#Iranian-Backed Houthis

[xtruss]

Sensible For Australia To Refuse ‘War Criminal US’ Red Sea Warship Request

— Jerry Grey | December 19, 2023

Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

The War Criminal US requesting Australia to send a ship into the Red Sea may seem strange, but it could be an indicator of something far more sinister.

To be clear, this is not an official request, and Australia is not the only country to have been asked. It was reported that seven members of the 39 nations that rotate command of the region, have apparently stepped forward to offer support, but the War Criminal US has not announced who they are. At the time of writing this, Australia's decision hasn't been made, or announced, but the Opposition has said they will support the government if it decided to comply with the request.

Despite claims that Houthi Rebels are attacking commercial vessels with ballistic missiles, the available information is that they caused no significant damage and no injuries.

Reports of a Norwegian ship, and a Hong Kong-flagged ship, hit by missiles, describe that both ships steamed on. One was scheduled to stop in the port of Ashdod in Israel on January 4, the other, according to a Houthi spokesperson, was headed to Israel, although the carrier's website does not list this. However, this does indicate that the Houthis are targeting what they believe to be vessels heading to Illegal Regime of Isra-hell.

It may be that the US, in an effort to manufacture consent for a wider escalation of this war, is overplaying this threat and some Australian media outlets seem to be slipping this request into an incubator for a consent to go to war with Iran. No evidence has been offered to support this, but many media articles describe the attackers as "Iranian-backed Houthis."

So far, no photos of damage have been offered as evidence, not one ship has been disabled and not one crew-member lost. What really is of great concern is the request of the US to involve non-local players in this conflict. In October, it was reported that the War Criminal US had sent a second Carrier Strike Group (CSG) into the region. The conflict in Gaza is limited to a few square miles on land, yet the War Criminal US has two aircraft carriers stationed there. If the goal is to prevent an escalation, calling on Australia and other "international allies" to get involved seems contradictory to what the War Criminal US claims it is trying to achieve.

Before the request, Australia took the very unusual step of voting (in a non-binding resolution) against the interests of the War Criminal US. This is something not seen in a long time. This may have been done to placate a growing domestic opposition to Israel's actions but it makes little difference since the War Criminal US had already vetoed a ceasefire through the UN Security Council.

Jerry Grey is a former British Police officer who was a general manager in a multi-national security company based in Australia for 17 years. He has lived, worked, travelled extensively and studied in China for almost two decades. He holds a Master Degree in cross cultural change management. Jerry Grey is a freelance writer living in Southern China's Guangdong province.

Having used its veto, the US effectively allowed Illegal Regime of Isra-hell to continue hammering Gaza, resulting in the deaths of many more civilians. This action has caused the US to lose a significant amount of its usual support, as demonstrated by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) where 153 countries, including Australia, voted in favor of an immediate ceasefire.

Australia finds itself in a dilemma as it has voted against the continuation of hostilities, which pleases many in the Australian public, but sending a ship in support of further hostilities would not.

Pressure to the Albanese government comes from the fact that it knows much of the population would like Australia to stay out of the conflict but Australia joined Britain and/or the War Criminal US in every conflict from the Boer War in 1899, up to now. To decline would set a new precedent, albeit a welcomed one.

According to a poll, 53 percent of all Australians want an immediate ceasefire. Another poll, reported in the Australian Guardian, suggests that 61 percent want Australia out of the conflict altogether. Australia's lack of involvement in the conflict supports this sentiment. The Guardian also points out that 66 percent are concerned about escalation outside of the region. This concern is justified, considering the potential for domestic escalation. There are approximately 100,000 Jewish Australians and there are more than 800,000 Muslims although less than 3,000 are Palestinians. These communities are watching developments and international media reports indicate an increase in both anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim crimes in Australia.

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN), a formidable and growing lobby group in a Media release on Monday stated that Australia must refuse US request to send a war ship to the Red Sea. However, politicians, particularly in Australia, don't have a good record of adhering to requests from people seeking peace.

Australia is located on the other side of the world. It has citizens from both sides of the conflict and is witnessing growing extremist movements within its own borders. It has finally stepped out of the War Criminal US' shadow to call for a ceasefire and could potentially act as a mediator in the conflict if needed. That opportunity will be lost if it has a military presence in the region. It is sensible for Australia to continue distancing itself from the US.

— The Author is a British Australian Freelance Writer who has Studied Cross Cultural Change Management in China and has lived in the country, traveling extensively for 17 years.

[the-eyespy]

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇶 Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conducted a ballistic missile strike on a U.S. base in Erbil, Iraq.

