Attacks on merchant ships can't be tolerated, period. That's a fact regardless of whether one thinks about Israel or the US role there. My take on this is pretty crass: I hope a coalition of whoever is interested and affected can help level as much as is necessary in Yemen and that mission is accomplished when shipping insurance rates return to what they were before. A ceasefire in Palestine is a good idea no doubt, but from my safe armchair it looks a lot more attractive to spend billions of dollars and risk a lot of collateral damage in land attacks in Yemen than give the impression that a ceasefire happened through blackmail.
"The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation by Israel against six civilian ships of the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" on 31 May 2010 in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. Nine activists were killed during the raid and dozens wounded, including one who later died of his wounds, while ten Israeli soldiers were wounded, one seriously. Three of the six flotilla ships, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH), were carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, intending to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip."
> can help level as much as is necessary in Yemen and that mission is accomplished when shipping insurance rates return to what they were before.
Ah yes, because stupid ship insurance rates are more important than human lives in Yemen, nothing new to be honest, we know how the "human rights" world values human lives in Iraq with Abu gharib and the proxy war in Syria to the active genocide in Palestine.
As long as its not Europeans or Americans getting attacked it's "complex" and "blackmail".
I was deliberatly being a bit pointy in the wording, but yes that's what I'm saying.
Note: this isn't about oil in Iraq or exterminating terrorism in Afghanistan. The civilian lives on those ships are exactly as civilian as civilians in Yemen. This isn't about some US war in a foreign country. This is about either not stopping attacks on civilian merchant ships, or stopping attacks on merchant ships.
Let's assume for a moment that Houthis are in good faith only attacking ships that are going to Israel. How good is their intelligence? How likely is it that they may hit some innocent civilian as collateral damage? Would that even matter or since "the West" has hit civilians as collateral damage in the past (and being criticized for that) Houthis can do it too (without being criticized)?
Even ships going to or from Israel aren't acceptable targets in any way shape or form (Also I don't think only ships going to/from Israel have been targeted, but that's beside the point)
I don't think many people give a crap if I'm honest, at least in Europe. I'll be honest and say I don't. The whole Middle East has done a lot of repetitional damage to itself over the last 20 years by bringing its politics to us in Europe in the form of killing citizens. When it starts using those tactics in home territories against allies we're insensitive to their position.
As much as this sucks, Yemen is another Middle East shit show. And it's not a shit show we should expend anything further on other than protecting our shipping lanes.
I wish it could have been better but the damage is done. I'd rather everyone just stopped being nut jobs and blowing each other up respectively. And I don't think we should get involved in Middle Eastern politics, just distance ourselves from it.
If you meant the Israeli occupation, you're wrong. Israel isn't "The West" and isn't able "to leave" in the same way that e.g. the US could leave Afghanistan. This is true both in terms of Israelis having mostly nowhere else to go, and also in that the majority of Israelis aren't Westerners in the first place.
Of those, a little over 2.0MM are Israeli Arabs. Arabs are the largest ethnic minority in Israel.
Among Israeli Jewish people, over half are Mizrahi. They're the former Jewish residents of Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and other MENA countries.
It is not possible that the majority of Israelis are westerners; you can't possibly make those numbers work. It would be like trying to claim the majority of Americans are Irish.
Not sure why you're putting the word country in quotes - it is a country.
As for dual citizenship, it might be large, but it's still estimated at only 10% if the population. And that includes lots of people with citizenship in countries that they have no connection to at all.
Wait what? I'm staunchly pro-union. In fact I'm strongly supporting my local union against Tesla in Sweden thanks for asking.
But of course their blockade of Tesla is legal. Even the sympathy actions like garbage collectors refusing to fetch trash at Tesla service locations is of course, legal.
I'm not aware of anybody who got killed when Yemeni boarded the ships. No hostages were taken and no ransom was asked. In fact it seems the only casualties are Yemeni who got killed by a US Navy ship who had no reason to be there in first place.
They're shooting missiles at civilian ships. They are thankfully large targets with few humans, but that's not safe behavior. Someone's eventually going to get hurt/killed if it continues.
The US Navy ship has every right to be there under international law, and its reason for being there is to repel attacks on civilian shipping that also has every right to be there.
> The US Navy ship has every right to be there under international law, and its reason for being there is to repel attacks on civilian shipping that also has every right to be there.
Every right to go to another countries waters and kill it's solders who are imposing a blockade ordered by their government? - A blockade that has killed 0 people I would add.
I mean the US can't possibly give in to these terrorists demands right - to stop bombardment of civilians and let in humanitarian aid....
