cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/36603369
Italy is sending a ship to accompany the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla, who said its activists remain shaken but determined following an Israeli attack on Wednesday morning.
Organisers of expedition, which is attempting to carry aid to the Gaza Strip, shared footage this morning appears to show an explosion that detonated on one of the flotilla’s vessels.
Late on Tuesday activists heard explosions and saw drones that targeted some of their boats, currently situated off Greece. “Multiple drones, unidentified objects dropped, communications jammed and explosions heard from a number of boats,” the Global Sumud Flotilla said.
“I have authorised the immediate intervention of the Navy’s frigate Fasan, which was sailing north of Crete and is heading towards the area,” Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in a statement.
I obviously don’t know what they’re thinking, but this is how I see the situation: If China escalates with Israel the US and NATO will immediately declare war on China, it would be the perfect excuse, and its not super likely that anyone else would be prepared to join in their defense. Waiting for other countries to mobilize against Israel, and joining in only when its clearly a popular move, is better for China’s style of soft power than trying to lead the global south into direct conflict with Empire. Especially when the conflict is essentially inevitable as the truth about Palestine comes out and anti genocide sentiment turns into mobilization.
Like I said idk what China is thinking, but from my perspective waiting is the smart move even though I find it extremely distasteful.
Again, nobody is seriously asking for China to declare war on Israel (though that would be cool!)
Why can they not just cut off trade and investments and forbid Chinese companies and citizens from working with Israeli ones? Just some simple sanctions is all it would take to appease us, and presumably their own citizens who overwhelmingly do not approve of this genocide.
I don’t think a conflict over Palestine is inevitable. The 12-day war with Iran was inflection point where risk of war was at it’s peak. Since then, the resistance forces have weakened considerably and Israel is increasingly getting away with it. Iran had a short window to actually destroy the zionist entity and it balked, so now we are in a period of Zionist victory laps.
A future where Palestine is destroyed and Greater Israel metastasizes across West Asia seems more likely to me at this point than a global conflict over Palestine. If nations were willing to fight over Palestine, they would have done it by now. The only forces that were committed enough to actually fight over Palestine did so and were isolated and picked off one-by-one. Only the cowards and fence-sitters remain.
China has been a major voice against sanctions because they are usually leveraged against China and China’s allies. So advocating for such a thing will be used against them by their enemies.
Additionally, any such economic escalation can and likely would be taken as an opportunity for the US and co to immediately escalate more, creating a snowball effect which will get out of hand quickly.
It isn’t glamorous but these decisions have economic effects which can blowback against Chinese people and it isn’t surprising that the CPC is risk adverse
Who cares, they are already under heavy sanctions and trade war anyway. Every nation on Earth who likes hearing from China that American unilateral sanctions are unfair would have no problem with sanctions against the rogue terrorist zionist entity. Who would actually be upset and turned away by this “hypocrisy own”? What pro-Israel and anti-America nation in the global south even exists?
China has already handled such escalations deftly and called Trump’s bluff on the trade wars, USA has no cards to play. They cannot sanction China without destroying their own economy.
Risk-averse is underselling it. They are unprincipled cowards
As much as it might seem like someone high up in the largest political organization on earth should pitch “who cares about the way our enemies will use our decisions against us,” is it really all that surprising that it isn’t how things are playing out?
China seems like it wants to replace the US as the nation holding the standards of how nations interact, so they probably believe they need to be somewhat consistent in their messaging and actions.
This isn’t the only type of retaliation the US can do, and either way China wants to prevent any escalation because they know time is on their side.
I would say people posting online are probably closer to unprincipled cowards than the communists running the largest nation on earth and prioritizing their own people’s welfare
Hmmm you’re only posting online so therefore you’re incorrect. This shit is so bad faith and you know it
It’s not bad faith to criticize armchair theorists who don’t do shit but cry online about other people not being leftist enough. It’s fine to have criticism of China but acting like you are a better communist than any CPC member because they don’t follow your video game logic on geopolitics is sad. If the 100 million CPC members are revisionist cowards then most people here are anti communist larping as leftists because they have never done and will never do shit for anyone but themselves
“Video game logic”
I just want them to fucking oppose genocidal fascists in a material way. What is your deal? I’m not making purity demands of them this is the lowest possible bar. Like what is the resistance here to agreeing with the criticisms of China in regards to their active trade and involvement with Israel?
They do oppose genocidal fascists in material ways, you are just aren’t considering those ways because it isn’t the specific ways you want to see. Selling cellphones and electric cars to Israel isn’t the Achilles heel of the genocide. China provides war support to all of Israel’s enemies, directly and indirectly. Palestinian factions praise China for their support and demand more from the people of the nations who are actually enabling Israel.
"Comrade Mazhar further stressed that China is a springboard for important global transformations that put an end to US imperialist hegemony and its savage policies in the world, expressing the Front’s pride in the historical China-Palestine relations, which reflect the depth and strength of relations that unite the two peoples, and which have witnessed a great acceleration in recent years in all fields, highly appreciating China’s constant support for the just causes of the Palestinian people in their struggle to restore their legitimate national rights.
He expressed great confidence that China and its leadership will continue to support the struggle of the Palestinian people for statehood, stressing the Front’s keenness to develop relations with the CPC in all fields."
If the Deputy Secretary-General of the PFLP has this to say about China, I think the online ultras are ultraing online instead of forming a grounded, accurate analysis of China’s role in the genocide.