[organic-homegrown-boyfriend]

The Houthis literally have in their slogan "curse upon the Jews" (the full slogan being - "God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam").

yemen is the poorest nation in the arab world. but in two weeks time, it did what no oil or gas- rich arab nation could do. by seizing three ships and costing i****l more than 2 billion by forcing its ships to go around africa, yemen showed up.

[chanaleah]

At what point do you not see yourselves in Palestinians? At what point in all of this violence, do you not see yourself in the people of Palestine? I would genuinely like an answer, if you don’t mind. I simply cannot comprehend how you go about your day and not see all of the pain and trauma that was inflicted on the Jewish people in the conflict in Palestine. How do you go about life knowing that what happened to your people is happening to others, some of whom are also Jewish?

ok first of all, to address your latest point, there are no Jewish Palestinians. There have been people who have called themselves Jewish Palestinians or Palestinian Jews at points in history, but they do not exist as a people today - because all of the Jews who once lived in what are now the Palestinian Territories were kicked out in '48. The only Jews in Gaza are the hostages, and the Jews living in the West Bank certainly don't consider themselves Palestinian.

But I will answer your question.

Why must Jewish pain and trauma be projected onto anyone but Jews? Of course I feel for those in Palestine. They are dying in a terrible war. The situation in Gaza is awful. I don't deny that. It's true. I hope that there can be an end to the fighting and actual lasting peace in the middle east very soon. Palestinians deserve it, Lebanese deserve it, Syrians deserve it, Iranians deserve it.

But keep in mind that Israelis are suffering in this war, too. Hundreds of people, including a baby and many others, mostly civilians, are still held hostage in Gaza. Many of those taken have been killed. Those who are still captive are no doubt suffering greatly. Israelis in the north of Israel have faced incessant rocket barrages from Hezbollah since October 8th. Just recently, Iran fired hundreds of missiles towards Tel Aviv.

When I look at this conflict, I see suffering in Gaza. I see how the government of Gaza - Hamas - has stolen aid and resources from Gazan civilians and has embedded themselves into civilian infrastructure. I see how Gazans are starving, unable to get aid, and how their are constantly having to flee. I also see multiple terrorist groups, backed by the Islamic Republic (Iran), who are openly genocidal towards Jews - you can look at the statements their leaders have made and their charters. For example, an entire line of the Houthis' slogan is "a curse upon the Jews". These groups are not subtle about their hatred of Jews - neither in their actions or in their words. I also see how those countries have expelled - in the case of Yemen - every last Jew in the country.

In that, I see echoes, loud ones, of the millennia of antisemitism. And the pain and trauma we have faced does not have to be applied to other groups. It is completely right to ask that we care about Gazan civilians. The vast majority of us do. In my eyes, those who don't are in the wrong. But it is unfair to ask that we apply our own pain, our own trauma, to a situation that does not compare to what we have faced.

I'm not saying that what Gazans are enduring is not awful and terrible. I'm not trying to play oppression olympics here. Don't twist my words. But our pain belongs to us.

[archtroop]

Sometimes I need to remind myself that tumblr is a fringe social network, and is by far not the average. What it is though, is a good sampler of the more extreme, I would say, ideologically swayed. A bit.

The more comments and notes I read from the Free Palestine crowd, the more it gets obvious that these are incapable, useful idiots. Literally, spoonfed couchpotatos at best. Starbucks Boycoyters at worst.

It's like the 00's insecure attention seeking posers, with an amoral, ignorant twist to them.

And they are entirely, ABSOLUTELY useless people.

Some morally rotten such individual wrote me that "Israel deserves what's coming for them, you deserve to die" etc. And it really made me think. What's coming? WHO'S coming? You? You, an unemployed tumblrina? You and what army?

What are you gonna do? Try to kill us all? What's the WORST you can do that wasn't, hasn't been tried already?

Truth is, no one is coming.

You read about this pompous, self indulgent "Palestinian Activism Solidarity ". What the FUCK are you talking about? Where is it? What, SA under IRI at the ICJ?.... Watermelon emojis...? ...Slogans?

The most "affective" actions FreePalestine Movement "achieved" was a few shootings/stabbings/rammings here and there, a hostage situation in Turkey in the name of Palestine (the man was executed on the spot after some negotiations. Turkey, yeah). A few burnt synagogues around the world and a whole lot of terrorized Jews in the Diaspora. Not a single Palestinian benefited. Not in Gaza anyway. To sum it up, what exactly are you gonna do? Blow yourself up in a subway in the name of Palestine? How incredibly unoriginal and unhelpful. Although expected and unsurprisingly fitting to the roots of the movement, I'll give you all that.