For clarification, do you believe preventing aid from entering gaza under the threat of violence is self defense, but preventing ships from going through the red sea trade route is terrorism? - I mean these ships are informed that they are breaking a blockade and chose to continue anyway, and still no civilians have been hurt.
> Every right to go to another countries waters...?
Yes.
First, the Houthis aren't the recognized government of Yemen by any country except Iran; they don't (legally) control Yemen's territorial waters.
Second, even if they did, the vessels are permitted under international law (including treaties Yemen is subject to) to transit the strait. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_passage
> A blockade that has killed 0 people I would add.
If you run around shooting a gun at people and only hit their cars in the process, expect to still be shot by police if you don't stop.
> For clarification, do you believe preventing aid from entering gaza under the threat of violence is self defense...
No, I similarly believe Israel is violating international law in various ways. I'm opposed to their blockade of Gaza.
> risk a lot of collateral damage in land attacks in Yemen than give the impression that a ceasefire happened through blackmail.
This is just a very, very bad take, you're basically saying "it's better for Yemeni kids and women to get killed [my reading of collateral damage] than for the West to lose face [my reading of the blackmail thing]". Hasn't the West learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, like, literally, anything?
> you're basically saying "it's better for Yemeni kids and women to get killed [my reading of collateral damage] than for the West to lose face
That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that these things (israel, vs merchant shipping) basically cannot be allowed to be linked, because they aren't. It's simply blackmail. If the merchant shipping is seen as isolated, then it's clear it can't be tolerated. We can't tolerate the attacks, and we can't tolerate disruptions such as caused by massive detours.
> Hasn't the West learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, like, literally, anything?
Iraq and Afghanistan were invasions with the attempted (and nearly impossible) goal of regime change. That's not at all what I'm suggesting should happen. This is about removing the ability to engage in piracy/attacks on merchant ships.
> it's better for Yemeni kids and women to get killed [my reading of collateral damage] than for the West to lose face
No, it's even more crass than that! we are discussing accepting the loss of civilian life just to maintain shipping insurance prices! And what I'm saying is "yes that's terrible, but less bad than the alternative".
The merchant ships are also civilian! The current attacks are deliberate attacks on civilians. We are talking about attacks on military (or paramilitary) targets, in order to stop attacks on civilians! Yet you are arguing that those would be the attacks that put civilian lives at risk?
> The merchant ships are also civilian! The current attacks are deliberate attacks on civilians.
I must have missed the part where those civilians couldn't take the Cape route. Also, saying that the West does this in the interest of a couple of dozens under-paid Filipino or Eastern European sailors and not because it's freaking out about a few percentage points added to the transport costs of the Chinese dildos and EVs being brought in by ship from China is beyond parody.
> I must have missed the part where those civilians couldn't take the Cape route.
They can. But are you saying it's acceptable that they should have to in order to not be attacked? What else is acceptable? Would it make a difference if they were also attacked by the same attackers on that route so there were zero routes available? Why would that make a difference? This whole line of reasoning makes no sense to me...
> Also, saying that the West does this in the interest of a couple of dozens under-paid Filipino or Eastern European sailors and not because it's freaking out about a few percentage points added to the transport costs of the Chinese dildos and EVs being brought in by ship from China is beyond parody.
It's not. It's because in particular it's important for world shipping that merchant ships can travel freely where needed. In general though it's of course unacceptable to have piracy or attacks on civilian vessels.
My comment about those sailors being civilian was merely made to point out that right now we already HAVE regular and deliberate attacks on civilians in this situations. And that the action called for is deliberate attacks on military targets where any civilian targets would merely be collateral damage.
Israel annihilating Hamas looks like a winning strategy to decisively eliminate foreign interference from the likes of Iran.
> This is just a very, very bad take (...)
I don't agree. As Iran's control over the likes of Hamas proves, terrorist nations are actively killing the same innocent civilians they are using as human shields with the expectation that the humanitarian crisis inflicted upon their pawns hinders or even prevents any retaliation. The only effective strategy to prevent civilians from being thrown in arms way is to eliminate any perverse incentive leveraged by the likes of Iran to harm innocent civilians as a proxy war strategy.
This is a pipe dream. For every killed Hamas member there are two sons or brothers who are ready to pick up arms. This looks like a fools errand if you ask me. Isreael appear to think that if they just get rid of the last training camp, the last tunnel or the last rocket ramp, then all will be quiet. I honestly don't think they really believe that. I think the campaign is a populism fueled killing spree for a domestic audience. The collateral and civilian damage isn't a side effect but a feature. And they know Hamas isn't weakened long term by it but the opposite. But they do it anyway because of domestic politics.
This is almost certainly not true, at least to the extent you portray it. Sure, domestic Israeli politics plays into everything (as politics always does in a democracy).
But you have to realize a few things - this is wrecking the Israeli economy, Israel is losing soldiers in this current war daily, and everyone in Israel personally knows someone on the front lines of the fighting. This isn't some vague "other people are fighting a war and might get killed", this is people you know personally fighting that war.
No one sane would support a "killing spree" with no end in sight, if not for morality's sake, just for the fact that it's hurting Israel a lot. In fact, it would be far "easier" on Israel, in that sense, to just bomb a lot more, kill far more civilians, but end this war much sooner. Of course it would be a moral travesty, but if Israel was going by pure populist anger, that'd probably be the course it would take.
There are some people in Israel advocating for exactly this - increase the amount of bombing in order to lower the risk to Israeli soldiers.
ISIS is mostly gone and a non-threat. Al-Qaeda as well. Nazism is a thing of the past.
Sure you have neo-nazis in different places like Russia, US, Gaza (looks like "Mein Kampf" is the most popular book there after Koran) but that's just deranged individuals, not infrastructure.
So yes, Hamas will be there for decades but mostly as an ideology of a sick people, Israel physically eliminated any future threat from this place for a long, long time.
> With the beginning of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Russian neo-Nazis have achieved international attention for their militant support of Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine. Certain groups, such as the Russian Imperial Movement, have been accused of training white supremacists and neo-Nazis from other countries in Europe. The links between these groups and the Russian government, comprising a policy known as managed nationalism, have become particularly noteworthy since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to be pursuing the "denazification" of Ukraine.
The linked article on "managed nationalism" has more:
> Managed nationalism or controlled nationalism is a term used by some academics to refer to an informal policy of pragmatic collaboration with Russian nationalist and neo-Nazis (or in broader cases, the Russian far-right as a whole) pursued by the government of Russia under Vladimir Putin. ...
> The Russian response to Euromaidan marked a significant revitalisation of managed nationalism. Neo-Nazis, monarchists, Stalinists, and Christian nationalists, as well as Cossack groups, formed the anti-Maidan coalition, and later became militants supporting the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics as part of the Russian people's militias in Ukraine, bringing together members of the Russian neo-Nazi community and others from throughout Europe. ...
Israel is also bombing refugee camps in the West Bank right now, destroyed water infrastructure last night. Hamas isn't in the West Bank. A few Politicians are criticizing Israeli politicians openly talking of complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza, but tacitly condone the actions.
Terrorists aren't just a fixed group of people, and studies and common sense is that widespread and arbritrary attacks on innocent people increase resentment. It's like an employment program for war mongers and war profiteers. The civilian populations of Israel and the US also don't benefit from this, in addition to the innocents in Palestine Israel as occupying force is obliged to protect under international law.
> The only effective strategy to prevent civilians from being thrown in arms way
... is to not do it actively. Obviously. Otherwise, preventing the harm to innocents can be ruled out as a motivation and justification.
Iran's strategy has been to use their proxy groups to force innocent civilians to be their human shields. Hamas has been thoroughly documented as using basic infrastructure such as hospitals as their command bases, prevent innocent civilians from fleeing war zones under the penalty of death, steal humanitarian aid to cause humanitarian crisis, and even infiltrating supposedly humanitarian organizations to abuse them to further their military and political goals.
Let's face the facts: the likes of Iran actively places civilians in arms way expecting it to be a win-win scenario, as in either it prevents any retaliation or leads people like you to misguide your indignation hoping to weaponize it.
There is a wealth of information on how Iran, through Hamas, is murdering palestinian civilians by playing them as expendable pawns. If you care about the problem then you'd be directing your indignation towards the root of the problem, and do your best to not create an upside to using civilians as sacrificial pawns.
You just repeat the trope about "human shields" in response to attacks in the West Bank, on refugee camps and more, on basic water infrastructure. It has been refuted.
> leads people like you
Can you refrain from personal attacks, as totally lacking of substance as they may be?
> This is what Israel has begun to do - we cut the supply of energy, water and diesel to the Strip … But it’s not enough. In order to make the siege effective, we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza … The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave. If Egypt and other countries prefer that these people will perish in Gaza, this is their choice.
-- Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council
Just ONE of the many many many dozens of such things is enough to refute these tropes about "human shields" and "$evil group and their likes". "(...)" describes the full depth of your counter-argument.
> If you care about the problem then you'd be directing your indignation towards the root of the problem
I am just as outspoken against those who glorify Hamas as I am here. You are, right now, just repeating what I essentially replied to, while ignoring the inconvenient facts I introduced, and making it about me, and "the others". That's all that happened here, what I wrote stands, your attempt to dismiss it stands.
Well it's more of when people in other developing countries find their daily fuel or food beyond what they can afford and spiral into poverty.
