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.
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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.
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.
I feel like the list should specify that you should first try and get involved in an actual org like PSL instead of just saying “join organizations”, but lots of people don’t live anywhere close to where a good org is. And something about trying to get a union going in your workplace if that’s an option for you. But I’m going to be honest I read through it and felt it was fine and didn’t get the impression it was satire.
The reality is there are a lot of people on the left with a lot of potential. Practically everyone on this site has the potential to be a part of a pretty great cadre IRL. Yeah the list seems basic but we - we as individuals and we as a larger society - have to start somewhere. This is where we are at - as individuals and as a society. Going from 0.001% communism to 0.002% communism might seem pointless but if we just sit around and post memes all day we’re guaranteed to stay at 0.001%.
Edit: people like to take the piss out of Jordan Peterson for telling young men to clean their rooms but you know what? That shit works. That’s where a lot of young men are at. If 17 year old star_wraith had heard that “clean your room” message it would have been revelatory to me. And not only that, but I would have been into hearing more from the person who was bothering to give me simple advice that everyone else skipped over. If you write people off as hopeless who actually have potential you are leaving them to get swept up by people who don’t think that about them.
I agree there is a lot of potential, but the Western left needs strategy. I literally don’t know what their goals are and nothing about their strategy, apart from releasing statements condemning this or that. How do you intend to gain political power? - that is my question.
You don’t need one million people to start a revolution, you need to use the knowledge and theories to at least have the intellectual curiosity to explore how to start gaining political power. The Western left is not doing that, even with all the useful tools like the internet to connect with one another.
I brought up China’s example in another comment to show that once you have identified the principal contradiction and have developed a set of strategies going forward, even when you are down to a few thousand party cadres, it is still possible to gain political power in spite of being overwhelmingly outnumbered. China could easily have gone down a completely different path in history, had it not for Mao who developed the theoretical insight to chart a path forward for Chinese socialism.
Those are all really great points. Developing that strategy is both the hardest thing and most important thing for us Western leftists to do. I admittedly have not put the time into this I should have.