Mind you most political global south elites still believe in the “international law and order”, global south libs are still libs. Also China is still trying to win over the EU.
Yeah but libs are fine with hypocrisy if it’s in their interests. None of those global south libs would balk or blink an eye at sanctions against Israel.
The real insidious part of American sanctions are that they involve secondary sanctions. They don’t just go after their target, they go after anyone who trades with the target. China could do sanctions without any secondary sanctions and the global south wouldn’t mind at all since that’s the part that’s actually really oppressive to them.
Yeah because it/was still too costly to come out in support of palestine. South Africa was only opposed by its neighbours and the communist and it took until the 1990s for apartheid to fall. But the strength of israhell is wavering, because of the acts of the pro-Palestinian crowd and so the barrier for the global south libs to become more proactive is lowering.
I thought that before the Iran strikes. Nah Israhell will fall soon. If anything they are going to fight with the Saudis and/or Turkey eventually.
For me, the Iran strikes and quick ceasefire was what lead me to despair. If that wasn’t the moment to finally destroy this rot, then it will never come. Every day that passes the resistance gets weaker and Iran closer to color revolution.
The quick ceasefire happened because the Iranian state is so rotten it could have not formed a cohesive front to actually fight a war. The strikes on Tehran actually helped the anti-west faction immensely and reversed the soviet-unionization of the islamic republic, well if the anti-west faction takes the opportunity.
Its true that the fall of syria did destroy the axis of resistance (sans yemen), but iranian libs were well on their way to do that on their own.
Well, they were our one realistic hope and so if this is the case then it’s pretty fucking grim
They werent. And honestly I wasnt expecting them to, because of that lib chauvinistic component. And in comparison to last year and the years before, the situation is much better, before that even most of the far left was enthralled by liberal zionism, today we have clarity of purpose.
Maybe if they fuck around Syria too much Turkey might intervene. But the Saudi’s are the last people in the region Israel would have any reason to attack.
In war, every blow has to be a killing blow. You fight to subdue your opponent, not to appease some sense of morality. Sanctions against the Zionist entity won’t do much since the US will simply foot the bill. There are also various infrastructural projects that China has with the Zionist entity. Those are bigger concerns than China trading consumer products with the Zionist entity. But even those can be resolved by Hamas et al shooting rockets at the workers and site every once in a while so that the projects are never actually finished. Bonus points is if China secretly hands over the plans to Hamas just like how Chinese ATGMs somehow find their way into Hamas’s hands.
China will never do something showy like send warships to accompany the flotilla. If China is going to do anything, it will be completely under the table through various intermediaries. Best case scenario, China will continue to waste everybody’s time with sternly worded letters and sternly worded speeches even as it supports the Axis of Resistance under the table. Worst case scenario, China will just waste everybody’s time with sternly worded letters and sternly worded speeches with nothing else to show for it. And the only way we’ll know what China actually did is through some memoir of a retired Axis of Resistance general. It will only be through that that China will finally get the fair praise and condemnation that it deserves.
Carl Zha is that you?
By this logic Apartheid South Africa would never have been isolated and boycotted. Why bother with BDS or anything if America will just “foot the bill”? Oh yeah opposing a genocide is just “morality purity testing” right?
I don’t buy it, reeks of Liberal Zionism and convenient excuses.
Apartheid South Africa fell through the combination of the Cuban military, the ANC willing to be less radical because the Soviet Union just fell, and the weakening of British imperialism that was its principle sponsor. It didn’t fall through some well-intentioned boycott. The boycott is libs predictably overhyping non-violent forms of resistance as usual just like how they reduced Acre beating Anez to “voting works.” And another point to consider is that the imperialists see the fall of Apartheid South Africa as a mistake that can’t be repeated. Musk repeatedly hammers this point for very obvious reasons.
What worked for Apartheid South Africa will not work for the Zionist entity.
Defeatism. This is the logic of scabs who cross the lines. fascist led Italy is actually doing more than China here! Why is this acceptable? Just because you aren’t guaranteed victory isn’t any reason not to try and chip in however you can. Yeah, Palestine Action on their own isn’t gonna stop the genocide either. These are drops in a bucket. Stop being a leak.
China did more by letting those Chinese ATGMs fall into the hands of Hamas than Italy did sending a single warship to escort the flotilla. Or do they not count because Xi didn’t personally hand those ATGMs over to Sinwar and post it on Instagram?
Hamas even posted it in one of their videos. Sadly, the person who broke down how the ATGM is Chinese got suspended (and he was one of those “Dengist China is revisionist” people so there’s no bias on his part), but there’s also the Wikipedia article on the HJ-8 which gives a shoutout to Hamas for deploying the ATGM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HJ-8#Gaza_Strip
Meanwhile, why you are trying to parse their hidden power levels through reading tea leaves billions in the global south are learning that communists cannot be trusted to join in the struggle for their liberation and will make up excuses. Russia and Iran are doing more than China by orders of magnitude to oppose the imperialists and decolonize the world. The lesson being learned by the world is that the path to liberation is right-wing, theocratic and nationalist.
China is failing communism and sullying its name by participating in this genocide publicly. When communists online make up apologetics and excuses instead of demanding principles, you are reinforcing this failure in the eyes of the world.
Are you part of the “billions in the global south” or are you from the imperial core like most people on hexbear dot net pontificating on behalf of them? And no, being part of a diaspora doesn’t give you the right to speak on their behalf.