Geopolitics is a cruel game, and unfortunately sometimes we wil be deciding whose lives are worth more / more aligned with our interests. If one dosen't like that, then one can try to enact their own peace on the world, but I doubt the world wants that.
I think that it's not the job of US to escalate here. US is hurt by these attacks, but other countries are hurt much more - they should take the lead on "solving" this problem. For US, there's too much risk and too little benefit to engage more.
This is the price the US has to pay if it wants to remain the global hegemon. Keeping shipping routes open is table stakes in maintain their post-WW2 role. In an ideal world the US would want the harmed countries, such as Egypt, to do more but the reality is they can't due to domestic politics. Egypt needs to preserve face for regime survival. So the US will do the heavy lifting here but the price will be diplomatic leverage later on. The US doesn't actually lose out, that leverage counts for something. This is the status quo, really.
I believe it is real, the US has created a Western-aligned bloc in the Middle East, consisting of Egypt and some Gulf States, that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. This ensures oil supply to itself and its allies in the event of a war, and acts as a hedge against full Russia/China control of the region. One reason these states are playing ball with the US is because they expect things in return, for example the Saudis want access to nuclear energy technology.
You can see the same leverage at play in East Asia, where the US is forcing good relations between South Korea and Japan. The military bases there cost a lot of money, but serve a deterrence purpose against China which is necessary for the US' policy of containment, and confer a level of soft influence that wouldn't otherwise be possible. The pacification of Japan and forced alignment with the US, resulting in 80 years of Japan-US trade, was certainly in the US' own net interests, even though it originally cost a lot of money to do it.
Most things aren't zero sum (they are either very negative sum or very positive sum), and indirect benefits can be equally valuable to direct contributions.
I agree, it looks like hostile nations such as Iran are replaying their Hamas/Palestine strategy to goad another nation into a local conflict. As a non-american I'd prefer if the US sat this one out.
OP and GP says that the nations affected most should lead the coalition, not US.
I don't think US is the only country with an army. However, from my perspective, US loves to lead these charges for win-win outcomes. "We keep our image as peacekeepers, so a win for us. We get to test what we have, again a win for us. Also weapon manufacturers make some more monies, again another win for us".
Nobody says that they shall let these attacks continue.
> So you are happy for all international goods to get more expensive?
I'm OK with spending a bit more if that helps to end an apartheid regime somewhere, just like I spend a bit more buying organic produce to diminish my consumption of pesticides.
For the US taxpayer it may even be a net positive, given how much it's being spent per capita to kill random Palestinians, in absence of a ceasefire. A journalist calculated his share already at 150$: https://theintercept.com/2023/12/28/israel-us-taxes-gaza-war...
I believe this will be an unpopular opinion - but I agree with your article. Conflict and war exists - today as much as ever - and shying away from engaging in it early doesn't make the war go away, it just makes it come to you.
So, in the spirit of "if you want peace, prepare for war", I believe the best way to life in peace is to remain peaceful yourself, but CONSISTENTLY engage in EARLY and AGGRESSIVE action which you see through to its CONCLUSION. And yes, in order to be successful, you have to have all of these four elements.
Unfortunately, western democracies repeatedly have fallen short on at least some of these aspects which emboldens everyone from giant countries like Russia or China down to tiny groups like the Huthis.
The bad thing for the US is that one cannot win wars based on the Navy (or on Navy airplanes) alone, which I guess that's where Stavridis's take comes from. In order to win wars you need hundreds of thousands of people actually on the ground, holding the terrain, and even then the odds are not all in the attacker's favor (just look at the results of the infamous US surge in Iraq).
I get it though, with more than 30% of the US defence budget the Navy feels left out of the whole war thing recently (not that much the Navy can help with in the war against Russia), similar to how the Japanese admirals felt left out of China and Manchuria back in the late '30s, so they'll take any opportunity of a war that they think they'll win easily with the most open of arms.
This is simply not true. With the exception of the recent Ukrainian war, violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades.
There is much less war affecting many fewer people than ever before. This is no accident, and it is the result of hard work by people who don’t espouse these sorts misguided of “more aggression is better” beliefs. :(
> This is simply not true. With the exception of the recent Ukrainian war, violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades.
"Decades" is a really short time frame IMO, especially if you're comparing to thousands of years of human history. It could totally just be a lucky "blip".
> This is no accident, and it is the result of hard work by people who don’t espouse these sorts misguided of “more aggression is better” beliefs. :(
Or, it's the result of the latter half of the 20th century being mostly dominated by two incredibly powerful countries, poised for war at any time. It could exactly be the result of the massive increase in potential for aggression that nuclear weapons pose.
I think it's very far from obvious that the reason for the relative peace of the last 70 years is because of work by people advocating peace.
