The Biden administration on Wednesday announced that it was re-designating Yemen’s Houthis as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” a move that could complicate aid deliveries in Yemen and make peace between the Saudis and Houthis more difficult.
President Biden lifted the SDGT designation on the Houthis in February 2021 as well as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” designation, which was implemented by the Trump administration. Both designations come with economic sanctions, but the FTO is considered more harsh and would essentially criminalize delivering aid to Houthi-controlled Yemen, where 70-80% of Yemenis live.
However, sanctions under the SDGT designation could also hamper aid deliveries. The State Department said the administration would issue exemptions for “certain transactions related to the provision of food, medicine, and fuel, as well as personal remittances, telecommunications and mail, and port and airport operations.”
But even with exemptions, history has shown that sanctions scare away international companies and banks from doing business with the targeted nations or entities and cause shortages of medicine, food, and other basic goods.
US and British airstrikes in Yemen have already forced some aid groups to suspend services. From 2015-2022, the US supported a brutal Saudi/UAE war against the Houthis that included airstrikes targeting Yemen’s food supply and a blockade. During that time, at least 377,000 people were killed in the war, including 60% who died of starvation and disease caused by the siege.
The people of Yemen have had some relief since the Saudis and Houthis reached a ceasefire in April 2022. But that progress might be reversed now that the US is bombing Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on Israel-linked commercial shipping in protest of the onslaught in Gaza. The SDGT designation could also impede a Yemen peace deal.
According to The Guardian, the Saudis and Houthis have reached a deal that satisfies all parties. The first phase involves depositing money into accounts for the payment of civil salaries for workers in Houthi-controlled areas and fully opening airports and sea ports that have been under blockade. The SDGT designation or other types of sanctions could impede the implementation of the first phase.
The US has now launched three rounds of strikes in Yemen, which has only escalated the situation as the Houthis aren’t backing down. The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, have now expanded their attacks to target American and British commercial shipping. The terrorist designation will also do nothing to stop Houthi attacks. Houthis spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam told Al Jazeera that Ansar Allah would “not back down in its position in support of the Palestinian people.”
The bully is scared.
“…We can beat them forever and ever, we can be heroes, just for one day….”
I spell Heroes HAMAS! 🇺🇸❤️🇵🇸
Heroes don’t willingly put their entire population at risk. No way in hell they didn’t know how the IDF butchers would respond. They’re more like genocide enablers just like the US.
I took the Bowie reference to be putting his thin white duke persona up as a homage to the fascist neocon scum who will undoubtedly show up here to spew their shit all over the comment section or maybe as a reference to the fascist American national security state:
At first glance, the Thin White Duke appeared more conventional than Bowie’s previously flamboyant glam incarnations. Sporting well-groomed blonde hair and wearing a simple, cabaret-style wardrobe consisting of a white shirt, black trousers, and a waistcoat, the Duke was a hollow man who sang songs of romance with an agonised intensity while feeling nothing, “dry ice masquerading as fire”. The persona has been described as “a mad aristocrat”, “an amoral zombie”, and “an emotionless Aryan superman”. Bowie himself described the character as “A very Aryan, fascist type; a would-be romantic with absolutely no emotion at all but who spouted a lot of neo-romance.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_White_Duke
The genocide preceded Hamas. It preceded the 67. It preceded 48.
Palestine will prevail in the end but not by just lying down and taking it.
None of that justifies Hamas sacrificing Gazans on a genocidal scale and that’s exactly what they are doing. They knew exactly what Israel’s response would be. Everyone did.
Why don’t the Israelis stop the slaughter? What ever Hamas did does not justify what the Israelis with American support do to Palestinians, unarmed mostly women and children, how many pilots have been killed?
How many Israelis did the IDF kill on Oct. 7,? It looks like they killed more Israelis than Hamas did.
Do you condemn what the Israeli pilots do to Gaza? How many pilots lost their life?
Who expected the brutal genocide the Israelis do? That is not a war between two Armies, it is a war of 2 superpowers against an unarmed civilian population, more than 60% women and children?
Regev can lie to his hearts content, most of the world knows how evil Israel and the US are.
Not all Israelis are Zionists, not all Germans were Nazis either.
Do you condemn what the Israeli pilots do to Gaza?
Man, fuck you. I’ve been bitching about Israeli brutality for years. The fact that I don’t back an equally terroristic entity doesn’t change that.
We are talking about mass killings, Hamas are not terrorists, they are legal resistance against brutal occupiers, mass killers, war criminals who cross and ignore all international laws.
They’re no better than the IDF.
The young IDF men and women are immature thugs, they learned on checkpoints to humiliate and brutalize Palestinian people, and in front of their young children. They are now grown up and Hamas members motivated to fight for their rights, I am sure they hate Israelis, they are human. Like it or not, THEY ARE HUMAN BEINGS and demand their human rights. Civilized people know that.
How can you even say that. The facts don’t support it.
What have the Palestinians done to the Israelis other than not giving them their land? But there are long lists of the brutality and war crimes against Palestinians done by the Israelis.
