The Biden administration is expected to soon announce plans to redesignate Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen as specially designated global terrorists, according to two people familiar with the White House decision and a U.S. official.

The move comes as the Houthis have launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The group says it has attacked the ships in response to Israel’s military operations in Gaza in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The three people familiar with the decision were not authorized to comment and requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of the expected formal announcement.

  • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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    10 months ago

    Considering that they are now bombing civilians and attacking boats it seems like a reasonable move

        • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          Israel is so brave! Defending itself by stealing a country from the people it was promised to through a campaign of terrorism, and than squeezing down even harder on the oppressed people’s living in the tiny reserves given to them, where they get to live in constant fear of death by Israeli soldiers or missiles.

          How dare they … checks facts … use terrorism, colonialism, and genocide to attack others.

          • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Taking land to make distance from the people trying to murder them for 70 years. Making a massive security apparatus to protect themselves from the people trying to murder them for 70 years.

            If Arab nationalists and Palestinians weren’t trying to murder Jews, none of this would have happened, they seem addicted to it. This war could be over tomorrow if they released the hostages and surrendered, but clearly they prefer violence against Jews to peace.

            If you want to know why they’re in enclaves and why they don’t have many freedoms, it’s because of all the Jew murdering and refusal to pacify themselves. They want unreasonable unattainable goals, to destroy Israel and take all their land, and they are willing to employ violence until they get it, which means violence forever evidently.

            Choosing violence when you can’t win by violence is a bad idea.

            • Deceptichum@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              Israel is the one who took land away and tried to murder people.

              That land was promised to the Palestinians. Israel waged a terrorist campaign against Britain to steal it.

              Israel started this, end of story.

            • Zirconium@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              It’s okay to take away freedom from children because their grandparents and a neighbor fought against Israel

            • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
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              10 months ago

              >If Arab nationalists and Palestinians weren’t trying to murder Jews,

              the problem isn’t their jewishness, and i know this because israel has muslim, christian, and atheist governmental members.

              the problem is their israeliness.

            • HACKthePRISONS@kolektiva.social
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              10 months ago

              >Taking land to make distance from the people trying to murder them for 70 years

              why do you think they are trying to murder them? did something happen 74 years ago?

          • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Yes. They were attacking an underground tunnel that could have been used to supply Hamas, and they warned the Gazans operating the gate in advance.

              • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                I can’t keep up with your moving goal posts, what incident are you referring to? Israel has been clear they will attack valid Hamas targets no matter where they are found, even when Hamas hides among civilians or uses ambulances and hospitals for their military purposes.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  what incident are you referring to?

                  The bombing of Rafah Crossing and the Israel sniping of Palestinian medics in Gaza.

                  Israel has been clear they will attack valid Hamas targets no matter where they are found

                  The Israelis have claimed that one in three Gazans killed during their invasion has been a member of Hamas. Never even mind how they came to that statistic, but that still leaves two in three Gazans who aren’t valid Hamas targets that they admitted to knowingly slaughter.

        • NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          Literally yes. Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself from its occupied territories. Of course that’s even assuming we can call what’s going on now “self-defense”, but even if it was this isn’t a war between countries, so the idea that they have a right to defend themselves doesn’t apply any more than the Germans had any right to defend themselves from the Warsaw uprising.

          • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Jews weren’t thrown into the Warsaw ghetto because they attacked peaceful German citizens unprovoked. I find your comparison distasteful.

          • idoubledo@lemmy.sdf.org
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            10 months ago

            Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself from its occupied territories

            1. Why do you think a sovereign state doesn’t have a right to defend its citizens? Oh let me guess - you’re a “from the river to the sea” kind of “humanitarian”.
            2. Gaza is not occupied since 2005, for the purpose of handing it over thousands of Israeli’s were forcefully expelled from the region (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza#Description_of_the_plan), not a single Israeli remained in Gaza (unless you count hostages).

            the idea that they have a right to defend themselves doesn’t apply any more than the Germans had any right to defend themselves from the Warsaw uprising

            Yeah, compare labor camps built by the Nazis for the extermination of Jews, where Jews were forcefully transited into, to a piece of land that was claimed and given to the Palestinians. This comparison is absurd.

        • PugJesus@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          DID YOU KNOW

          It is possible to defend one’s country without killing 1% of a region’s civilian population in less than half a year?

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              I wasn’t outraged at 600k dead Syrians? News to me.

              When Trump pulled our support for the Kurds, it felt like a blow to the gut.

              • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                10 months ago

                Trump was tight with Erdoğan (who was, incidentally, tight with Putin) so of course he backed his buddy over some upstart insurgents without the money to fly to DC and jerk him off.