No one is coming. A lot of pakapaka from Nassrallah and Co. and a radio silence from the Arab world.

Iran pulled the Houthies out of their boydem only for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan to reluctantly push the button to down Houthie ammo flying towards Israel. Houthies "asked" of Saudi Arabia to "let them cross over to fight the Zionists", and not only this is a joke, a caravan of sandals-wearing, AK-47 totting, Houthie caravan crossing Saudia to do what exactly? Bite Israeli ankles in Eilat Port? Rather It's an insult, to show that "here see we tried", since Saudis are fighting the Houthies FOR YEARS, it was never an actual option to begin with.

Are you blind? No. One. Is. Coming.

After 75 years of trying to erase Israel from the map, the 7th of October unleashed what could only have happened after Israel had its last straw broken.

Congratulations, you've managed at dehumanizing Israelis to the point that you managed to rob us from one aspect of humanity, even if temporarily: our symphaty.

Not forever, but for a period. And when you did so, you WERE LUCKY, for US were here WITHIN MINUTES, being smart enough to talk Israel out from attacking on the freaking spot. Instead, Israel waited 3 damn weeks. For 3 weeks, Israel called for the evacuation of Gazans from the northern side of Gaza.

Symphaty has an expiration date. The 7th of October 2023 was that date. You backed Israel to a wall, and no slogan will suffice against a nation that KNOWS that its very existence was threatened in a very real, visceral, inhumane, and depraved way.

No one is coming. Not for us, not for the Gazans. The Arab world is waiting to see, when will they wake up with one Iranian proxy less on the map. The truth is, aside from the pakapaka all round the clock, Isrsel was left with "do what you do, we wait" kind of global attitude.

Arab nations don't care about Palestinians. They don't care for the Palestinian Cause. Never had. It was always for show, as a pawn. A distraction. And we know it, very well.

The Palestinians are, and always were, used. They were used to carry on this idea that Israel would disappear from the map. If not by force, then by proxy warfare and terrorism, with time. If not by proxies, then by mass protest and public opinion. But the thing is, reality is a material thing. You need TO DO a thing for it TO HAPPEN. And public opinion rarely holds. And for how it's loud, the Free Palestine Movement is nothing but that: Loud.

As for the undoing of Israel and Bney Israel, well. Many have tried.

And oh boy, did the Arab nations TRIED.

They PAYED for trying.

But that's in the past, largely. Now, the annihilation of Israel and the creation of a Palestine is just a cruel pipe dream, with human prisoners, and an international cheering squad. After all, you can't free something that never existed and couldn't form one coherent ideology that makes sense and strives towards a positive, creation-adjacent activity in 75 years of its yappery. It's just not there. If the ideology surrounds destruction, it can not create. It can only destroy.

You may shout your lungs out and make up all kinds of delusional narratives. In the end, they are just that: empty words to make the righteous self of the woke crowd feel better, to feel active. To be a part.

To be USED.

It says a lot about the sad reality of this mass of people. The yearning for purpose, this loneliness. The rootlessness. Loss of identity. Identities so fractured, so incohesive. Loss of trust in the institution. The shallow knowledge. The practically non-existent reading comprehension.

All are easily diverted to create this cult like behavior.

People cry their eyes out over something that not only they have zero way of affecting but oftentimes is inflated, twisted, and presented as something completely false, or fake or what have you, instead of looking around them and doing something about their own realities. Pouring their hearts out over an unreality, fruitless.

This is either willful ignorance or escapism. Can't even say which one is worse.

This mass is being used. It creates a pool of despair, mysery. Feelings of "not enough", of unachievment. Those masses are breeding grounds for terrorism activity recruitment.

One party, one goal.

Free Palestine is a magic combination of words. You would ask, what is it? And they would sell you, ah, it's this magical place over the rainbow far, far away, and you can be the savior of those people. What a beautiful fantasy. Except you can't save those who did all their best to commit a slow, painstaking suicide, over 75 years. It's unrealistic, whatever this so-called "movement" is yapping about. There are no outlines, no strategy. It's just empty, big, bombastic words, to rile up emotionally as many people as possible, who look for a meaning.

I keep remembering the movie The Wave (2008). It's amazing how word by word, scene by scene, the story is playing out right now with worrying accuracy.

I don't know where this will lead Europe, UK, US, Canada... Australia... you all should be on high alert internally. But one thing is pretty clear.

No one is coming. As for Israel... You did your worst already. You have left Israel with nothing to be afraid of.