>With the exception of the recent Ukrainian war, violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades
You're clearly out of touch here.
The war in Ukraine was going on sice 2014, and you also missed the Armenian Azerbaijan war in Nagorno-Karabakh, then the Papua conflict, then the dozens of other conflict on the African continent. And don't forget the war on terror which cost thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, 4 US presidents and 20 years just to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
War has never stopped. You just stopped looking for it since it's not happening in your back yard, if the only one you can mention is the one in Ukraine.
In relative terms (violent deaths per capita due to war) it went down compared to any period before the end of WW2.
French revolution, Napoleonic wars, American Civil War, wars of independence in Latin America, etc. comprise some 100 years. In the last 80 years we had markedly less deadly wars across the whole world...
Nobody said that war stopped. The claim is that per capita conflict deaths have declined. This is a precise claim which can't be addressed by simply listing a handful of wars that have occurred.
Do you not think the hard work of people backed up by carrier strike groups is part of the equation? Ideally forced never has to be used, but sometimes it does.
> violent deaths on Earth have been massively trending downward for decades.
Right after they spiked to an all time high during WW1/WW2/Stalin/Mao reign.
I know what you mean and I don't want to dismiss it outright - a lot of the small conquests that dominated Europa for millennia have indeed vanished and the motivations for war in a knowledge economy are very different. But I think we've mostly switched lots of small wars between small countries for fewer big wars between bigger countries - with bigger intervals in between.
The trending downwards for decades statement requires to take measurement only in very specific timeframes and regions. If we take the last 100 years as a whole, they certainly have not.
> Right after they spiked to an all time high during WW1/WW2/Stalin/Mao reign.
But it wasn’t an all time high, if you look at proportions, as we should.
Pinker has talked a lot about this, and going far back in history [0] has estimates that 15% of people died from violent deaths compared to 0.15% during the peak of ww2 Germany.
> Pinker has talked a lot about this, and going far back in history [0] has estimates that 15% of people died from violent deaths compared to 0.15% during the peak of ww2 Germany.
7.5% of Germany's population died during WW2, that is just military deaths, excluding civilians dead from bombing raids by the Allies, hunger, disease, etc.
The 0.15% number is absolute nonsense, and anyone who is seriously using it, knows nothing about history (which is just about right for a fraud like Pinker)
As Immortal Technique said in a recent interview, the US can't really protect Israel, or anyone in the region. It can only attack and deliver weapons, but it has no (credible) diplomatic voice with which to pursue anything but more war. The US cannot tell anyone "hey guys, you need to stop" and even get a hearing. That's not just because "they" all hate the US 24/7, unchanged, regardless of what is done except killing everybody, that's in part a result of how the US tends to interact with the region and the conflict(s).
I don't think it matters what the US decides to do here. It's a lost cause either way. If the last failed war in Afghanistan (and Vietnam) taught us anything, it's that native bootstrapped insurgency is impossible to stop, as long as it's cheap and persistent enough and can keep the recruits coming. Yemen's Houthis are arguably gaining even more popular support than the Taliban ever had, across the entire Muslim world, Sunni and Shia united. The fact that the US's closest allies, even Saudi Arabia who had previously fought the Houthis for years, are refusing to cooperate publicly on this one, is a sign of the massive popular support that the Houthis enjoy. They'll have no trouble refilling their ranks.
Also doesn't help that they have an indirect line to Russian military manufacturing via Iran.
What land-based targets in Yemen could be attacked, that would degrade drone launches? These things[0] are very small, gas-powered, and can launch from basically anywhere. And their entire supply chain is in Iran, not Yemen.
Don't seriously expect much if anything to occur. The obvious downside is that after the initial bombing, they'd discover that running drones is cheap. Ultimately there'll be a defensive solution for awhile.
Does it make any sense to think Russia can be behind all those moviments to stretch thin American political will and take American impulse out of the Ucranian front?
It's an "axis of instability" with Russia and Iran. Whether they are actively collaborating or merely mutually benefiting not will likely vary from time to time, but they benefit each time there is division of attention and resources in the west.
I think Ukraine itself is a feint and soon there will be Russian paratroopers dropping all along the west coast. The only hope we have is for ragtag groups of teenagers to rise up and fight using guerilla warfare style tactics.
Not OP but I can somewhat understand the sentiment. Russia, China, and Iran are all actively developing a more aggressive and robust anti-West attitude.
You might be right. It was mostly before my time so I can't say for sure what the atmosphere was like back then. I wonder if China and Iran are potentially a bigger military presence now than they were in the 60s and 70s. Russia feels less so, as it's really struggling to complete its objectives in Ukraine, a country which is in some sense a proxy for the West. But I also feel like there's a growing potential for coordination between Russian, China, and Iran, and that's quite worrying.
