105
submitted 10 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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

The Chinese government appears to be brushing off Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call for Beijing to assist an international coalition in protecting commercial shipping in the Red Sea from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militias.

Beijing signaled that it has no interest in joining the Pentagon’s Operation Prosperity Guardian , a multinational force including Canada, the United Kingdom and Bahrain, in providing security for cargo ships under threat of Houthi attack.

“We believe relevant parties, especially major countries with influence, need to play a constructive and responsible role in keeping the shipping lanes safe in the Red Sea,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Thursday in an indirect reference to U.S. military and diplomatic heft in the region.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

My theory on the Hamas attack is that they mostly intended to take hostages to negotiate the release of Palestinians being held by Israel. They do that all the time. They expected to meet with a large military response and take mostly non-civilian hostages (as they’ve done in the past since IDF soldiers are high value hostages).

But Israel had shifted so much of their security forces to the West Bank that Hamas met with basically no effective resistance and ended up getting further into Israel than they ever planned.

I’m not saying Hamas was above killing civilians. But think we’ll learn one day that they were imagining more like 50-100 civilian deaths to draw a fight and then as many police and military hostages as they could muster. Most of the Hamas fighters probably expected to die just escaping Gaza.

[-] test113@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Interesting perspective, but these attacks were different from what they did before. I can see the argument that the Israeli government downplayed their preparedness to make Hamas's attack more devastating than if they had taken it seriously from the beginning. This tactic could then be used to partially legitimize retaliation and the subsequent siege of Gaza.

There are too many factors at play for this to be a "normal" Hamas attack gone wrong. The scale and preplanned targets suggest it was not an "ordinary" Hamas operation.

While I usually agree that the simplest solution is often the right one, do you really believe this was more or less a "normal" attack that spiraled out of control?

[-] ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

I obviously don’t have any insider information. It definitely seems like it was planned to be on a different level than past attacks.

Something else I’ve been wondering about is just how asymmetric warfare is easier now with cheap drones and better weapons. Maybe even satellite imagery since you can just buy it now. Hamas might have always wanted to do something this big and just couldn’t.

[-] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 1 points 10 months ago

My theory on the Hamas attack is that they mostly intended to take hostages to negotiate the release of Palestinians being held by Israel.

Yeah that's usually the case with these. Also add in getting some concessions out of Israel.

this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
105 points (96.5% liked)

World News

38977 readers
2136 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS