"Children in the Gaza Strip don't have PTSD, it's not a post-traumatic event, it's an ongoing trauma."

Watch this from my friend Mohammed, a doctor from Gaza.

Even before its current genocide, Israeli oppression makes a decent life for Gazans impossible from day they are born. [_link]

— Matt Kennard (@kennardmatt) November 30, 2023

Ireland wants to see a permanent and sustainable ceasefire, the lifting of the blockade on Gaza  

Ireland was the first EU member state to declare that a solution to the conflict in the Middle East had to be based on a fully sovereign State of Palestine, independent of and co-existing with Israel?

That was in 1980, in a joint declaration by the Foreign Ministers of Ireland and Bahrain.

Since then, every Irish Government has given a high priority to the achievement of a "two state solution", which is now the accepted goal of all international efforts. The Middle East Peace Process remains a key foreign policy priority for the Government. Along with our EU partners, Ireland supports all efforts to restart comprehensive negotiations for an overall peace agreement.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached catastrophic proportions

Among Gaza's population of 2.2 million people, more than 1.7 million have been displaced by the conflict. The aid that has entered Gaza since the beginning of a humanitarian pause on 24 November barely registers against the dire needs for food, water, fuel, life-saving medicines and supplies, sanitation and adequate shelter.

"More aid is urgently needed in Gaza to save lives and stem the torrent of human suffering," said UNFPA Executive Director Dr. Natalia Kanem in remarks to the UN Security Council. "Unimpeded access of humanitarian workers and of supplies, including sexual and reproductive health services, is a matter of life and death for women and girls."

Among Gaza's population, more than 540,000 people - about one in four - are women and girls of reproductive age. An estimated 5,500 women are due to give birth within the next 30 days, which will result in more than 180 deliveries every day. An estimated 840 women may experience pregnancy or birth-related complications. With hospitals overwhelmed by casualties and lacking essential fuel, medicines and basic supplies, many people will be cut off from safe delivery services.

UNFPA is focused on getting life-saving reproductive health supplies into Gaza. So far it has delivered five truckloads of reproductive health kits, containing pharmaceuticals, equipment and supplies for emergency obstetric and neonatal care, including anaesthetics for use during Caesarean sections. UNFPA is also distributing clean delivery kits to improve the hygienic conditions for births, wherever they may occur, as well as kits for women who have recently given birth.

With 80 per cent of the population in Gaza displaced, the risk of gender-based violence has also increased exponentially for women and girls who are on the move or seeking refuge in overcrowded shelters, where conditions are increasingly distressing.

When the children have to hold press conferences on behalf of themselves to beg for their lives. What a stain on humanity. pic.twitter.com/N7VEhR9VEj

— Dr. Omar Suleiman (@omarsuleiman504) November 7, 2023

-- WATCH: Greg Stoker, US war veteran, explains why the IOF is losing so many officers (& so little to no soldiers)

Officer are sent first to the front lines, to deal with situations, but then they would get sniped out easily by the resistance. Having 19 year old officers shows... pic.twitter.com/yQ5HT9ppxg

— Arya - آریا 🇮🇷 (@AryJeay) December 14, 2023

[...]
The world's largest shipping group, the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), announced they were suspending operations in the Red Sea until further notice due to an increased risk of attacks.

The Danish shipping giant Maersk, German company Hapag-Lloyd, and French company CMA CGM have also suspended Red Sea transits.
[...]
UK Defence Secretary [!] Grant Shapps said in a [X-]statement on the increasing attacks that they represented "a direct threat to international commerce ["prosperity"?] and maritime security in the Red Sea."
David Osler, an insurance editor for Lloyd's List Intelligence, told The Associated Press that insurance costs had doubled for vessels passing through the Red Sea, and that the most expensive ships could have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars more per journey.

For Israeli ship owners, they have gone up even more—by 250%—and some insurers won't cover them at all, he said.