BDS biggest achievement was the eventual unemployment of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank. UN is a joke. Red Cross is a joke. UNRWA exposed, visibly and undeniably. Abraham Accords are proceeding, even if slower, yet still they do. HAMAS gets mopped the floor with. And Lebanon has to do the impossible: drag Hezbollah away from the Isrseli border. Otherwise, there won't be much of a Lebanon to speak about in a very short amount of time. And that's not even a threat. It's reality. As government officials in Lebanon plead with Hezbollah to halt, Israel is ready on the border for 80,000 Israelis are internally displaced within Isrsel itself because of the war with HAMAS, but mainly away from the northern border because of constant shelling by Hezbollah.

And it won't hold forever.

And no one is coming.

Because who will? You and what army?

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Sky News is Private UK Media]

Washington and London opted to strike Yemen with precision bombs rather than accelerating efforts to end violence in Gaza, where more than 20,000 people have been killed in three months. Regional diplomats say the longer that conflict continues, the less possible it becomes to contain.

The language being used by Biden administration is interesting.

"Iran is a primary - if not the primary - enabler or supporter, sponsor of the Houthis and Iran has been involved operationally in the conduct of these attacks," a Biden administration official said.

They don't talk about Iran directing the attacks against shipping or US military in the region in the way that they might have done not long ago.

They talk about Iran being the "enabler" rather than the puppet master. And that's because they know that the "Iranian proxies" in the Middle East are no longer puppets.

Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in Gaza - all are established forces making strategic decisions, aligned with Iranian ideology of course and with Iranian-made weapons, but driven by their own ambitions.[...]

The Houthis have claimed their attacks on shipping are in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

They frame it as an international shipping lane-based protest against what they call a genocide.[...]

But make no mistake, among regional populations, the Houthis are seen, not insignificantly, as having chosen to back support for Gaza with material action.

America and the UK chose military action to try to stop the Houthi missiles. They chose to bomb the world's poorest nation with precision bombs. That's risky and optically awkward, to say the least.

Another course would have been to seek to remove the Houthi pretext by accelerating efforts to end the Gaza conflict and solve the Israel-Palestine question.[...]

The Americans have shown an unwillingness or inability to influence Israeli actions in Gaza.

And for that, they have not just lost credibility among regional leaders. America has lost populations in the Middle East these last few months.[...]

[C]rucially, [senior regional diplomats] say that while Iran doesn't seek to escalate all this into a regional war, it cannot mitigate for potential miscalculation in Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq because the groups operating there are more and more independent.

What's happening how is this in Sky [12 Jan 24]

[matan4il]

Update post:

Most of this will be about the unprecedented attack of the Islamist regime of Iran against Israel, but first I have to take a second to mourn a 14 year old boy, who was murdered in a Palestinian attack on Friday. At around 6 in the morning, teenager Binyamin Achimeir led his sheep herd out of the farm he lives in, but a few hours later, the sheep returned to the farm without him. At first, it was feared that he had some accident, or was dehydrated, and thousands of people voluntarily joined the search for him. On Saturday, at around noon, the IDF found his body, with signs of brutal violence on it. Based on the forensic evidence, he was murdered by several Palestinian terrorists, and he fought back. The army is still hunting down the murderers. May Binyamin's memory be a blessing.

Right, back to the Islamist regime of Iran's attack on Israel. I posted about it as soon as the news started being aired here, in case someone didn't know about it. The news broke past the normal time when people watch news on TV in Israel, I noticed it by chance right before I was about to turn in for the night. I'm physically okay, but I didn't get that much sleep, I had to wake up early to take care of some stuff, so I AM very tired, which is why I'm not going to do the usual thing I do, which is to look for English journalistic sources for everything, but I have no doubt even the stuff I won't look up can all be easily found online.

On a personal note, I can tell you that at 1:43 in the morning I heard the first explosion, but no sirens went off. A few more explosions followed, and only then did we hear the sirens. It was scary, for a moment we couldn't tell whether we're hearing explosions of missiles from neighboring areas, or whether something went wrong with the sirens, and we need to hurry into the bomb shelter. It seems like in Jerusalem specifically there was some issue with the sirens, I heard a reporter mention it. Also, the alert app didn't go off, even though it should have, at the latest when the sirens did.