In what way are they no better, do you think IDF and Hamas are the same?
They’re both gangs of murderous thugs who kill civilians/non-combatants without remorse and expect impunity for doing so, in pursuit of power for the masters they serve. The IDF wears fancier gang colors, but other than that, not really any substantive differences.
Peaceful Palestinian demonstrations are useless, IDF will kill or disable peaceful Palestinian demonstrators. You are trying to get off the hook by simply insisting Hamas is the same as IDF thugs? Indirectly that implies the the annihilation of Gaza is not Israeli self-defense either???
Israelis created Hamas the same way the humiliating Versailles surrender created Hitler and the Nazis. Actions create reactions, what do the Israelis and Americans expect? They of all people should know.
Equal is not true.
Only because their capabilities don’t match the IDF’s.
And? So it’s not equal. By any rational consideration.
Their weaponry isn’t equal. That doesn’t make them less terroristic. In fact, if a superpower was backing a genocide they were conducting, I would think they wouldn’t be doing anything differently than Israel.
If a little kid hated his father or any adult and wanted to kill him but can’t it’s the same exact thing as that adult wanting to kill a small child with no defense. Got it.
Israel is an occupier with a formal army.
What?
You were saying thoughts of intent make it equal.
No, I was talking about changing roles. Put Hamas in a position to do to Israel what Israel is doing in Gaza and I believe they would do the same.
Of course they would. They have been living under apartheid.
And it would still be terrorism. Total disregard for human life isn’t absolved because you’re living under apartheid.
Again. Never said they were good. But they are not the same or equal to Israel and are not responsible for Israel’s crimes.
I guess we’d have to give them all the toys we give the Israeli terrorists to find out where they rate. And once more, I do not think Hamas is responsible for Israeli crimes. They’re just a gift that keeps on giving for Israel. That’s why they preferred Hamas from the start.
But that isn’t reality.
It wasn’t meant to be. Reversing roles is based on ‘what if’.
And your bitching did nothing for the Palestinians at all, retaliation by Hamas was due. Hamas pulled the Western powers out of their coma. They are now confronted with a real problem, Hamas will not just let them get back into another coma. Western economies are in deep trouble, so is NATO and EU and the UN. The USA undermined all three institutions, Ukraine is in ruins, and Gaza is a disaster. Israel and the US have no idea how to end the disaster. Both states have become pariah states, hated by most people around the globe. What a mess they made, and not enough common sense to govern.
And your babbling hasn’t done anything for them either. But I wasn’t implying my bitching did a bit of good. I mentioned it because you insulted me with a stupid question. And no doubt retaliation was/is due but that doesn’t make what Hamas did enhance the lives of Palestinians one fucking iota. It made their lives even more miserable.
Do the Palestinians have a right of self-defense?
I know it is a stupid question, still I am curious. I don’t know if the question ever came up.
I do not support the genocide on the Palestinian people, I have the courage to say it and I can look in the mirror and know, I did the best I could. You can call me names or whatever, I follow my conscience my moral compass. I insulted you with a stupid question, interesting.
You can’t help the people and neither can I, but Hamas can. They forced the other nations into action. SA took the case to the ICJ, NOW THE WORLD WILL HAVE TO ANSWER, RESPOND TO THE SUFFERING OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.
The IDF used bulldozers to dig up the buried bodies of Palestinians, they could not leave the dead people RIP. The Israelis make me want to p*u*k*e . They are monsters.
Of course I believe the Palestinians have a right to self-defense and a right to resist their occupation. I don’t understand why you can’t understand what I’ve been trying to say. The Hamas attack didn’t help the Palestinians, it made their lives much more miserable than their lives were before attack. It doesn’t even matter what their intent was, they had to know what Israel’s response would be. And yes, this might have awakened the world to Israel’s brutality but if a genocide is what it takes to do that, then I can’t in good conscience think that it was worth it.
The Hamas militia is the only tool of self- defense the Palestinians have. And the Palestinians can’t take anymore, they are desperate people. Their lives are so miserable they would rather die than go on like that. The goal of the Israelis is to drive them off the little peace of land they have left. See how they treat the Palestinians on the WB, Abbas and his PA is serving the Israelis, he is corrupt and the people get killed, including children. That is why the PLO lost the elections and Hamas won.
The whole Western world watched the brutalities against the people and said nothing, they even funded and encouraged it, that made all of us complicit and guilty of the genocide, in its brutality it beats Hitlers death camps.
The Israelis are holding thousands of young Palestinians hostage for years without any justification, they are being tortured and treated brutally and we know it. Did our C HICKEN SH*T establishment politicians ever spoke up demanding human rights for the Palestinian people? NO, THEY NEVER DID, BUT THEY DID FUND THE CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. Hamas retaliated for almost 100 years of brutality against their people, and still there is no end to it, that is why there was Oct. 7 in the first place.