                But Al-Assad is also tight with Putin, which makes Trump’s siding with Israel (which is also heavily dependent on Russia for net new immigrants and so a tentative ally) against Syria somewhat peculiar. That is, until you note that Iran is involved, and exists as its own pole within the Middle East that’s more allied with China than Russia and hostile to Saudi Arabia, which is loosely allied with Turkey and Russia, but which has been on bad terms with Iran for decades.

                So… uh… its complicated?

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              for this, we can literally blame the media. when they are silent about the syrian attacks and give israel 24h coverage, of course more people are going to have opinions on the subject the news is covering.

          • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Did you know that reprisals for unprovoked attacks don’t have to be symmetrical and that doesn’t make it any less defensive?

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              Did you know that reprisal attacks on civilian populations and collective punishment are fucking war crimes? This isn’t news; it’s been well-established since the end of WW fucking 1.

              But hey, continue calling Israel’s war crimes ‘defensive’ and maybe you’ll convince yourself of the holy necessity of genocide.

              • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                These attacks are against Hamas, the once-elected government of Gaza who has widespread support there, not civilian populations.

                Yes yes keep crying wolf until the word genocide is meaningless.

                • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                  10 months ago

                  These attacks are against Hamas, the once-elected government of Gaza who has widespread support there, not civilian populations.

                  lmao

                  Yes yes keep crying wolf until the word genocide is meaningless.

                  Yeah, we get it, you don’t think Palestinians are human beings.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              Is this like when a cop bursts into your house and shoots your wife, your kid, and your dog, because they thought they smelled weed?

              • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                Because smoking weed, a victimless and harmless act, is comparable to violent hordes murdering and raping hundreds of your people? What a terrible analogy.

                • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                  10 months ago

                  smoking weed, a victimless and harmless act

                  I’ve got a stack of 1950s-era literature arguing that it isn’t.

                  violent hordes murdering and raping hundreds of your people

                  Why would you describe the IDF like this? Are you anti-Semitic?

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      I’m checking my notebook on descriptors for military targets and I can’t find “civilians” anywhere in here. Its just “enemy combatants”, “human shields”, and “collateral damage”.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        They probably mean bombing civilian boats/the civilians on nonmilitary boats.

        Otherwise, the civilian casualties caused by Houthi bombing are Yemeni civilians rather than civilians of other countries. And also not related to the current intervention.

        • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldM
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          10 months ago

          This has been going on for a long time. They have never shied away from attacking their neighbors.

          If we don’t begin to wrap our heads around the way that Iran arms and funds terrorist proxy groups as a matter of Foreign Relations policy, then we never have a hope of understanding the path toward peace in the Middle East.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            They have never shied away from attacking their neighbors.

            They’ve been at open war with the Saudis since, what? The 90s? Yemen is the Afghanistan of the Gulf. Endlessly having their governments toppled, fleeing into the mountains, waging war to drive the invaders out, setting up new governments, and having them toppled again.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          They aren’t missing, they’re striking ships all the time. Yet they haven’t killed anyone. I’m not sure they’ve even injured anyone, though I could be wrong.

          That doesn’t seem like terrorism.

          • PugJesus@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            They aren’t missing,

            You’re right, they’ve been having their missiles and drones shot down by a multinational coalition. A much better look, thank you.

            Yet they haven’t killed anyone.

            What, do you think they set their rockets and drones to ‘non-lethal’? This goes right back to “I shot at my neighbor and missed, clearly I am innocent”.

            That doesn’t seem like terrorism.

            “Use of terror in pursuit of political goals doesn’t seem like terrorism”

            What the fuck is terrorism to you, then

            Daily reminder that the flag of the Houthis is:

            God is the Greatest
            Death to America
            Death to Israel
            A Curse Upon the Jews
            Victory to Islam

            Critical support to our holsum antiracist Houthi comrades busy executing LGBT people, amirite?

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              What, do you think they set their rockets and drones to ‘non-lethal’?

              They have enough control and precision to determine where the strikes land. That’s why they don’t miss, they get shot down by air defense. It sure seems like they’re not targeting parts of the ship that have crew. Hardly “terrorism”.

              What the fuck is terrorism to you, then

              A worthless label that basically just means “groups that the US doesn’t like” - two of the biggest terrorist organizations on the planet are the IDF and the US armed forces, but they aren’t labeled terrorist groups. It’s only when anyone fights back that they become terrorists.

              The E.L.F. was tried as a terrorist group. It’s a joke.

              Critical support to our holsum antiracist Houthi comrades busy executing LGBT people, amirite?

              Blame Israel and the US for blowing up children while waving a rainbow flag. It’s called blowback.

              • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                They have enough control and precision to determine where the strikes land. That’s why they don’t miss,

                Before we started shooting them down, they missed quite often. But I don’t know why I was expecting any connection with reality at all from you.

                A worthless label that basically just means “groups that the US doesn’t like”

                So the Houthis DO sound like terrorism to you? Or are you changing definition mid-usage No True Scotsman style to avoid admitting to the fact that you’re spouting bullshit?