Osler expects insurance costs to keep rising but said the situation would have to get a lot worse—such as the loss of several ships—to raise prices considerably and make some ship owners rethink moving through the region.

"At the moment, it's just an inconvenience that the system can handle," [Osler] said. "Nobody likes to be paying hundreds of thousands of dollars more, but you can live with it if you have to."
[...]

Gaza's Second Front: Houthi Drones Drive Major Shipping Cos. out of Red Sea in Blow to World Trade | Informed Comment - Juan Cole |

On Saturday, Muhammad al-Bakhiti, a member of the Politburo of the the Helpers of God (Houthi ) government of northern Yemen, announced that it had completely closed off shipping to Israel via the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea. Actually, the Helpers of God have more or less closed Red Sea shipping to everyone. He said that the Houthis had managed to idle the Israeli port of Eilat, referring to it by its pre-1948 name of Umm al-Rashrash. He pledged that the Houthis would expand their activities in the Red Sea and continue to strike at Israeli shipping and shipping headed for Israel, as well as at the Israeli navy.

He also soid that his government would not allow any American shipments to Yemen, and called on other Arab countries to boycott not only Israeli but also American trade in the region.

The Gaza conflict has several theaters. There is the Israeli war of genocide on the Palestinians of Gaza, which has killed over 18,000 people and wounded tens of thousands, the vast majority of them innocent noncombatants, and destroyed or damaged about half the region's housing stock along with other essential infrastructure and buildings. It has also left the civilian population without sufficient food or water and exposed to deadly infectious diseases.

Then there is the tense Israeli-Lebanese border, where Israel has bombed from fighter jets and Hezbollah has fired rockets, necessitating the evacuation of some of northern Israel.

There have been Shiite militia attacks on US personnel in Syria and Iraq, with more threatened.

Houthi Drones Have Become Cruise Missiles | 16 Sept. 2019 |

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide

..The new GST [Global Stock Take]  avoids the unfortunate earlier situation in which the initial GST text triggered OPEC and other oil and gas-producing countries with the incredibly hurtful words "phase-out." Instead, the new GST more gently calls upon countries to engage in such global efforts as "transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems."...

[...]
BP's decision, the most tangible sign of disruption to energy flows since the Hamas-Israel war started, comes days after all the world's top container shipping lines said they were temporarily halting. Norway's Equinor ASA made a similar announcement hours later.

The moves came as a fuel tanker was struck by an "unidentified object" on Monday, according to its owner. Attacks are now occurring almost daily. An insurance committee that evaluates maritime risk widened the area in the Red Sea that it said was the most dangerous.
[...]
The Joint War Committee on Monday expanded the portion of the Red Sea that it considers to be part of the world's riskiest waters.

The Joint War Committee comprises underwriting representatives from both the Lloyd's and IUA company markets, representing the interests of those who write marine hull war business in the London market. It usually meets quarterly; also see Committee Terms of Reference. The JWC retains independent security advisers, Herminius, whose  < wipes tears > objective input informs and underpins the Listed Areas.

LMA Competition Law Guidance (2021) < wipes tears >

Listed Areas ...

That expansion will mean the amount of time that ships need cover against war risks will increase. The cost of such cover has increased almost tenfold since the attacks first began.
[...]
There are 46 container vessels that have diverted around the southern tip of Africa rather than using the Red Sea and a further 78 awaiting instructions, Ryan Petersen, the founder of logistics firm Flexport said on X. Diverting means ships can't use Egypt's Suez Canal, a conduit for 12% of global seaborne trade. That's at a time when one alternative trade route—the Panama Canal—has also become constrained because of < wipes tears > drought.
[...]

In the second half of October, only five U.S. Gulf grain vessels bound for east Asia transited the Panama Canal, while 33 sailed east to use the Suez Canal instead, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report. In the same period last year, 34 vessels used the Panama Canal while only seven used the Suez. Some U.S. exporters have also been rerouting crop shipments to Asia to load from Pacific Northwest ports instead. But that, too, comes at a higher cost as those facilities source grain mostly via rail as opposed to the cheaper barge-delivered loads supplying Gulf Coast exporters.

