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Israel and Palestine- The permanent mess


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The West has officially done more to prevent shipping delays than stopping a potential genocide by bombing one of the poorest countries in the world. The Houthis aren't good, they're Islamist fundamentalists and have been engadged in a bloody civil war since the Arab Spring, but besides South Africa taking Israel before the ICJ they are basically the only group who is actively taking actions that are ostensibly an attempt to put pressure on Israel's allies to stop their continued massacre of Gaza.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/12/opinion/israel-icj-genocide-south-africa.html

Quote

Israel has killed over 23,000 people in Gaza, according to the Gazan health ministry. More than 9,000 of the dead are children. More than 1,000 children had undergone agonizing amputations, sometimes with no anesthesia available, by late November, UNICEF says. Women giving birth have also been forced to undergo cesarean sections without anesthesia, according to doctors in Gaza. Entire neighborhoods are crushed, and more than 85 percent of the population has been displaced.

...

As the arguments at The Hague drew near, Israeli officials tried to soften their image.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military tweeted out a video insisting (in English) that “our war is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza.” Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Mr. Netanyahu warned his ministers to be cautious what they say about the war. “Choose your words carefully,” Mr. Netanyahu reportedly said, despite his own violent rhetoric.

Barbaric.

Edited by fionwe1987
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8 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

shipping delays

I see this meme going around a lot from people who should know better.

It’s not ‘shipping delays’. The Houthis aren’t slow-walking customs inspections here. It’s piracy. It’s attempting to murder innocent civilian sailors, most of whom are from third world countries who have never done anything to the Houthis, because they work on ships the Houthis have decided are fair targets. The only reason none of them have died yet is because the missiles and drones were intercepted. 

What Israel is doing is appalling but it is not remotely a justification for what the Houthis are doing, nor for minimising what the Houthis are doing. 

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

I see this meme going around a lot from people who should know better.

It’s not ‘shipping delays’. The Houthis aren’t slow-walking customs inspections here. It’s piracy. It’s attempting to murder innocent civilian sailors, most of whom are from third world countries who have never done anything to the Houthis, because they work on ships the Houthis have decided are fair targets. The only reason none of them have died yet is because the missiles and drones were intercepted. 

What Israel is doing is appalling but it is not remotely a justification for what the Houthis are doing, nor for minimising what the Houthis are doing. 

Come on, lets be honest, the US doesn't give a shit about those sailors, they care about the economic pressure that it puts on the shipping industry. Obviously the Houthis aren't some sort of altruistic group of do-gooders, and I'm being somewhat facetious about them and their motives, but lets not pretend like America's actions aren't about anything other than the bottom line. There are other routes that shipping companies can take, sure it is more expensive and more time consuming but they don't have to go through the Suez Canal, this about commerce flowing uninterrupted. But hey, at least that way those ships can thank South Africa personally for doing what none of the great and powerful countries were willing to do as they sail on by.

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6 minutes ago, Craving Peaches said:

I think the Houthis attacked because Iran told them to, not because of the situation in Gaza.

Of course. These factions don't really care about each other. Iran is just the sugar daddy. 

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On 1/11/2024 at 4:51 PM, Werthead said:

Houthi military in several years of combat. Indeed, the Houthis appeared able to weather the onslaught, maintain supply lines to Iran and ended the war with more military equipment and capability than they started.

That’s kinda interesting.  Were they able to do this simply because of how large the Arabian peninsula is and therefore commensurately difficult to properly patrol?  Or are the Iranians supplying the Houthi by sea?

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On 1/12/2024 at 7:41 AM, straits said:

Hypocrisy might be a phenomenon best reserved for discussion outside of this thread, because it has the potential to derail the conversation. Those who were eager to point out Russia's atrocities since early 2022 are conspicuously silent on how much murder and destruction Israel committed in only a few months.

Likud and Hamas both suck.  I think Likud likes having Hamas as a boogeyman so that it can paint Israelis who believe in peace as naive and weak.  I think Hamas likes Likud because it keeps Palestinians desperate and angry.

Hamas and Likud each feed off the violence the other offers to increase their own political power.

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4 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

Come on, lets be honest, the US doesn't give a shit about those sailors, they care about the economic pressure that it puts on the shipping industry. Obviously the Houthis aren't some sort of altruistic group of do-gooders, and I'm being somewhat facetious about them and their motives, but lets not pretend like America's actions aren't about anything other than the bottom line. There are other routes that shipping companies can take, sure it is more expensive and more time consuming but they don't have to go through the Suez Canal, this about commerce flowing uninterrupted. But hey, at least that way those ships can thank South Africa personally for doing what none of the great and powerful countries were willing to do as they sail on by.

And the mixed motives for US UK attacks on Houthi military targets that are being used to target merchant shipping and civilian sailors makes taking out Houthi military targets wrong… why?

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20 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

is it? i was under the impression that they are not stealing or kidnapping for ransom or things like that

I think any act of criminal violence against ships (and even coastal towns/cities where attackers come from the sea) are considered piracy, even if not necessarily engaging in robbery/hijacking. 

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3 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I think any act of criminal violence against ships (and even coastal towns/cities where attackers come from the sea) are considered piracy, even if not necessarily engaging in robbery/hijacking. 

hmm even if the act of violence is "political"? if it is that any act of violence (against ships) independent of reason or anything can be labeled piracy then i think the term is not very usefull

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27 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

hmm even if the act of violence is "political"? if it is that any act of violence (against ships) independent of reason or anything can be labeled piracy then i think the term is not very usefull

Was Hamas killing two hundred civilians at a music festival and kidnapping Israeli civilians justified because the motive behind the murder and kidnapping was political?

Edited by Ser Scot A Ellison
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25 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Was Hamas killing two hundred civilians at a music festival and kidnapping Israeli civilians justified because the motive behind the murder and kidnapping was political?

No, it wasn’t. It was horrific and disgusting.
And Israel’s response where upwards of 23K people have been killed, with ~ 10K being children isn’t justified either. It also isn’t self-defence but looks a lot more like vengeance. 
 

For instance, Oxfam says ~ 250 Palestinians are being killed daily. And they posted this for comparison:

Using publicly available data, Oxfam calculated that number of average deaths per day for Gaza is significantly higher than any recent major armed conflict including Syria (96.5 deaths per day), Sudan (51.6), Iraq (50.8), Ukraine (43.9) Afghanistan (23.8) and Yemen (15.8).

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2 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

is it? i was under the impression that they are not stealing or kidnapping for ransom or things like that

Your impression is wrong, then. The Houthis have boarded ships and taken them and their crews back to their bases. That’s kidnapping and theft. Piracy and terrorism. 

That they’re using a political cause, a valid and important one that I sympathise with, as the excuse, does not justify what they’re doing. In fact it makes it worse. 

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