In the UK immigration is definitely on the rise, but I can't see how it's relevant to what I'm talking about, nor can I see how it's as apocalyptic as you make out.
Is that a fair assessment though? I mean, the West has a great deal of failings and hypocrisy and books can be filled but it's also full of people who do value human rights and have effective political means to apply counter pressure.
Unfortunately it seems that humans just aren't equipped with the proper intuition for how to handle the behaviour of enormous masses of people grouped in societies. It seems that we apply the same moral intuitions used for individuals, judging "the West" or "Muslims" or "China" as if they were a single person with a single unified mind.
Each society hosts a variety of people with different individual attitudes and values, and each society produces and consumes a different mix of ideas some of which may be beneficial or problematic (both domestically and Internationally). Ideas like exploitative capitalism or jihadism or whatnot; powerful ideas that have real effects.
Yet people are people and have far more things in common between each other than what our instincts prime us to think.
Given that the Houthis have said they are holding up ships they consider linked to Israel, and that everyone in the UN bar the US and Israel are calling for a ceasefire, and that South Africa have detailed a case for genocide against Israel, wouldn't it be more useful to get a ceasefire, so then the Houthis can stop?
Generally this article is called doubling down, and the only people that get hurt in these scenarios are the inhabitants of these countries, who then become refugees knocking on other countries' doorsteps.
Given that the last time the Houthis hit a ship, it was a Danish-owned vessel flying the Singaporean flag en route from Singapore to Egypt, either the Houthis have terrible aim or they're not entirely honest about their motivations. Given how difficult it is to hit a ship out in the water in the first place, I think the second explanation is more likely.
But Iran also likes the Houthis being a credible threat to Saudi Arabia and the UAE even more.
Continuing to poke international commercial shipping will obviously trigger a response. No one powerful, even China, wants non-military ships being attacked.
So they're risking substantial damage to Houthi power for... what?
Tying up naval capacity? Eh. Temporarily. And with minimal effect on Israel/Palestine.*
Boosting the price of oil? Maybe. But doesn't seem to be doing much yet.
At Russia's behest? Maybe. General chaos elsewhere and tying up ISR assets benefits Russia.
* Would become much more relevant if Hezbollah enters the war.
You make some good points. But the Houthis have been being bombed by Saudi Arabia for years and haven't been crippled by it. Getting them to poke and prod some shipping could be and easy way to cause an outsized impact.
It could also be an internal thing for the Houthis that we (certainly I) don't know about. Being able to say "We're standing up to Israel and the US" could be big for their credibility in Yemen. That is pure speculation however.
(Trump was tougher against Iran but they feel they can survive it. What's important is that the Mullahs read all the press arguing that Trump is a danger to the American republic itself and take it into account. How often does one get a chance to seriously harm such a powerful country like the United States? For people whose call is 'death to America', this is a one time opportunity, which at worst won't work. These people are compulsive gamblers especially with assets they can afford to lose like the Houthis.)
> Given that the Houthis have said they are holding up ships they consider linked to Israel
They're stopping ships that they can, and it is in their interest to stop. Iranian ships seem to be passing through no bother, but ships flagged as Liberian, coming from Europe to Asia with a Filipino and Indian crew are stopped. You can consider any ship linked to Israel if you don't care how tenuous the link is.
> and that everyone in the UN bar the US and Israel are calling for a ceasefire.
Notably Hama's isn't calling for a ceasefire, and it takes two to tango, so even if Israel wanted a ceasefire there won't be one.
> wouldn't it be more useful to get a ceasefire, so then the Houthis can stop?
Since when did "Don't give in to terrorists" stop being a thing? Just throw ourselves on the good graces of a violent terrorist group.
Hamas has called for a ceasefire numerous times, and in fact there was a temporary ceasefire. To forestall the next question, as to who broke the truce, I've not seen evidence either way, only claims. Regardless, this does kinda invalidate your claim.
One person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. In this case, nearly the whole of the UN has voted for a ceasefire, so interests align, which should be a better solution yes?
> Notably Hama's isn't calling for a ceasefire, and it takes two to tango, so even if Israel wanted a ceasefire there won't be one.
It takes two to tango, but two people holding a staring contest hoping the other will propose a tango doesn't work all that well.
> Since when did "Don't give in to terrorists" stop being a thing?
It was never a thing. America's very first treaty was with pirates. Countries negotiate with terrorist groups regularly; they use the "we don't negotiate with terrorists" thing when they don't want to.
Hard to not feel like we are the baddies on this one.