Oil tanker Cururo is taking the long way from Houston to Chile, sailing the length of South America's Atlantic coast, across the Strait of Magellan and heading up the Pacific coast before discharging. The voyage could take 32 days and travel more than 10,000 nautical miles (18,520 km) before it ends next week, compared with about 23 days and less than 5,000 miles for a typical route through the Panama Canal.
[...]

reference
Titus Herminius Aquilinus, republican
unfccc.int | Outcome of the first global stocktake, 12 Dec COP28
28 (d): "Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems, in a just, orderly and equitable manner, accelerating action in this critical decade, so as to achieve net zero by 2050 in keeping with the science;"
opec.org | Annual Statistical Bulletin 2023, interactive charts
rumble.com | West's Moral Authority Ended With Support for Israel's Crimes- Dr. Mansour Almarzoqi

[...]
A multinational task force led by America's navy is already operating off the Yemeni coast in order to try to deter the Houthis from forcibly boarding ships—a raid was disrupted in November—and firing missiles. It includes both Egypt and Saudi Arabia. In recent weeks American, British, and French warships have all intercepted Houthi drones and missiles, and America has asked Australia [LOL!] to send a warship, too.

But this defensive armada has struggled to keep the [fossil fuel phase out] crisis under control. The Houthis have demonstrated that a few drones and missiles can always get through. One potential next step involves armed escorts for merchant shipping, which America used in the 1980s during the so-called tanker war between Iran and Iraq. But these require a very large number of warships, according to naval sources involved in the debate.
[...]

[...]
By stopping service to Israel, OOCL appears to satisfy the Houthis' political conditions for safe passage.

coincidence Joint Trilateral Statement, exploration deal, ceasefire talks

Unlike its Western peers, OOCL has not announced plans to cease navigation through this strategic waterway. If it continues to operate using the Suez Canal, it will benefit from a 1,900 nautical mile distance savings relative to competitors who choose the Cape route. Spot prices on this core east-west tradelane have begun to spike, bringing a potential revenue opportunity for an industry with an otherwise bleak financial outlook this year.

OOCL is owned by the Chinese state through COSCO Shipping, the world's largest shipowner by tonnage.

Description of Hormuz [Polo:63-66]

CHAPTER XVI

OF THE CITY OF ORMUS, SITUATED ON AN ISLAND NOT FAR FROM THE MAIN, IN THE SEA OF INDIA OF ITS COMMERCIAL IM PORTANCE AND OF THE HOT WIND THAT BLOWS THERE.