The Houthis are blocking cargo ships from going to Israel and we are all up in arms and how bad they are, we support the blockade of food and medical aid to a bleeding population in Gaza. The Israelis destroyed health care, children are being amputated without anesthetics, as has been reported by UNICEF. I CAN NOT SUPPORT SUCH INHUMANITY, can you? such things are not reported in MSM, not here, not in Israel and not in Europe.
The Hamas attacked because no one lifted a finger for them, the USA supported and funded the brutal genocide, so much brutality against defenseless women and children and men has not occurred for centuries. Look how the IDF treats young Palestinian teenagers and men. I am deeply ashamed of the chi ckensh**it scum calling itself elected government officials, in all three branches plus the chickensh**it journalists and editors of once reputable news-papers.
I really don’t think you should assume that the Palestinians would choose a brutal genocidal slaughter as a alternative to living in a concentration camp. I might want to die instead of living in that concentration camp but not the way Palestinians are dying in Israel’s attempted genocide. And he fact that Hamas is the Palestinians only hope of defense against Israel doesn’t make Hamas any less extremist or any less oppressive. The Palestinians don’t deserve Hamas. And they don’t deserve Abbas or the PA. Having choices that are equally terrible is exactly the position we as US citizens are in.
The Palestinians have experienced almost a century of terror. They can’t take anymore, see how the Israelis treat the Palestinians in the WB. The Israelis are the terrorists, not Hamas. The Israelis collect the taxes paid to support Abbas and his PA, and the Israelis refuse to hand over the money, there is no Hamas on the WB. Look at what is happening on the WB.
Watch Al-Jazeera and watch
LBC Title: ” Israel-Hamas war” with the best Israeli spokespersons Mr. Regev and Eylon Levy.
Israel and the USA and UK are terrorist states.
I know how the Palestinians have been treated. That doesn’t mean you know they’d rather die in misery by genocide or live in misery in a concentration camp. And repeating the Palestinian’s plight won’t change that. Now, whether Hamas are terrorists or not, again, doesn’t mean their actions are helping the Palestinians cause. And I wonder what you think Hamas did with those suitcases of cash the Qataris’ delivered to them on a regular basis. Do you think the money went to help the average Gazan? Do you think the Hamas leadership suffers on an equal basis as the average Gazan? When Hamas returned from their attack in Israel do you think they stayed above ground while Gaza was flattened by the IDF? Like I said, the Palestinian do not DESERVEHamas. I really don’t get your admiration for them.
But you know they would be better off living under inhumane conditions in a concentration camp?
Let me tell you, it takes chik-ken sh*t governments funding the robbing and killing of Palestinians on the WB by settlers who are protected by IDF thugs. What are you doing about that, why don’t we protect the rights of the Palestinian people? The Israelis have killed more than 300 Palestinians in the WB, almost 100 are children. Israelis are holding thousands of Palestinians in prison without any trials, what about them? We have chik-ken sh-it governments, all officials are a -kissing and participate in war crimes with the POS in Tel Aviv as long as the $$$ are coming in. I want no part of that kind of government, officials without any decency, despicable.
I am angry enough to use “strong” language for greedy people like that.
Did I say they would be better off living in a concentration camp? NO, I didn’t. Why? Because I don’t know if they’d rather die a slow miserable death in a genocide or live a miserable life in that concentration camp. And NEITHER DO YOU. But it is you that keeps saying they’d rather die a miserable death in a genocide than live a miserable life in a concentration camp. And then you go on to tell me shit I already know. I’m on the side of the Palestinians too.
The Western democracies are ganging up on the Palestinians and you criticize Hamas? Is it alright to brutalize the Palestinians, including babies, in the most brutal way possible? Don’t they have human rights just like you? Does your moral compass tell you that?
And I haven’t criticized the “western governments”? Or Israel? And my criticism of Hamas must mean I don’t care about the “babies” or I don’t believe the Palestinians have human rights? I hate to keep saying this but FUCK YOU.
Forgive me, your post is out of the ball park, too insane to be taken seriously.
This is really a more than absurd reasoning to justify the Israeli /American massacre of the Palestinians, almost 70% unarmed women and children.
Is that what Israelis can be proud of?
Again, fuck you. I wasn’t justifying the Israel/US attack. I can’t help it you’re too thick to figure that out.
“None of that justifies Hamas sacrificing Gazans on a genocidal scale and that’s exactly what they are doing.”
You accuse Hamas to commit genocide on the Gazans, their own people without any evidence.
You deliberately omitted the Israeli and US supported genocide of the people in Gaza. They bomb the people in Gaza not Hamas.
You do know damn well Hamas is not killing Palestinians. The Israelis use 2000 pound bombs to kill women and children.
Why do you turn the facts up side down like that? It discredits you.
You are not stupid, you know what you are doing. Maybe you get paid for trolling.
And you ‘re lack of comprehension is astounding. I didn’t accuse Hamas of any such thing. Israel’s is completely responsible for the ongoing genocide. I said that Hamas sacrificed their own people because they had to know what Israel’s response would be. I said that because there have been previous skirmishes where the response by Israel has been grossly disproportionate. And since this Hamas attack was on a scale much greater than anything previous, they should have known the response would be that much greater. It’s not like the rhetoric from Israel’s murderous regime could have led them to believe any differently.
