Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.
Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?
Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".
Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.
Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.
As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Saturday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Yemen! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
::: spoiler Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Your (very short) Saturday Briefing:
96% of Saudis think that Arab nations should cut ties with Israel, and 40% of Saudis have a positive view of Hamas, compared to 10% months before the conflict began. Not that democratic sentiment means much in a monarchy, but worth loosely keeping an eye on.
The Sudanese Armed Forces have had a pretty serious defeat lately, after a couple months of relatively little movement (though even this "little movement" puts all the territorial losses and gains in the Ukraine War since June to shame; such is non-attrition war). The opposing Rapid Support forces have seized Wad Madani and some other major towns/cities in Jezira State, which is much more agricultural and populated than the western desert regions that the RSF has had their strongholds in before. This was a pretty surprising defeat for the SAR, especially due to the seeming lack of attempt to conduct any defensive urban warfare, and it's been a real kick up the ass for the pro-SAR population and politicians and leading to a lot of arguments and controversy about the military and what the fuck it's even doing. Given that hundreds of thousands of people had fled from other attacked areas to Jezeira State due to its assumed safety, this is very much not good for the civilian populace either, who are now fleeing again. You can compare the current map on NATOpedia to how the battlefield was just two months ago. Meanwhile, the SAF is accusing the UAE of supporting the RSF (they are), and some Democrats in the US Congress are calling on the UAE to end its support for the RSF.
Japan's defense spending is increasing by over 16% next year, up to a record $56 billion, and is loosening arms export controls, including being able to sell Patriot missiles that it manufactures to the US, whose stockpiles are dwindling. You know what they say, if your air defense missiles don't work on hypersonic missiles and they don't really work on drone swarms, the two major threats to your current military hegemony, just make even more of them and confidently state that this is Fine And Good, Actually, instead of trying a different strategy!
Podoliak, senior aide to Zelensky, has said that Ukrainian men of fighting age who fled the conflict should be forced to return, and that restrictions should be put in place to limit their access to aid and services in their places of stay in order to pressure them to return to Ukraine.
Interesting events recently in the Palestine War.
The Gazan resistance has successfully caused enough damage to the Golani Brigade, the most elite Israel brigade, to force them to withdraw and recuperate. Given NATO doctrine, this implies that about a third of the brigade has been wiped out (dead+seriously wounded) as it takes a brigade being brought down to 70% of its original numbers to become combat ineffective. Things are thus going pretty badly for the Israel military inside Gaza despite the triumphant rhetoric and propaganda from the Zionist Propaganda Torment Nexus.
Nawaf Al Mussawi, Hizbullah’s official chargé of the Resources & Borders dossier: “Once our brothers in Hamas started the Al Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7, the element of surprise vanished. We [in Hizbullah] asked them about their strategic vision. When we questioned Hamas about the possibility of ending the aggression on Gaza through Hizbullah’s engagement in an all-out war, they said the aggression on Gaza wouldn’t stop. The war on Gaza will only end when the ‘Israeli’ fighter is defeated within Gaza.”
So, basically, Hamas doesn't want Hezbollah to start shit for realsies up on the northern front, at least not yet. This confirms my suspicions in November that it was Hamas who was telling Hezbollah not to do anything yet because they're acting on a much larger plan than most realize. That all being said, Hezbollah attacks are still regular, with 10-15 per day, give or take. There was some kind of serious incident on the northern border a day or two ago that prompted Israeli military censorship but idk what was that about. Also, Hezbollah took out those two Iron Dome batteries recently, and their attack on a settler settlement went un-intercepted, suggesting they were indeed destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has been a little quieter than usual, until yesterday when they announced that they have struck the Karish gas field off the coast of Israel. A notable escalation on Israel energy supplies, therefore. I think we're in the realm of 100 total attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria, though I haven't been paying too much attention, so correct me if I'm wrong. So still quite busy overall.
And, of course, Ansarallah pissing off the West. Further down the thread, John Helmer's coverage of what's going on there was mentioned. You can see this map from Naked Capitalism showing how busy the Red Sea is becoming. The Western naval forces are lining up to overlap their missile defence ranges to provide as much coverage as possible over the Red Sea, though obviously the whole problem of using million-dollar missiles to shoot down swarms of drones worth mere thousands of dollars has been covered in this thread before. Until the missiles and drones start flying, though, who can say what will truly happen.