This is what the Temple Mount looked like from an Iranian attack that could have easily destroyed the al-Aqsa mosque (it's not in the frame, but it's right next to where this was filmed):

Quick background: Iran is the biggest financier of anti-Israel terrorism for decades now, including funding Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, all of which have been a part of a continuous attack on Israel since Oct 7 as Iran's proxies. Iran has sent its own military seniors to help and instruct those local terrorists, in places like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. Israel has eliminated them whenever possible, this is not something new. On Apr 1, Israel carried out such a strike, in which it targeted 7 Iranian army seniors in Damascus, Syria's capital. Iran claimed Israel targeted the Iranian consulate in this city, but diplomatic buildings are all publicly listed. Iran has an embassy in Damascus (in a separate location) and no consulates. That's why the magnitude of Iran's response to this has taken Israel by surprise, because the Israeli strike wasn't that out of the ordinary. In fact, the US assassination of Iran's military commander, Qasem Soleimani, back in 2018, was a far graver blow for the Iranian regime, and yet it did not lead to an attack as massive as the one launched against Israel last night.

It is now known that some of the attack waves against Israel were intercepted by other countries, including The US, the UK, France and Jordan. It's been said that there's at least one more Arab country that helped in intercepting Iran's attack, but it can't be publicized. Many countries denounced Iran for attacking Israel.

We don't have numbers regarding the full size of the attack. Out of all the countries who participated in curtailing this attack, we know that the US has intercepted at least 70 suicide drones and 3 cruise missiles, while Israel has intercepted at least 185 suicide drones, 36 cruise missile and 110 ballistic missiles (that last one is the missile type that causes the most damage). Israel's interceptions are said to have been 99% successful, but like I said, no defence system is perfect. A small number of ballistic missiles did land inside Israel. One hit an Israeli air Force base in the south. There's over 30 people who got injured when rushing to the bomb shelter in the middle of the night (elderly people, including Holocaust survivors, have died from such injuries), and over 30 more ended up in hospital due to severe mental health reactions. On top of that, there's a 7 years old Muslim Bedouine girl who was injured by interceptors debris. A friend of her family that I heard being interviewed said the family wanted to go to the communal bomb shelter, but before they even had a chance to make it out of the house, the girl was hit by the debris piercing into their home, and she is suffering from severe head injuries. The hospital is currently fighting for her life.

The estimate of how much it cost Israel to defend its citizens from this one attack last night is 5 BILLION shekels (which is over 1.3 BILLION US dollars). That's for one night.

Israel will respond. According to one reporter I heard, that was decided as soon as it was clear how big the attack is, so this isn't about how much damage Iran caused, it's about how it crossed several red lines. This is the first time Iran itself attacked Israel itself, it's not an attack on an extension of Israel, nor was it done by using proxy terrorists. Israel has had terrorist organizations attacking it continuously since 2001, but this is the first attack from a fellow sovereign country since Iraq (led by tyrant Saddam Hussein) in 1991, so that in itself is crossing a red line. The size of the attack is also considered an escalation on Iran's part. In 2019, Iran launched a smaller scaled suicde drone attack on Saudi Arabia, and the latter's western allies refused to launch a counter attack, which led to these countries being seen as unreliable, and some Middle Eastern countries renewed their ties with Iran. That's why how it would seen in the Middle East if Israel doesn't react to an even bigger attack, and how it might drive more moderate countries to grow closer to Iran, is another consideration in why Israel must respond. Not to mention that launching such a mass attack basically caused a paralysis of the country once the first intel became known. For example, all educational activity (schools, universities, you name it) has been canceled, Israel's air space had to be closed, every single ambulance across the country had to be manned, and so on. That is not something any country can simply shrug off. Not to mention, Israel financially can't afford this reality to become normalized.

Not to mention, Israel tried to contain Hamas, PIJ and Hezbollah's rocket attacks for decades. What we got for it was the invasion and massacre on Oct 7. The lesson for most Israelis is that containing mass attacks on our population only leads to worse ones.

That said, there's also no desire here of getting dragged into a war on another front while we're still in the middle of one in Gaza and with Iran's proxies on several more fronts. So, Israel is looking for a balanced response, one that won't let this mass attack slide, but hopefully doesn't make matters much worse.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[mariacallous]

Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a Greek-flagged ship headed to Yemen to deliver grain on Monday, causing minor damage, according to U.S. Central Command.

Despite the minor damage on the U.S.-owned M/V Sea Champion, the ship continued on course to Aden in Yemen, where it ultimately delivered the grain for the benefit of the Yemeni people.

Central Command said the M/V Sea Champion has delivered humanitarian aid to the country 11 times over the past five years.

"Houthi aggression in the region has exacerbated already high levels of need in conflict-impacted Yemen, which remains one of the largest humanitarian crises in the world, with nearly 80 percent of the entire population needing humanitarian assistance," Central Command said. "We are committed to countering the Houthis’ malign activities, which directly endanger the imports of foodstuff and humanitarian aid to Yemen."