Israelis are terrorizing Palestinians for almost a century, the IRGUN was a Zionists terrorist organization. Arial Sharon was an Irgun terrorist.
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the 16 – 18 September 1982 killings of between 460 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—in the city of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. It was perpetrated by the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, and supported by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that had surrounded Beirut’s Sabra neighbourhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp.
“Sharon was the Minister of Defense and the architect of the invasion of Lebanon, where he aimed to destroy the PLO and install a friendly regime in Beirut. He was widely criticized for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the siege of Beirut”
That was 1982.
In other words, you said, Hamas is responsible for this, not the Israelis, Hamas knew how brutal the Israelis are.
The whole world knows how brutal the Israelis are and did nothing to stop it.
Hamas does what the Western value democracies refuse to do, namely to hold the Israelis to account for their crimes.
Once more. Israel is solely responsible for the genocide. No other words. And once more, I can’t help it if you can’t comprehend what I’m saying. And once more, Fuck you.
Does Sabra and Shatila mean anything to you?
The Palestinians will judge Hamas. And until Ansar al Allah couraegously took an actual stand only Hamas and no one else stood up for them.
You should want to blame the Jewish resistance for the Warsaw uprising because they knew what the Nazi’s would do. Like the Nazi’s der Endlosing for the Israeli is to kill them all slowly under the cover of worldwide neglect and the arranged blackout part of the wheeling and dealing of the Western and Arab power elites or more swiftly and in full daylight.
Maybe the Israeli, whatever still left of them nominally sane, will one day judge their terrorist death cult leadership or since they’ve armed them all it will be vice versa.
This is truly insane. How does Hamas stop Israel from accomplishing its goals? Clearly it’s not about hostages.
And how did the attack change that? So, doing something that won’t work but actually would make things much worse was the answer? Do you really think Hamas was oblivious to what Israel’s response would be?
Sharon was the Minister of Defense and the architect of the invasion of Lebanon, where he aimed to destroy the PLO and install a friendly regime in Beirut. He was widely criticized for his role in the Sabra and Shatila massacre and the siege of Beirut
SAbra and Shatila happened in 1982. Sharon was a member, a leader of the Irgun terrorists.
That is why their breakout was instrumental. What would you feel like if you were born in a concentration camp, no hope, humiliated daily, watched the IDF conduct night raids, beat people, shoot people, “detail” men, women, children, watch settlers rip up olive groves or set them on fire. Miko Peled, former IDF soldier, and, the son of a Israeli general has written a book about his experiences. He was interviewed by Chris Hedges, the copy of which can be found in Scheerpost. Tell you what, I will post it here: https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/15/the-idfs-war-crimes-are-a-perfect-reflection-of-israeli-society/
If the “breakout” was going to result in me, and everyone around me, dying a horrific death that would make me long to be back in that concentration camp, I would say find another way. Especially if I knew the guards of that concentration camp were ruthless killers that showed no mercy in the past.
They have no other way, they have nothing to lose but a miserable life.
If anyone has the right of self-defense it is the Palestinian people, Hamas are the people, the victims of the concentration camp. Why do Israelis brutalize the Palestinians like that? Do you approve of that and if you don’t what have you done to stop it? What have Americans done for a minimum of human rights for the Palestinians? They have done NOTHING, they are not even honest diplomatic brokers. They fund the robbing of property and the killings by settlers and IDF thugs of the Palestinians, including children. What has our government done to stop it, red or blue, they did NOTHING they FUNDET and APPROVED of the criminal Israelis. Count all the vetoes in the UN to protect the Israeli crimes against humanity. But in the eyes of the criminal Israelis Palestinians are Human Animals.
Ok, I get it. You have decided for the people of Gaza that their miserable lives were no longer worth living. I guess they must have whole heartedly embraced Hamas’ form of self-defense that meant they would no longer have to worry about their miserable lives any longer. Usually, self-defense means protecting those you are defending and not ensuring their death. And that is what the Hamas attack did.
Hamas are their children, they were born in that very camp where they experienced the same brutality their parents did, starting the day they were born. They are not strangers, they know what the suffering and dying is all about. It is personal for them in a way you can’t understand, you think freedom and democracy in the abstract, they experienced humiliation and hunger and pain and know what it feels like, you don’t.
This has nothing to do with what the Hamas attack on October 7th ended up doing for the people of Gaza. I know how the Palestinians have been treated, I don’t need any speech from you. This about the result of what they did. And given the history of Israel’s brutality, they had to know it was going to happen.
Why don’t you put the blame where it belongs, how can you excuse the Israeli’s sadistic humiliation and brutality? Can you understand what it feels like to be treated like that in presence of your children? Can you understand the feelings and hate they feel for the Israeli thugs?
Where in the fuck do you get off telling me I even remotely excuse/excused Israel’s behavior? My profile is wide open. Go find one fucking comment where I defended Israel.