The same coalition could push for a peaceful solution in Israel and Palestine, which would also eliminate Iranian influence in the region, but instead they let the far-right in Israel create a mess and we get pulled along for a big conflict with Iran.
But a peaceful solution seems like a pipe dream. It would need a profound change in Israeli politics to push for a two-state solution now, and the West has only limited leverage. It doesn't help that Netanyahu has a personal interest in the war, it's basically his Hail Mary to save his career.
In any case, the West should pull its support from Israel, though.
I agree about Netanyahu, sadly. But regarding a peaceful solution, one has to take into account the mentality and stated position of the two sides.
Whatever one thinks about land and settlements, it's worth noting that the Israelis are fighting against an opponent who targets their civilian population with the standard terror tactics along with systematic rape and torture [1], and who maintains that they will never stop as long as Israel exists (not borders, not land, nothing short of Israel's destruction).
The people advocating for a ceasefire generally aren't proposing a solution to the Israeli and international hostages held by Hamas, and who could be returned to Israel if Hamas truly wanted a ceasefire.
> it's worth noting that the Israelis are fighting against an opponent who targets their civilian population with the standard terror tactics along with systematic rape and torture [1].
The footage of terrorists laughing as they torture and cut people up is deeply disturbing and shouldn't be dismissed. Sometimes, evil is simply evil. :(
On the one hand, Hamas terrorizes the Israeli population.
On the other hand, Israel has a decades-long genocidal plan against the West Bank. The fact that it's done quietly doesn't change its intent.
The intractability of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is: neither side is good, because both see the conflict as a fight for survival, and therefore justifying terrible means.
No, that's just if they were obvious about it. Which is why one of the definitions of genocide is deliberately keeping a population fragmented, with the goal of eventual eradication.
If you define everything as genocide, than of course genocide is everything. 'Keeping a population fragmented' is so vague it's almost everything, except genocide which requires killing people.
> But a peaceful solution seems like a pipe dream. It would need a profound change in Israeli politics to push for a two-state solution now, and the West has only limited leverage.
We need to use the same recipe used in South Africa, isolating the apartheid regime until it is forced to negotiate in good faith.
Here is something I don't understand. Of all the factions in Israeli politics, why is the US supporting the most far-right one? Because support for US amongst Israelis is high either way, and the usefulness of Israel for the US is arguably higher if it had more moderate politics.
Some of these questions are not explainable by Realpolitik. Same with the Palestinian question. If you were concerned about Iran you'd want a peaceful long lasting solution that defangs Iran grip in the region. It just doesn't make sense.
Isn’t it because that’s the group in power in Israel?
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to support particular parties within sovereign nations. Although the US and others do this very frequently.
I figured it was the same way countries worked with the US during 2017-2021. It didn’t mean they supported a far right position, just that they wanted to work with the US and interacted with the group in charge.
If Netanyahu was treated with the same ridicule and disdain that Trump was during his four years as POTUS, that would be a huge step in the right direction. But he is not.
On German TV, they said, part of the reason they don't treat Netanyahu with more open hostility is because they fear he would lash out even more aggressively. I'm not sure if that is a good justification.
I think showing “disdain” for democratically elected leaders is pretty counterproductive.
If countries start treating leaders of other countries they don’t like with “open hostility” won’t that just result in fewer interactions and less work among countries?
The US isn't supporting a specific faction, it's supporting Israel in general, and that faction is (very sadly) in charge.
The US has reportedly made quiet overtures to the other parties, and certainly Obama and Biden haven't exactly been fans of Netanyahu, but he is in charge at the moment.
> It would need a profound change in Israeli politics to push for a two-state solution now, and the West has only limited leverage.
Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have repeatedly rejected any two-state solution proposals. Hamas in particular has always resorted to terrorism. The appetite for a "two-state solution" seems much higher in Israel, even in the conservative communities, than it ever has been in the so-called Palestinian population.
> The appetite for a "two-state solution" seems much higher in Israel, even in the conservative communities, than it ever has been in the so-called Palestinian population.
Interesting you bring Rabin up, because it's a good point of comparison.
How has Israel treated Yigal Amir? How has Hamas treated the 10/7 terrorists? How many Israelis support what Amir did? How many Gazans support the 10/7 terrorists?
Probably about what you'd expect, given one country has a functioning economy and the other doesn't. [0]
There are whackos on both the Israeli and Palestinian side. The difference is that Gaza has 25-45% unemployment. [1]
At the end of the day as James Carville reduced it: 'it's the economy, stupid.' [2]
People with economic prospects are happy and stable. People without are willing to take insane risks. And at the end of the day, most people just want to live their life (there will always be crazies, but they'll be outnumbered).
> Hamas, Fatah and the Palestinian Authority have repeatedly rejected any two-state solution proposals.