Another ship in the Gulf of Aden, the British-registered, Lebanese-operated Rubymar, sustained damage on Sunday after "an explosion in close proximity to the vessel."

The explosion was reportedly caused by two missiles fired at the ship by Houthi rebels and resulted in the ship taking on water.

The crew was able to evacuate the vessel safely.

Houthi Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree later issued a statement claiming the rebel group’s responsibility for the attack, saying the vessel was "now at risk of potentially sinking." 

"The ship suffered catastrophic damages and came to a complete halt," Saree said. 

The Houthis also claimed to have downed an American drone Monday in the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah, according to Reuters. U.S. Central Command, which operates in the region, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital. 

The Houthis last November took out a U.S. MQ-9 Reaper drone near the Yemeni coast. 

The reported attacks come after the U.S. launched five "self-defense" airstrikes against a series of Houthi rebel positions in Yemen on Saturday. 

The strikes targeted three anti-ship missile batteries, one unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) and another unmanned surface vessel (USV), U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) announced Sunday. 

"This is the first observed Houthi employment of a UUV since attacks began on Oct. 23," CENTCOM said in a statement. 

[secular-jew]

The Iranian-backed Houthi Islamists, attacked and sunk a Belize-flagged commercial ship in the Red Sea. The ship was carrying 21,000 metric tons of Ammonium Phosphate Sulfate, and untold quantities of heavy fuel oil, which is now polluting and destroying the diverse ocean and coral life.

This cynical Iranian Islamic attack on global shipping increases all our costs, and is an affront to our natural environment.

The Islamists could care less who they kill, hurt, or how they damage our fragile ecosystems.

[determinate-negation]

Yad Sarah, one of Israel’s largest non-profit charitable groups, warned on Sunday that the disruption of shipping in the Red Sea, caused by assaults by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants, is causing delays in the delivery of critical medical equipment and could lead to severe shortages, as Israel is almost four months into war with the Hamas terror group.

“The attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea pose a life-endangering delay of critically needed supplies for the unprecedented number of casualties of war in Israel,” Yad Sarah director-general Moshe Cohen told The Times of Israel.

In the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas-led onslaught on southern communities near Gaza, Yemen’s Houthis, an Iranian proxy, have launched a flurry of drone and missile attacks on commercial vessels with Israeli ownership or bound for one of the country’s ports. The ongoing threat prompted the world’s major shipping companies to temporarily suspend sending their vessels through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

[…] “The unprecedented demand has resulted in nationwide shortages, necessitating our urgent efforts to replenish tens of thousands of pieces of vital medical items despite diminished wartime shipping, supply chain obstacles, and heightened costs exacerbated by regional hostilities,” Cohen said.

Cohen added that with growing concern over the escalation on the country’s northern border, Yad Sarah started to prepare to meet growing demand and bought additional medical equipment to bolster hospital supplies and the group’s branches in the north, which is now expected to arrive with a delay of weeks if not months. Yad Sarah has a network of more than 7,000 volunteers spread over 120 branches throughout Israel.

delays of weeks if not months 👍😎

[tamamita]

do you think the houthis are a proxy of Iran?

The Houthis are not a proxy of Iran, because of two simple reasons: First, Iran state religion is Twelver Shi'a Islam and Ansar Allah belong to the Fiver Shi'a Islamic branch or (Zaidi Shi'a Islam), both of which contradict each other in the theological and political sphere. It makes no sense for Ansar Allah to allow Iran to have a stranglehold on the socio-political sphere of Yemen. However, their anti-imperialist values overlap, which is why they play a significant role in the fight against the US-backed settler state and its allies.

2. The Houthis are concerned with Zaidi revivalism, their ideological purpose is to revive the Imamate, which ceased in the 60s. In Zaidi theology, anyone who is a progeny of the Banu Hashim clan can become an Imam of the Zaidi Shi'as. Some Zaidis claim the wish to establish a democracy. Furthermore, Iran's political and clerical system is not well-received by other Muslim communities, even among Twelvers; if Iran attempted to export the system of Wilayat al-Faqih to Yemen, it would be a recipe for disaster, and would definitely catch the attention of the Gulf states. While the Iranian Twelvers and the Yemenite Zaidis make up the Axis of resistance, they do not always share the same geopolitical goals.

[the-eyespy]

🇺🇸🇮🇷🇮🇶 Ain al-Asad U.S. Base in Iraq was targeted with rocket launches.

[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris: Mystery Commander in Chief

How would the Vice President keep America safe in a dangerous world? The voters deserve some answers.