You did not defend Israel, you blamed Hamas.
Why did Hamas attack the Israelis, do you know?
It doesn’t matter. Whether for benevolent reasons or nefarious ones, the outcome was going to be the same.
What Hamas did is the result of what was done to them. Hamas militants did not grow up in a vacuum. Given the Israeli brutality they experienced, what do the Israelis and the American Biden neocons expect? They should have expected this to happen. The Israelis pretend to be the victims, they ARE NOT THE VICTIMS, they are sadistic criminals. Look at the videos the IDF thugs made. I would not want such people as neighbors, they are evil monsters. Maybe I misunderstand your logic. Why don’t you condemn what the Israelis are doing? I admit, I don’t get it.
The Palestinians have been brutally mistreated for decades, for generations, enough to make the pressure cooker explode.
What do you think they should have done? Go on living being tortured and humiliated daily, would you like to live like that or kill yourself to end it, or just roll over and take it until the day you die?
Why is there a Hamas in the first place? They have no reason to hate Israelis, the Israelis are the kindest occupiers, you can agree with me?
That has nothing to do with the comment I made.
Maybe not with your comment but the issue. Why is there a Hamas?
You decide for the Palestinians that life with dignity is not worth fighting and dying for. Watching your children dying, starving and without medical care is nothing.
But you see nothing wrong for people to die for the abstract thing like Freedom and Democracy. Ukrainians lost hundreds of thousand young men killed for no more than Ukraine become a NATO member.
For the Palestinians it is senseless to die for simple human rights and a life with dignity for themselves and their children?
Does that make sense? What do American soldiers die for other than natural resources like oil for energy giants and the weapons industry, the big war profiteers? Why did they invade Iraq, Libya, Syria, Vietnam and regime changes in Iran and many others not counting the failed ones in Venezuela and Nicaragua and so many more.
To put it mildly you have a double standard or not?
All of us want to live with dignity, that is what the Palestinians want too, they are people just like us, no more and no less.
No, Hamas decided for them. I guess Hamas decided that them dying with their dignity, like buried in rubble or starving to death, was better than living in a concentration camp. Personally, I would have wanted to have been consulted before Hamas thought it the right time to martyr me for the cause.
I don’t think it makes sense to blame them for the level of depravity aimed at civilians by Israel.
Israel is fully to blame for what it’s doing.
And Hamas is fully to blame for what it’s doing as well.
They’re peas in a pod. Both are willing to see as many Palestinians die as it takes for them to hold on to power.
I disagree with your last sentence.
They clearly don’t.
Tell me how they stop Israel from genocide. The only way they would stop is if they achieved the Palestinian diasphora.
And that’s what you think I did? The fact that I don’t think some extremist oppressive militia gives a flying fuck about their own people doesn’t mean I blame them for Israel’s ongoing genocide.
It shows what desperate people will do, they know life without dignity is not worth living. They are not human animals, no matter what you think. They are humans with human rights no matter what the Israeli and American trash thinks.
Guess what, most likely their families do support them, they would rather die than live like that. American soldiers do not experience the trauma the Palestinian children experience and all their life, without medical care.
Finally, you are not in their shoes, you do not understand the traumas they grew up with.
Is there anything you think the Israelis could do? Maybe treat people like human beings? They can’t even bring themselves to treat the people decent on the WB, they should be grateful to be treated and killed by the settlers and IDF thugs when they decide to kill them?
How crazy can you get?
The Palestinian people support and elected Hamas, they are their children, they did not elect corrupt Abbas and the PA. Abbas is corrupt, he can’t even stop the settlers from robbing and killing Palestinians and their children on the WB with help from the IDF bums.
Obama was only asking for a moratorium of the criminal settlement policies, he could not get it, not even a few months. So much for that, and Israelis are always right.
Do you know what desperate people can do?
The IDF soldiers are immature thugs, they learned to abuse and humiliate Palestinians.
Hamas people are more mature and serious. They are most likely to be older, more mature for their age, they never had a time in their life to be just children. They are traumatized young people.
What is “the other way”?
That’s like Jake asking me what else could Israel do besides genocide. I look at what their decision to attack brought about and that’s what I’m commenting on. Dying a miserable death in a genocide isn’t on my to do list and that what the attack initiated. Of course, when I say that I must be blaming Hamas and absolving Israel.
You are mitigating I didn’t say absolve.
I’m not mitigating anything. I’m not lessening Israel’s blame. I’m talking about Hamas’ reasoning relative to what they thought Israel’s response would be.
A great interview.
Maybe Hamas did not expect the IDF would kill so many Israelis? The more we hear, the more Israelis were killed by IDF people.
Do Palestinians have a right of self-defense or only the Israelis? Hamas are fighting for their families, no one else does it for them. The US is ganging up on Palestinians with Israelis and not a word of sympathy for the babies killed under the rubble.
Who protects the Palestinians against the settlers and IDF on the WB?
