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Israel is gonna sink a frigate. Sorry to be a doomer, but that is what Israel is gonna do.
Such an act ultimately galvanizes and radicalizes the issue. Which is a good thing, since you need to bring down the entire empire anyway.
They could've sunk most of the fleet before they even started moving. Do you want to explain why that didn't happen if it would change nothing if they did?
Israel can't just sink an Italian warship.
Honestly, NATO would ignore article 5 because of all the Israel bootlicking
There probably wouldn't be war but any European politician publicly defending support of Israel would have tomatoes thrown at them. Israel still needs Europe. Public pressure was enough to make Italy do this in the first place, imagine the pressure if Israel sunk this ship and an Italian politican still had to spout hasbara. There'd be actual riots.
yeah i mean i hope people here who mention it whenever there's some imperialist squabbling or fuck-up aren't being serious and are just saying it in jest, because Article 5 isn't a magical Harry Potter spell. It's not going to activate after certain conditions automatically. The empire isn't just going to fold inward in intra-empire civil war because some Turks shot down a Greek jet, or because Israel struck an Italian battleship with a drone. This shit is composed of people, whose motivations and allegiances do not randomly swap on dimes.
More likely Georgia Baloney will call it off right before entering Palestinian waters.
If they're smart they'll just let the flotilla land with the negligible amount of aid they bring and just keep it all hush hush and boring, and behind the scenes apply pressure on the Italian government to punish the trade unionists after things have quieted down.
Israel openly attacking an Italian warship is like the best case scenario for pro-Palestine narratives, and would drive a much needed wedge between Europe and Israel
They forbid medical workers going into Gaza from bringing more than 5 kilograms (no idea what that is in pounds) of food; they're sticklers for starving people.
I'm not saying the aid won't help and be welcomed, but in the grand scheme of things it's not sufficient or anywhere close. Gaza requires dozens, if not hundreds, of truckloads of food per day. It's not getting even a fraction of that. This aid won't really slow down the starvation schedule by all that much.
The flotilla (and stopping it) are mostly symbolic acts. If Israel is smart (and they are quite cunning) then they should realize the best play is to not play at all, as them intervening and attacking the flotilla now would be a self-imposed narrative rout. They can just sweep it under the rug instead of standing their ground on this particular hill where the light is unfavorable to them.
On the other hand, Israel is very bad at restraining itself from tactically unsound violence because they're being given such an incredibly long leash by their masters.
I think Ben Gvir and Smotrich are going to threathen Bibi into action. The risk of breaking the siege is too high. Even though I agree that the aid is negligible for now, the moment one boat of the Flotilla touches Gaza, container ships will start routing there
I don't think cargo ships will unless they are also given military escorts, which seems very unlikely
Italy's in NATO, imagine if they get to trigger article 5
US and Germany: Invalid, that article is only for use against Asians and Slavs, we do not recognize and will not support.
Depends on if the Italians are considered white
Attacking an EU member state would be a major deal though
Would it? They attacked Qatar in a perfidious political assassination against diplomats, a major non-NATO ally of the US and large Gulf State player and literally nothing happened. Everybody just let it slide. Hell, they attacked the US itself on USS Liberty and we let that slide. Israel really can do no wrong, they will never be punished by the West. No amount of rogue terroristic activity on their part will be a deal breaker seemingly, that's how cucked the EU is.
The situation around the USS Liberty presented enough plausible deniability that all parties were able to move past it. The location and identity of the GSF is very well known such that it’s not possible to pretend that any attack is an accident or misunderstanding. I wouldn’t want to be proven wrong on this point but even Israel is forced to recognize certain limits occasionally. For example they didn’t blow up the GSF the last go around, because they understood that it would be counter to their interests to do anything other than send them home.
Italy's navy is apparently superior to Israel's navy, but Israel's air force, missile capabilities, and near-home-advantage probably even that out (before considering any additional allies).