AT the extremity of the plain before mentioned as extending in a southern direction to the distance of five days journey, there is a descent for about twenty miles, by a road that is extremely dangerous, from the multitude of robbers, by whom travellers are continually assaulted and plundered. [1] This declivity conducts you to another plain, very beautiful in its appearance, two days journey in extent, which is called the plain of Ormus. Here you cross a number of fine streams, and see a country covered with date-palms, amongst which are found the francoline partridge, birds of the parrot kind, and a variety of others unknown to our climate. At length you reach the border of the ocean, where, upon an island, at no great distance from the shore, stands a city named Ormus, [2]
--
¹ "In the mountains near Hormuz, it is said, there is much cultivated land, and cattle, and many strong places. On every mountain there is a chief, and they have an allowance from the sultan or sovereign; yet they infest the roads of Kirman, and as far as the borders of Fars and Sejestan. They commit their robberies on foot ; and it is said that their race is of Arabian origin, and that they have accumulated vast wealth." Sir W. Ouseley  transl. of Ibn Haukal, p. 140.
² The original city of Ormuz, or Hormuz, was situated on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Persia, in the province of Mogostan, and kingdom of Kirman. Ibn Haukal, about the latter part of the tenth century, speaks evidently of this city, on the main, when he says: "Hormuz is the emporium of the merchants in Kirman, and their chief sea-port: it has mosques and market-places, and the merchants reside in the suburbs." p. 142. It was destroyed by one of the princes who reigned in Kirman, of the Seljuk dynasty, according to some accounts, or the Moghul, according to others. The exact period is not satisfactorily ascertained. On this occasion, the inhabitants removed, with their most valuable effects, to the neighbouring island of Jerun, about thirteen geographical miles from the former situation, where the foundation of the new city of Hormuz, or Ormuz, destined to acquire still greater celebrity than the former, was laid, although under the disadvantages of wanting water, and of a soil impregnated with salt and sulphur. Abulfeda, who wrote in the early part of the fourteenth century, and was a contemporary of our author, describes the insular city. This island was taken from the native princes, in 1507, by the Portuguese, under the famous Alfonso Albuquerque. "In their hands," says Robertson, "Ormuz soon be came the great mart from which the Persian empire, and all the pro vinces of Asia to the west of it, were supplied with the productions of India; and a city which they built on that barren island, destitute of water, was rendered one of the chief seats of opulence, splendour, and luxury in the eastern world." Historical Disquisition, p. 140. From them it was wrested, in 1622, by Shah Abbas, with the assistance of an English squadron. Its fortifications, and other public structures, were razed by that conqueror; and its commerce was transferred to a place on the neighbouring coast, called Gambrun, to which he gave the name of Bandar Abbassi. But in the meantime the discovery of the pas sage from Europe by the Cape of Good Hope operated to divert the general trade into a new channel, and that which was carried on by the medium of ports in the Gulf of Persia rapidly declined. In the year 1765, when Niebuhr visited these parts, the island on which Hormuz stood was possessed by a person who had been in the naval service of Nadir Shah, and the place was become quite insignificant.

The vessels built at Ormus are of the worst kind, and danger ous for navigation, exposing the merchants and others who make use of them to great hazards. Their defects proceed from the circumstance of nails not being employed in the con struction; the wood being of too hard a quality, and liable to split or to crack like earthenware. When an attempt is made to drive a nail, it rebounds, and is frequently broken. The planks are bored, as carefully as possible, with an iron auger, near the extremities; and wooden pins or trenails being driven into them, they are in this manner fastened (to the stem and stern). After this they are bound, or rather sewed together, with a kind of rope-yarn stripped from the husk of the Indian (cocoa) nuts, which are of a large size, and covered with a fibrous stuff like horse-hair. This being steeped in water until the softer parts putrefy, the threads or strings remain clean, and of these they make twine for sewing the planks, which lasts long under water.[1]
---
¹ We know little of the shipping employed in the Gulf of Persia before the conquest of Hormuz by the Portuguese; and since that period the influence and example of these and other Europeans have much changed the system of Persian and Indian navigation; yet the account given by our author corresponds in every essential particular with the kind of vessel described by Niebuhr. Such also are the boats employed at the present day on the coast of Coromandel, called chelingues by the French, and masulah boats by the English, which are thus described by Le Gentil : "Les bateaux dans lesquels se passent ces barres, se nomment che lingues; ilssont faits expres; ce sont des planches mises Tune au-dessus de 1 autre, et cousues Tune & Pautre, avec du fil fait de Pecorce interieur du cocotier (de la noix du coco); les coutures sont calfatees avec de Petoupe faite de la meme ecorce, et enfoncee sans beaucoup de fagons avec un mauvais couteau. Le fond de ces bateaux est plat et form6 comme les bords; ces bateaux ne sont guere plus longs que larges, et il n entre pas un seul clou dans leur construction." (Voyage, torn. i. p. 540.)...

...Up to six additional Australian Defence Force personnel will be deployed to the Combined Maritime Forces in Bahrain as part of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian which aims to protect the trade route. The total number of ADF members at the CMF headquarters under the existing Operation Manitou—Australia's contribution to international efforts to protect maritime interests in the region—is expected to increase to 10 in 2024....