The Editorial Board --- Wall Street Journal

Kamala Harris is all but telling Americans they’ll have to elect her to find out what she really believes, as the Vice President ducks interviews and the media give her a free ride. This is bad enough on domestic issues, but on foreign policy it could be perilous. The world is more dangerous than it’s been in decades, and Americans deserve to know how the woman aiming to be Commander in Chief Harris would confront these threats.

Ms. Harris this week tweeted a photo of her sitting next to President Biden in the White House situation room discussing the Middle East. The point is to suggest she’s a co-pilot on Biden foreign policy.

This isn’t the credential the Harris campaign thinks it is, and the voters should hear directly from her what she thinks about the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, the failure to deter Russia in Ukraine, the Iranian nuclear program, China’s island grabs in the South China Sea, and more. The matter is all the more important because Ms. Harris conspicuously declined to choose a running mate who might lend foreign policy experience to the ticket.

Ms. Harris has given a few hints about her own views on the Middle East, and those aren’t encouraging. Her team spent much of Thursday walking back whether she told an anti-Israel group she’d be willing to ponder an arms embargo against Israel. She skipped Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress when our main Middle East ally is under siege. Did she pass over Josh Shapiro as her running mate because he would have enraged the anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party?

To the extent she has revealed a larger instinct on national security, it’s been wrong. She told the Council on Foreign Relations in 2019 that she’d rejoin the Iran nuclear deal as long as “Iran also returned to verifiable compliance.” But Iran didn’t comply and is now on the brink of a nuclear breakout.

Her 2018 Senate vote to “end U.S. involvement in the Saudi-led air campaign in Yemen,” as Ms. Harris put it in a tweet, also hasn’t aged well. The Houthis the Saudis were fighting are now targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea almost daily and putting U.S. naval assets at risk. Does she think this status quo can persist—and what would she do differently?

Ms. Harris will surely argue that she and Mr. Biden reinvigorated the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after Vladimir Putin’s invasion in Ukraine. But absent a change in U.S. political will, the war in Ukraine isn’t on track to end on terms favorable to American interests. Her past enthusiasm for banning fracking—which her campaign is trying to walk back—also suggests she isn’t serious about checking Mr. Putin’s main source of war financing.

Ms. Harris would no doubt also tout the diplomatic progress the Biden Administration has made in Asia with Japan, the Philippines and others. Yet she whiffed on one of the single most important diplomatic questions in Asia: She opposed Barack Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that would have excluded China and boosted America as the region’s premiere trading partner.

Most important, will Ms. Harris build up the hard military assets required to deter China’s Xi Jinping and a consolidating axis of U.S. adversaries? “I unequivocally agree with the goal of reducing the defense budget,” Ms. Harris said as a Senator in 2020 after voting against a Bernie Sanders proposal to slash the Pentagon by 10%. That vote needed no explanation, but Ms. Harris wanted to make sure the left knew she was sympathetic. Does she still want to slash the defense budget?

Donald Trump often shoots from the hip on these subjects, and his favorable comments about dictators are witless. But his first-term record, especially on Iran and the Middle East, is far stronger than the Biden-Harris performance.

Americans shouldn’t have to read tea leaves to figure out if Ms. Harris would keep the country safe in a treacherous world.

[sayruq]

[ladyimaginarium]

g-d as an antizionist native jew you literally cannot win.

on one hand you'll have uber hardcore zionists & also technically, kahanists (because it's important to keep in mind that not every zionist thinks the same way & there's different types of zionism & to listen to jewish voices about this topic bc i'm tired of goyim speaking over jews on a term that jewish people created, but for the unaware: kahanism is basically a type of far right zionism that straight up is like "the land of israel should be for jews Only & anyone who isn't jewish don't get the same rights as jewish people",) who will believe that you're. somehow a "traitor" or "not a real jew/self hating jew" for y'know not. wanting to have your jewishness be associated with medinat yisrael (the modern state of israel, there's a difference between am yisrael, the jewish people, eretz yisrael, the physical land & medinat israel, the modern state of israel), specifically the government's actions against not just palestinians but others too or by simply saying that "hey man regardless of how you feel about zionism, it's a nationalist ideology that, like many other nationalisms, has harmed people & zionism Has harmed palestinians & they have every right to talk about it, just like the mayans & those at sbrenica who were also affected by it" & i was blocked by a zionist for saying that or denying palestinian indigeneity alongside jewish indigeneity (because some straight up just think that only jews are indigenous there which. just isn't true, jews & palestinians are literally related & they both have a shared connection to that land), making excuses for the israeli government & the iof's actions, & misconstruing land back shit into a violent movement when it isn't & even be islamophobic & racist towards natives including native jews who naturally feel a sense of solidarity to the palestinian cause because we know what it's like to be displaced & killed by an occupying government.