Is the massacre of the Palestinians justified? Children are being amputated including multi amputations without anesthetics in hospital ruins because medication is blocked, hospitals have been bombed and caretakers are being killed. What is the excuse, the justification?
That is a more than extreme brutal genocide, committed by the Israelis and supported and funded by the Americans. The crimes equal anything the Nazis did.
War on Gaza: Hostage’s mother says he was poisoned by Israeli army in tunnel
What’s your point? Do you think I’m defending the fucking IDF?
You are indirectly.
Bullshit.
Then you’re an idiot.
But we already knew that.
And you’re a liar.
But I already proved that.
Yes, if the fantasy world you live in is real, I’m a liar.
But the fantasy world you live in isn’t real.
But the fantasy world you live in isn’t real.
But it’s not in anyone’s fantasy world.. It’s right here on a lengthy thread from yesterday for all to read.
Thomas, how do you know that? Your world is not real by all reliable accounts, propaganda and bias is just that.
Did you ever watch Al Jazeera news? Try it, it is a different perspective than the narrative CNN, CBS, FOX and others provide.
I was getting a lot more of my news from Al Jazeera than from CNN, CBS, and Fox combined long before you suggested that.
Glad you do, it happened to come up based on the topic of the posts.
Then what was the PLO under Abbas, if not a complicit partner with Israel in its humiliation, subjugation of fellow Palestinians? Abbas is just a fat cat who has done nothing. The majority of the Palestinians in Gaza knew that when the civilian arm of Hamas was elected by them. The reaction of the U.S. of Atrocities and Israel? Arrests of some of the Hamas political directors, and the installation of a brutal blockade that limited to nearly zero anything going in and anything going out, to the point of calculating caloric needs of Palestinians to supply just enough food to meet the standard of starvation plus, along with limiting potable water, electricity, medicines. The breakout by the young Palestinians was instrumental in that they knew that the Zionist administration of Israel, led by Bibi, would show its true face to the world. The extremely sad deal is that just like after the Cast Lead and Protective Edge “operations”, nothing will be done. Nothing. I predict that the ICJ will not convict, not due to the “technicality”, but that the “eye sore”, the Palestinians people, will be hustled to the Sinai, to keep them quiet in their tents, to die. The West Bank and Gaza will be so very wonderful, with million dollar beach homes (a realtor in Israel has already proposed such), development of offshore gas (which should belong to the Palestinians). The Palestinians and Hamas? Forgotten. A footnote in history, save for a few books buried in libraries.
A regional war could be the end of Israel as we know it. No need to cry for Israel, the Israelis had a chance and they wasted it.
Feel free to point out anywhere that I’ve endorsed the PA, if you can find it (hint: You can’t).
That doesn’t make Hamas “heroes.” They’re just a different kind of vicious corrupt thugs than the PA.
To have a different opinion is enough to call him/her an idiot? Thomas, that cuts two ways, you are an idiot in his eyes, or not?
I don’t consider him an idiot, just a sore loser still butt hurt from being called on his BS.
LOL, just a friendly disagreement, it is all part of the game. If we can’t take it we better don’t post.
It’s as friendly as we’re as liable to get around here.
My point in posting the “Hamas are Heroes” thing was because for the last few months nobody was allowed to make any sort of defense of the Palestinian people without first acknowledging how vile and reprehensible Hamas was for doing what they did.
Me, I wasn’t convinced. The scenes of carnage was a lot more than could be done with AKs and RPGs… Sure enough, word got through that the deed was done with IDF helicopter gun ships and tanks.. And under orders to fire with extreme prejudice.
As far as I’m concerned it’s the IDF that are the terrorists and have been all along. I won’t throw the brave men who so valiantly tried to liberate their people from the hells-cape of Zionist torture chambers aside!
If I have to endure the taunts of the feeble minded who bought into the Occupation’s narrative, then so be it. It doesn’t discourage… It emboldens me!
Peace
I fully agree with you. I always considered Hamas to be a legal militia, what they used to call partisans. The terrorists are IDF thugs in uniform. I did not think Hamas took a break during the fighting to gang rape any woman. What I did not know is the fact that the Kibbutz are military posts not just farmers. I don’t know of any evidence backing up war crimes committed by Hamas, but plenty evidence of IDF war crimes. But pigheaded people are hopeless people with their own narratives.
I don’t understand how anyone, who is not a politician, can not have an opinion. My whole heart goes out to the children and the other adults and their pain to watch the children die, unable to help them.
Public manipulation is killing the nations conscience and moral compass.
Yes, the IDF are terrorists.
And so is Hamas.
If you’re looking for good guys, neither group fits the bill.
There you go again with the false moral equivalency… A very safe but cowardly position.
The moral equivalency isn’t false.
Murder is bad. I don’t like murder or murderers, and condemn them. I don’t give some murderers a pass while condemning other murderers.
None of which says anything about my position on Israel v. Palestine as such.
I can think my neighbor is a fuckhead for letting his dog shit on my lawn, and my neighbor can think I’m a fuckhead for playing Skynyrd really loud at 3am, and either of us might have a good case.