China's disinterest in Red Sea policing role underscores Beijing's reluctance to back its rhetoric on Middle East peace with substantive action.
[...]

RIA Novosti: The US State Department's spokesperson Matthew Miller said earlier that the United States would welcome China playing a constructive role in trying to prevent attacks in the Red Sea. I wonder if China is ready to play more  active role in ensuring security in the Red Sea region.

Wang's reference [21.12.23] to "major countries with influence" reflects Beijing's recognition that the U.S. and its allies and partners can muster, at speed, far greater naval power [Combined Maritime Forces minus Australia] necessary for a seaborne shipping protection campaign than Beijing currently can. Wang didn't address whether Beijing would use its close relationship with Iran, which provides arms and funding to the Houthis, to seek an end to those attacks.
[...]

Blinken raised U.S. concerns about the attacks' "unacceptable threat to maritime security and international law" in a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi earlier this month. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller re-upped [19.12.23] the administration's interest in Chinese assistance in policing the areas of the Red Sea where the Houthis have attacked cargo vessels in a press briefing on Tuesday. Houthi attacks on international shipping "Harm China... so yes, we would welcome China playing a constructive role in trying to prevent those attacks from taking place," Miller told reporters on Tuesday .[...]

QUESTION: Back on the Houthis and the work being done on the diplomatic front. Recent readouts of Secretary Blinken's calls with Wang Yi in China have noted that the Houthis were explicitly raised. So have—can you say whether you've gotten any commitments from Beijing to use its leverage [such as?] with the Houthis, either directly or indirectly?
MILLER: So I don't want to speak to their side of the conversation. I will let Beijing speak to it. I will say that the Secretary has engaged with Wang Yi a number of times about the situation in the Middle East.  Might recall he had a phone call with him on our first trip in just the initial week after October 7th, where he made very clear that if China could use its relationships in the region to urge countries to maintain calm and maintain stability, we thought that would be a productive step.

OOCL hall pass, COSCO detour, BRI express, ASEAN lol "deesclation"

And yes, in his most recent conversation with him, he made the point that I was just making a moment ago, which is that attacks on international shipping by the Houthis don't just harm those ships and those individuals. They harm the United States; they harm China. They harm the interests of every country. And so yes, we would welcome China playing a constructive role in trying to prevent those attacks from taking place.  I will let China's—the Chinese foreign ministry speak to their side of that conversation and any steps that they might have taken.

Chinese exports to Europe remain subdued amid weak demand "'united' against economic blackmail"

UPDATE: France has agreed to remain but under the condition they do not have to follow American orders. They declined to comment on deploying more naval forces. Spain and Italy both left.
[...]
gCaptain has received reports, confirmed by Dr. Sal Mercogliano, that the French Navy has shifted their focus away from US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian after a representative allegedly stormed out of the operation's first meeting with US officials. The French have begun escorting their own cargo ships, including the containerships CMA CGM Pegasus, CMA CGM George Washington and APL Salalah, through the Red Sea. At the heart of this unfolding drama is a critical question: which ships deserve protection? While the French have shown a clear intent to prioritize their own shipping interests, the US approach has left its own American-flagged ships stranded in the region, that have been—some for a full week—waiting for escort....

UN Human Rights Office - OPT: Unlawful killings in Gaza City [_link] via @reliefweb

— Michelle Celarier (@mcelarier) December 21, 2023

Zo'n honderd ambtenaren/diplomaten van Buitenlandse Zaken zijn op de grond gaan zitten voor een staakt-het-vuren in Gaza. Zelden komen ambtenaren zo openlijk in opstand tegen kabinetsbeleid. pic.twitter.com/PKodfLAJRh

— Peter Winterman (@PeterWvanDeT) December 21, 2023

• Dutch civil servants stage sit-in demanding a ceasefire | MEE |
• Dutch civil servants call for Gaza ceasefire in rare protest | Arab News |