There were an only couple of negotiations. We don't even know the details, but in general the rough outline was that the Palestinian state wouldn't be sovereign - it would be more like a protectorate, with no self-defense capabilities etc.
But there simply is no alternative. Israel, international community needs to persistently push for a real two-state solution. Not like once in a decade (the last attempt was 2008) some weak offer with basically no real political support (part of the reason they were dismissed by Palestinians, there was no credibility to them).
I mean, what are the other options? Forever apartheid and occupation? War crimes like ethnic cleansing?
> I mean, what are the other options? Forever apartheid and occupation? War crimes like ethnic cleansing?
I reject just about all of the assertions in this post, but these straw-man questions are the most egregious.
How can anyone reasonably call the Israeli political situation "apartheid?" There are Arab parties in the Knesset, and Arab Israelis have full rights under the law. Apartheid South Africa rather famously did not allow the black population any representation at all in government. Perhaps by "apartheid," you mean that there is some sort of barrier between the Israeli side and the Gaza side. But having a border is not "apartheid," anymore than the US having a border with Mexico, or the UK having a border with the Republic of Ireland. In fact, since 2005, the Israelis have largely been absent from Gaza, only intervening to stop things like rocket attacks aimed at Israeli civilians. Or maybe you mean that Israel's blockade of Gaza constitutes "apartheid," though this is really torturing the definition beyond recognition.
I am astonished you bring up ethnic cleansing, when all of the evidence points the opposite way: that Jewish people are victims of ethnic cleansing across the Islamic world, whereas the populations within Gaza and the Judea & Samaria area have grown extensively and currently have high growth rates. If you pick any country in the Islamic Middle East & North Africa, the Jewish population is currently near zero, down from tens- to hundreds-of-thousands a few decades ago. (It's almost as bad for Christians.) Asserting that "ethnic cleansing" at the hands of Israel is happening today (or ever!) is preposterous when literally all evidence contradicts it.
I actually think the "other options" are simple, though quite difficult in practice: Hamas & Fatah could put down their weapons, accept that the State of Israel has a right to exist and agree to control the radical elements within their populations. If that happened, you'd have a two-state solution in no time. The difficulty is that there is little political appetite for this in the Judea & Samaria area, and none in Gaza, so we're stuck in a stalemate.
> How can anyone reasonably call the Israeli political situation "apartheid?" There are Arab parties in the Knesset, and Arab Israelis have full rights under the law.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international have a different assessment:
And that is part of the proclaimed calculus, such as:
> "If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a situation where 2 million people live there. If there are 100-200 thousand Arabs in Gaza, all the talk about the day after will be different. They want to leave, they have been living in the ghetto for 75 years and are in need."
> I am astonished you bring up ethnic cleansing, when all of the evidence points the opposite way: that Jewish people are victims of ethnic cleansing across the Islamic world
That is not the opposite of "is Israel calling for / committing ethnic cleansing". The opposite would be "it is not doing that".
And it's not dichotomy, a hot potato that only one party can ever possess. The history of persecution against Jews has exactly zero bearing on the question whether what Israel is doing right now are war crimes, ethnic cleansing or genocide. One crime doesn't prevent or legitimize the other.
> I actually think the "other options" are simple, though quite difficult in practice: Hamas & Fatah could put down their weapons
An alternative to the current actions of Israel isn't "what someone else could do differently", that's an alternative to the actions of those other parties. And things like blowing up the Supreme Court building after posing for selfies in it (= no fighters), attacking refugee camps and disrupting their water supply in the West Bank, and so on, cannot be remotely excused with Hamas.
> The Genocide Convention requires Israel, as a State party, to suppress “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” regardless of whether genocide has actually transpired.
[..]
> Still, it does appear to us that Israel has failed – so far – to criminally investigate some specific public calls which seem to border on genocidal in their language. While Israel’s political leadership distanced itself from potentially genocidal language, it has also failed to apply meaningful political sanctions against the politicians making these comments (such as firing instead of merely suspending the junior minister responsible for the Atomic Bomb comment or launching any effort to remove the deputy chair of the Knesset after making the “burn Gaza” comment). Although there might be some mitigating circumstances, given the many challenges the country now faces, the slow and feeble response from Israel’s legal and political leadership to such extremely problematic statements, may not be compatible with its obligations under the Genocide Convention.
^ something the Israel Foreign Ministry retweeted, apparently before reading it carefully
> “The explicit calls to commit atrocities against millions of people have become, for the first time that we can recall, a legitimate and ordinary part of the Israeli dialogue,”
The Houthis are very much independent of the I-P mess, and same for all Iranian influence which is based on local Shiite militia - with their own reasons for existing, like 'spreading the revolution'.