But if we decide to murder each other’s children over it, we’re both murderers regardless of the quality of our grievances.
Armed resistance is justified when people are occupied.
That’s not just my opinion, that’s international law.
Don’t like kids getting dead?.. End the occupation!
I agree entirely with that.
Except that I blame all the people who murder the kids, not just the people whose reasons for murdering the kids aren’t as good.
Murdering kids isn’t “resistance” to anything or “defense” from anything. It’s just murdering kids.
I have no sympathy for people who put there kids in a conflict zone.
I save that for people who through no fault of their own woke up one day and found themselves in one.
That’s a fair point. My sympathy, however, is not with the people who put the kids in the conflict zone. It’s with the kids.
Haven’t any of those since this broke out.. No forty decapitated ones, that’s for sure.
No, having a different opinion isn’t enough to call him/her an idiot.
Having a fucking idiotic opinion, however, is.
Who decides it is an idiotic opinion? It does work both ways, opinions are just that opinions based on facts and other back ground input, like culture and life experience. Just a reminder, I know you know that too.
The Likud party doesn’t promote heroes. Hamas is just as bad as Netenyahu.
Hamas doesn’t do genocide like your boy Bibi.
Hamas retaliated against decades of Israeli terrorism and brutality against their parents, grandparents and themselves and siblings and their own children.
It is obvious self-defense, see the treatment WB Palestinians have to suffer, there is no Hamas, only the corrupt PA and corrupt Abbas.
Yes, they did. With terrorism and brutality of their own. They killed innocent people at the music festival. They took innocents as hostages. I don’t consider that self-defense.
The IDF killed most of the Israelis Oct. 7, they had the weapons to do it, Hamas did not.
What is self defense? Waiting for more genocide and firing back?
The music festival was not supposed to take place. The aim was the IDF, this was according to Israeli news who claimed soldiers found plans.
And if Israel was aware the attacks were going to take place and then shelled houses and shot everyone including Israelis, there isn’t a comparison.
And if Hamas limited their attacks to the IDF, I wouldn’t be making these comments. But, on the way to take some soldiers for a POW exchange they ran into a music festival, and I guess they couldn’t resist killing some innocent people and taking some of them hostage. They also went into civilian homes with the intent of taking some of those people as hostages as well. But the IDF had other plans which shouldn’t have surprised anyone. But mainly my point was that everyone with half a brain knew what Israel’s response would be. The attack did nothing but make the miserable lives of Gazans even much more miserable. Maybe future Palestinian generations will think the martyrdom of 2 million people was worth it because they have better lives, but I really have a hard time believing that.
So.. they find civilians and should’ve hopped back over to attack later?
Israel :Look what you made me do?
I don’t think Hamas is s group of angels by any stretch of the imagination but your mitigation of Israel’s long range ethnic cleansing plans and pogroms, with or without a Hamas attack, is stunning.
Let’s say a wife is abused for decades. Her husband kills some of her extended family, torments them, beats them, keeps her locked up in the house as a prisoner. She’s had enough, attacks him and it is equally her fault that the husband kills her children and burns down the house in revenge?
So, they run into civilians and what the fuck, might as well kill them?
Not once I have suggested that Hamas made Israel do anything. I said they knew what Israel’s response would be. So did you and I. And Israel’s long range ethnic cleansing plans didn’t change with the Hamas attack, they were just fast forwarded.
You analogy would hold water if the Hamas attack put an end to anything. It didn’t. If Hamas was able to go in an exact revenge for the decades of abuse by Israel without bringing on a genocidal attack to the 2 million people in Gaza than your analogy might make sense.
Your belief is that everyone should accept their lot.
No, it isn’t. My belief is that they should have realized what Israel’s response would be and made them realize they were only going to make their own people’s lives much more miserable than it already was.
You are again indirectly. You are blaming them for the deeds of someone else. And you offer no alternative that would have been effective. Status quo would have continued the deaths albeit slower.
There is no comparison between the decades long apartheid and abuse of people and a small attack where probably half were killed by their own government.
It is not the same. I don’t know why you’ve taken a turn toward this path as a hill you want to die on. It seems out of character, but you have your beliefs which I’m not spending any more time of influence on.
Again, I blame Israel solely for their genocidal attack on Gaza. I guess I can’t say that enough. Israel needed an excuse. Hamas gave them one. That doesn’t mean I think Israel was in the right to use that excuse. I would even give Hamas the benefit of the doubt and say they had no idea Israel’s response would be on the level of genocide, but they knew damn well. It’s not like their previous skirmishes with Israel didn’t result in disproportionate responses.
Your alternative? There are disproportionate brutal responses to Palestinians’ mere existence for not being Jews.
Who was going to fix this?
That’s implying that Hamas had no other choice. It was either the status quo or an attack that Hamas had to know would set the murderous Israeli government off on a course that they are presently on. So,
the Palestinian choices with either would be death.