& THEN on the other hand you'll have many nonpalestinian goyische/nonjewish western leftist antizionists who think they somehow have a free pass to say whatever they want & think they somehow can't be antisemitic & racist just because they support the free palestine movement, some give a platform to well known bigots & antisemites who literally spout blood libel & antisemitic conspiracy theories & many don't even notice let alone care just because they agree with said people on other types of activism, supporting groups like jvp when it's basically the autism speaks for jews, engage in atrocity denial & terrorism apologia because nothing says resistance like cheering on violent antisemitism against jews (/sarcastic) you disagree with & thinking that groups like hamas, hezbollah, the houthis etc are based people when multiple palestinians from gaza & other people like iranians, syrians & yemeni have spoke up against them when hamas killed 1200 people, mostly civilians, but apparently that doesn't matter & throwing all their morals they claim to support down the drain & be antisemitic or islamophobic to innocent individuals who had nothing to do with the warcrimes being committed & excusing the inexcusable & justifying the unjustifiable, conflating jewish people with white european people, calling random ass jews "zionists" even when they say repeatedly that they aren't even for just calling out their antisemitism, literally using slurs used by the literal fucking kkk (i.e "zio" & any variants of the word), people waking up & graduating from the instagram-tiktok school of law thinking they know everything about this topic when they don't, people treating this very serious thing like a fandom with teams when people aren't your blorbos or celebrities, these are real people who are traumatized, grieving, suffering & dying, treat them like people, some people can't understand the very basic concept that you can fight for more than one cause & one community at the same time, they don't call out the virulent antisemitism in their own movement, deny jewish people Any type of connection & historical presence to the southern levant despite there being a fuckton of historical, cultural & archaeological evidence & straight up deny jewish history in the region, stay silent when there are jews literally being harassed, beat up, sexually assaulted, & murdered in the streets & mobs have already been targeting jewish neighborhoods & synagogues & almost nobody outside of jewish people are talking about any of this & almost none of these people are deconstructing their antisemitism & when that happens that just allows the far right to further advance itself & its agenda. because a lot of these people think they're immune to propaganda & antisemitism when they're really not because some people will straight up be parroting nazi shit & most people don't even blink an eye except for jewish people & most people from what i've seen don't do anything about this huge issue & these are coming from the same people who're like "punch all nazis!!".

& regardless of either side of the discourse even when we& say "hey uh. we& believe in ceasefire de-escalation humanitarianism accountability justice reparations & the hopes of saving as many lives as possible & we reject all forms of dehumanization, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, xenophobia, harassment of innocents, scapegoating & collective punishment, every human life is precious & no one should have to fear for their life, we hold human rights to be universal & nonnegotiable, a value we hold above every movement, ideology or cause just as we've been taught by our elders, our indigenous beliefs & jewish ethics, we want liberation, safety, dignity & self determination & a homeland for everyone & we haven't made an exception to this topic" some people would probably just assume that we're "both-sideism" or being "centrist" when like. no dude that's literally just a humane take on things, not a neutral one & it's. really fucking weird that that's somehow a hot controversial take to have.

like. you get antisemitism from literally every possible side of the spectrum regardless of their politics, its insidious & it's not fun At All.

[zvaigzdelasas]

A week ago, the US, the UK and 10 other mostly western nations told Yemen’s Houthi rebels that they would “bear the consequences” if they launched further attacks on merchant shipping in the southern Red Sea. For a brief period – six days – the Houthis paused, before at 9.15pm on Tuesday launching their most sophisticated attack yet.[...]

Prior to Tuesday night, 61 drones had been fired in 25 attacks. But in the early evening, a group of 18, probably the relatively inexpensive delta-wing Shahed 136, appear to have been aimed at the warships directly. Seven were shot down by HMS Richmond, which Shapps told reporters “potentially was targeted”.[...]

A Shahed 136 costs $20,000 (£16,000) to make, while missiles for HMS Richmond’s Sea Viper defence system cost £1m to £2m a time[...]

Last month, one former US commander of the Central Command in the Middle East, Gen Joseph Votel, suggested the US could target coastal radars, coastal gun systems and missile systems, which he argued were “very clear military targets”. But it is very unlikely that one round of western airstrikes would halt the raids in the Red Sea. Battle-hardened after years of fighting in Yemen’s long civil war, the Houthis enjoy Iranian backing and military aid. Describing them as rebels is simplistic: the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates their military is 20,000-strong and a parade in September showed an organised military of some scale, which would be determined to show it had not been beaten by whatever the US attacked with.

10 Jan 24