[tptacek]

Israel occupies Gaza. If you're looking for me to defend Israel with respect to Gaza and the West Bank, you're barking up the wrong tree. But international law doesn't have much to say about the situation, because Israel won both territories about as "fairly and squarely" as you can say exists under international law, way back in 1967 --- they even offered Gaza back to Egypt, which refused, for cynical reasons.

Further: your logic doesn't cohere. Were Israel to blockade international shipping lanes, countries would declare war against them, as Israel did when Egypt blockaded the Tiran Straits. The discussion wouldn't be "can Israel do this"; it would be "has Israel provoked a war with another seafaring country", the way Ansar Allah has.

What you can't do is supply an analysis like "since Israel blockaded Gaza, Ansar Allah can blockade the Red Sea". Well, they can do that, but then the UK and the US will be applauded by the Security Council when they aerosolize Ansar Allah with cruise missiles.

You have repeatedly defended the actions of Ansar Allah in this discussion, most importantly by accepting their explanations at face value despite a (recent!) historic context that gives the lie to all of them, pretty bluntly and objectively. I understand you'd rather just focus on making a case against Israel, and I get why, but the reason you're conversing with me on this thread and not a supporter of Israel is that I'm not prepared to let sail by the idea that the Houthis are a legitimate actor. They are precisely the opposite of that.

[runarberg]

The thing is, in this playing field of Israel consistently breaking international law, and committing war crimes, and as of now genocide, and the USA consistently blocking any attempts to stop and punish Israel’s crimes. That in this playing field I don’t consider Israel any more legitimate then the Houthies. Personally I wouldn’t mind if both pay for their crimes against humanity, but as of current US international policy it looks like Houthies are the only ones that will pay for their crimes. And what is worse, the Palestinian people will keep dying and nothing can stop it.

This is why I think the only thing that will work are disruptions, these disruptions may include boycotts, blocking of highways, shipping, etc. divestments, etc.

I keep in perspective the urgency of stopping the genocide. And the scale of the disruptions I find justified are proportional to that urgency.

EDIT: Just to prevent this from being read wrong. I still support South Africa’s case for the ICJ. Including because the off chance their rulings will be enforced, but also because I think it will persuade more actors to pursue more disruptions, e.g. for the EU to ignore the USA and issue sanctions against Israel, for broadcasters across Europe to kick Israel out of Eurovision, etc.

[tptacek]

We're talking past each other. You can accuse Israel of violating any number of international laws, but none of that can possibly immunize Ansar Allah, which is what we're talking about here. You cannot engage in piracy as a protest action for violations elsewhere in the world. Or --- again --- you can, but you're going to end up reduced to your combustion products by the world's largest navies.

If you follow the subthread back to the point where I joined it, you'll see that's been my consistent point throughout.