Manufacturing Consent: Overlooked Dimensions of the Russo-Ukrainian Conflict | 3 March 2022 |

As tensions heighten and military buildup intensified along the Russo-Ukrainian border, the American government did not deviate from its staunch insistence that Ukraine must, at some point, be allowed to join NATO. The United States has framed the debate over Ukrainian membership as a question of sovereignty, insisting that preventing Ukraine's eventual admittance into NATO constitutes an attack upon the self-determination of the Ukrainian people. Meanwhile, critics of the West accuse the United States of hypocrisy, arguing that America is cloaking its own expansionist aims in the rhetoric of state rights while continuing to deny the sovereignty of other nations through a succession of interventions in the Middle East. 

 The American government's rhetoric has been echoed by the Western press; media companies have played into Cold War narratives about the inherent hostility of the Russian state by attributing Moscow's stance on Ukraine to "obsessive stalking" and "galloping expansionism".

Playing into stereotypes about Russian aggression serves a number of functions. First, painting the United States as a valiant defender of freedom against an expansionist Russia reinforces American influence across the European continent. In 2013, Carl Gershman, founder of the CIA-affiliated National Endowment for Democracy, referred to Ukraine as "the biggest prize," arguing that "Ukraine's choice to join Europe [would] accelerate the demise of the ideology of Russian imperialism that Putin represents." Russia functions as a counterweight to the United States in a world dominated by the Western social and economic order. If Ukraine, and by extension Russia, was subsumed by NATO, the United States would enjoy a massive boost of influence over the European continent. 

Portraying the Russo-Ukrainian conflict as a battle between an expansionist foreign power and a small state fighting for sovereignty also generates readership. In Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky identifies anticommunism as America's "national religion," arguing that fears about communist expansion hold considerable sway over the American population. While Russia is no longer a communist country, the spectre of Eastern political subversion remains embedded in the collective consciousness of the American people. News headlines play upon the vestiges of American anticommunism, drawing in readers by framing the conflict as an inevitable consequence of Russia's political deviancy. War between Russia, Ukraine, and NATO is by no means inevitable. However, Western media outlets mask this reality by divorcing the conflict from the contextual factors that underpin it. 

NATO's Declaration of War on Russia - Bucharest Summit in 2008

US foreign policy Neocons or hard Wilsonianism

Leo Strauss and American Foreign Policy -- Is there a neoconservative connection? | by Thomas G. West - Summer 2004 |

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide

Nine days after the attacks on America, Netanyahu expanded his list of foes that would be prime targets in the Zionist-devised "war on terror."

In a speech before the US House of Representatives' Government Reform Committee on September 20, 2001, Netanyahu suggested that US vengeance in the face of 9/11 terrorism should be visited upon "Iran, Iraq, Syria, Taliban Afghanistan, Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, and several other Arab regimes, such as the Sudan." Netanyahu also named "Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Hizbullah and others in Syrian-controlled Lebanon, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the recently mobilized Fatah and Tanzim factions in the Palestinian territories, and sundry other terror organizations based in such capitals as Damascus, Baghdad, and Khartoum" as legitimate targets. Netanyahu's diatribe was no less than a declaration of war against the entire Arab/Muslim world with few exceptions.

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide

John Kirby on civilian deaths Ukraine v. Israel and Gazans

The same John Kirby who nearly shed tears in response to the killing of Ukrainian civilians now flippantly justifies the killing of Palestinian civilians without batting an eye. This morally bankrupt hypocrisy must end. Palestinians are humans, too. @WhiteHouse @POTUS #Israel... [_link]

— CAIR National (@CAIRNational) October 27, 2023

Once and for all proving there is a Garden and outside of "Europe" the barbarians of the Jungle. White House depravity ... only witnessed from higher places ... something similar happened to HRC during her 2016 campaign for American leadership ... the Deplorables ...

Half of Trump supporters fit into a "basket of deplorables"

Amnesia and Gaza Genocide