the flotilla further from the coast was due to military and tactical considerations, following the organizers’ refusal to stop.
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Tom Gross adds: the above information was widely reported last week in the Israeli media, but why do all those influential international media, which criticize Israel day after day, not report properly that the UN committee has ruled Israel was right in its assertions after all?
Unlike journalists at other media, Reuters did run a piece last year, which I attach at the end of this dispatch, explaining how Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is indeed legal under international law.
And why is the UN always spending huge amounts of money investigating supposed Israeli wrongdoings while not investigating countless wrongdoings by other governments which occur daily and most of which are barely reported by the media?