My thinking is that Hamas wants to engineer the internal collapse of the Israeli state in order to minimize the possibility of a nuclear strike.
In order to do this, they need to specifically not create an existential war for Israel, which would occur if Hezbollah began raining missiles down across the country. The conflict needs to be kept at a relatively low level, and pressure steadily applied via the use of the escalation ladder. The effect of northen border skirmishes, attacks in Iraq and Syria, losses in Gaza, and a blockade of the Red Sea are designed to be cumulative effects.
An extremely important point is that this is a ladder. The Israeli state must always feel like it can back down and it will be met with a lessened response. I hate to bring up Sun Tzu, but he was right when he said that cornered men fight harder than those with no routes of escape. When the Israelis agreed to a temporary ceasefire, ALL of the Resistance stopped. This was critical - it meant that the Israelis know that they can stop the pressure at any time if they stop in Gaza, and the rest of the Resistance will honor the terms. If the Resistance had not done this, then the state and capitalists would be in total lockstep. Now, the capitalists can be separated from the state in their interests because the capitalists will have seen that the pressure on them can stop if a peace deal is made.
An additional factor here is the people of Israel. Obviously, few of them are fans of Hamas or Palestinians in general. But they also know now that the conflict, the harm to their families and their livelihoods and their homes, can be stopped if the state makes peace - this doesn't HAVE to be existential. They are not cornered, they have an escape route. Hamas has been using the hostages very cleverly - obviously, Hamas wouldn't torture and kill them anyway if they could avoid it so it's not totally cynical, but treating them as well as possible has injected confusion into the Israelis and the West generally, and Israeli propganda has been in overdrive to stop this image of well-cared-for hostages from spreading. Additionally, they recently upped the requirement for Israel to get their hostages back, now also asking for a total ceasefire. This shows that Hamas has seen that they have the advantage and initiative here, and believe that they can tie the movement inside Israel to free the hostages to ending the war. It gives both sides a "easy" out, as Israeli brigades get mauled in Gaza but the government does not wish to admit it. They can now say that they haven't been beaten, but instead are giving up for the sake of the hostages. It will probably take more weeks and months of fighting for the state to reach this point, though.
Where exactly this leads in terms of achieiving a free Palestine isn't totally clear to me yet, though I expect Sinwar has post-war plans. But the loss of legitimacy and prestige for Netanyahu and his government for failing to beat Hamas - and Netanyahu is already disliked by many - will be very significant.
I have been of the opinion for awhile now that the plan for Hamas is and always has been twofold. Either Israel gives in and exchanges the hostages for prisoners, or they invade into heavily occupied enemy territory and fall into the world's most obvious trap. Having Hezbollah attack would only divert Israeli forces away from the ground that Hamas has chosen to fight on, and instead have Hezbollah fight on ground that Israel has chosen to fight on.
The thing is that Israel because of their high-tech surveillance systems, mistakenly believes that they can control Gaza. They cannot, they can only obliterate it, and obliteration makes things easier for Hamas to operate on the ground. Hamas does seem to worry about the direct collateral damage they cause when they fight, but if Israel destroys everything, then there are only Israelis in the area to attack.
The only way Israel could have 'won' this situation, was to either secretly deal with Hamas or just do bombing runs, neither of which are possible given their hubris and settler mentality.
I imagine Hamas planned to hold the hostages in their own homes for a few days until israel did a prisoner swap but that Hamas was surprised by how many israeli hostages got killed by the IDF.
I blame the ravers. If that shit hadn't been happening and Hamas and police hand't had a shootout with hundreds of "civilians" in the cross fire I think things would have gone way better. If the IDF hadn't have been willing to shoot tanks at houses full of hostages and didn't order helicopters to fire on anything that moves Hamas would have had 1000 Israeli hostages. They would have been able to do the biggest prisoner swap in the history of the conflict.
Its probably not the ravers fault really. Part of me thinks the zionists knew about the attack in advance and purposely used it to massacre civilians and blame it on Hamas so they could go do genocide.