The question still is, Who is going to fix this? The Hamas attack certainly wasn’t the answer.
What was the alternative?
It ain’t over till it’s over.
Still got my money on Palestine prevailing in the end.
It’s already “over” for way too many people.
I wish what you say about the Palestinians to be true. But Israel preferred Hamas for a reason.
“Bezalel Smotrich, leader of Israel’s Religious Zionist Party and the current finance minister: The PA is a liability and Hamas is an asset. On the international playing field in this game of delegitimization, think about for a second, the PA is a liability and Hamas is an asset. It’s a terrorist organization. Nobody will recognize it, nobody will give it status at the ICC [International Criminal Court] and nobody will let them push resolutions at the UN [causing us to] need an American veto,” Smotrich said in 2015.
Regardless of if Hamas is a terrorist organization or not, there is no way they’ll ever shake that description from those conducting this genocide. So, the Palestinians are fucked. The genocide has got to stop pronto for anything to mean a pinch of shit.
there is no way they’ll ever shake that description from those conducting this genocide.
So who cares what they think. They’re Nazis.
If it were only that simple.
Next thing we know Our senile leader will designate it as a Special Military Operation.
My God, he really is an asshole.
“Perhaps a more difficult but no less necessary task is to speak for those who have been designated as our enemies. […] What must they (the Viet Cong) think of the United States of America when they realize that we permitted the repression and cruelty of Diem, which helped to bring them into being as a resistance group in the South? What do they think of our condoning the violence which led to their own taking up of arms? How can they believe in our integrity when now we speak of “aggression from the North” as if there were nothing more essential to the war? How can they trust us when now we charge them with violence after the murderous reign of Diem and charge them with violence while we pour every new weapon of death into their land? Surely we must understand their feelings, even if we do not condone their actions. Surely we must see that the men we supported pressed them to their violence. Surely we must see that our own computerized plans of destruction simply dwarf their greatest acts. […]
They question our political goals and they deny the reality of a peace settlement from which they will be excluded. Their questions are frighteningly relevant. Is our nation planning to build on political myth again, and then shore it up upon the power of new violence?
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence, when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weaknesses of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.”
-MLK, Jr. 1967
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
MLK, Jr. is speaking about the Vietnam War but his words remain relevant for America, and also pertain to our 20 + year military adventure in the Middle East.
Those words were the last straw for the neocons. He could be tolerated for his stands and speeches against racial injustice, as well a pleas for peace, but when he criticized the MIC, that was it.
This is what I believe. He was killed almost a year to the day after he utter these words.
When you can’t defeat them, sanction them…!
Or at least give ’em a cool evil-sounding name.
I guess S.P.E.C.T.R.E and COBRA were already taken. But including “Global” in the name both calls back to the Global War On Terror for fans of the 9/11 Era AND implies all other countries should care for…reasons ?
Doesn’t make much difference…! Houthis have survived with terrorist status before and they continue to survive…! They’re not going anywhere…!
Caitlin Johnson:
That’s right kids: when Yemen sets up a blockade to try and stop an active genocide, that’s terrorism, but when the US empire imposes a blockade to secure its geostrategic interests in the middle east, why that’s just the rules-based international order in action.
She may be the Molly Ivins of our time.
The words terrorist and terrorism have become so overused that any foe is brushed with that term. About as bad as the words racist and hero (and its derivates) are overused and applied with the same broad brush as the final coat of paint.
And you dared to call me a terrorist while you looked down your gun
When I think of all the deeds that you had done
You had plundered many nations, divided many lands
You had terrorized their peoples, you ruled with an iron hand
And you brought this reign of terror to my land
Spooky how well an old Irish Republican song fits here.
The US is really a terrorist nation, they support and organize assassinations and regime changes and destabilize societies continents away from them. They simply declare a nation a terrorist nation to justify illegal sanctions and military aggressions. It is a monstrous criminal nation. The cover for their crimes is always for the blessings of freedom and democracy.
And just like that, millions of Americans just became targets. One more bullseye taped to our foreheads- but this time, we’ve managed to piss off an opponent we know has absolutely no problem with taking us on.
That’s mitigating. Israel is solely responsible for what they are doing. No one else, except for Biden.
Right. Any questioning of Hamas’ recklessness means I’m giving Israel some kind of justification for carrying out a genocide. It’s kind of disappointing to read the replies to my comments, especially from you. I’ve made myself perfectly clear on who I think is completely to blame for the ongoing genocide.
You were claiming that their actions were responsible for genocide.
I said their attacks were the justification Israel was looking for to carry out this genocide. Israel was always looking for a big number. I’ve said over and over that Israel is completely responsible for this genocide. And my main point all along is that Hamas had to know this. So, when I originally responded to a comment about Hamas as being “Heroes” or “Freedom Fighters”, I wasn’t trying to suggest that I thought Israel was in any way justified in what they were doing. I just think the praise of Hamas is unjustified. If everyone wants to rip me a new asshole for saying that, have at it.
US Re-Designates US as ‘Specially Designated Global Terrorists’