                Blame Israel and the US for blowing up children while waving a rainbow flag.

                Oh, yes, it was our fault that the Houthis execute LGBT people. You fucking caught us. Non-Westerners have no moral agency, only Westerners are capable of independent moral action. Your reactionary racist bullshit denigrating the essential human qualities of Yemeni people in defense of the murder of innocent LGBT people in the most horrific of ways is repulsive. “Jews for Hitler”.

                Like, it’s fucking insane. Blaming the US and Israel for homophobia in Yemen. It’s almost beyond belief. But tankies will do anything to bootlick far-right reactionaries who murder LGBT people.

                • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                  10 months ago

                  Before we started shooting them down, they missed quite often.

                  … okay, fair. Maybe it was just luck with the rocket attacks.

                  I will say that the drones are precision weapons, and they never seem to use those to kill or wound civilians. I think that matters because it demonstrates that their intent isn’t to kill or mutilate civilians, their intent is to divert vessels and disrupt trade.

                  So the Houthis DO sound like terrorism to you?

                  Let me clarify: terrorism, to me, should mean “killing/maiming civilians to achieve a political goal”. They haven’t done that and they don’t seem to intend to do that.

                  Terrorism, to me, is also a worthless politicized label that the US just slaps on anyone who it deems a threat to its own imperial interests. Two of the largest terrorist organizations in the world are the IDF and the US armed forces , but politically they are completely immune to the label. Instead, groups like the ELF are labeled as terrorists because they did some arson.

                  Oh, yes, it was our fault that the Houthis execute LGBT people.

                  It’s the fault of propagandists for tying our queerness with the Western imperialist project. That’s not our fault. We didn’t choose to do that. People in power use us as totems to justify bloodshed, so the victims see this and react in a natural and entirely predictable way.

                  This is blowback. This is what happens when you wave a rainbow flag while blowing up children by the thousands.

                  But I don’t know why I was expecting any connection with reality at all from you.

                  I don’t know why I expected a shred of decency or respect from you. You seem to delight in harassing and belittling people.

          • Fades@lemmy.world
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            10 months ago

            they haven’t killed anyone

            I wonder why that is… are the missiles they use special ones that only damage shops but not people? Ah wait, never mind, it’s because 10+ nations are working together to protect the mercantile vessels from said missiles.

            You don’t get to claim how good you are by not killing anyone only because the opposition has kept you from murdering anyone.

            they are shooting miles at innocent boats that have no connection to Israel (and even if they did, that still is unacceptable). Fuck you for supporting such a thing.

            the terror plot failed so it’s not terrorism!!!

            Get a fucking grip jfc

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              Their drones don’t target people. Why is that? Can you explain that in any way without admitting they’re not trying to kill people?

          • gigachad@feddit.de
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            10 months ago

            I’m sure the Huthi has the skill to launch missiles on boats from a distance of 180 km and specifically only hitting the parts of the boat where nobody of the crew is unfortunately smoking a cigarette at that time.

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              10 months ago

              Well, you see, they have trouble hitting the big-ass boats sometimes, but when they DO hit it’s with pinpoint precision on a pre-designated target and definitely not just “Whatever part of the boat is vaguely in the way”

            • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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              10 months ago

              The drones are remote piloted. Those they have full control over.

              Sure seems like they’re avoiding civilian casualties.

              • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                10 months ago

                The Houthis, after all, are well-known for their humane behavior in Yemen, and efforts to avoid civilian casualties. This is entirely in-line with their-

                Oh, wait, no

          • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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            10 months ago

            Hijacking ships and taking the civilian crews hostage for political purposes isn’t terrorism?

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              10 months ago

              I imagine the Yemeni see it as an act of war. But given that they’ve been at war for the last ten years, I don’t think they’re really worried about whether they get labeled as “terrorists” or “enemy combatants” or “paramilitary” or whatever.

  • gmtom@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    Am I the only one that dislikes them being called “the houthis”? The group is called “Ansar allah” the housis are an ethnic tribe in Yemen. The two are not interchangeable.

    • BrokebackHampton@kbin.social
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      It’s a concerted effort by western media to delegitimize them through language. I’ve often heard “Houthi rebels” which makes the intention very clear. Ansar Allah is the proper name like you said, and not only were they the de facto government of Yemen before, but also the recent US/UK bombing campaign is making more and more Yemenis unite behind Ansar Allah.

    • mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Nope, its the same Palestinian = hamas bs that allows them to label everyone enemies and only differentiate between “combatants” and “noncombatants”

    • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      Your country is not doing enough enough to stop {insert country with deranged policies tolerated by your government} from committing {insert crime}. Please send me your address so I can torch your house.

      This logic would justify terrorist attacks against everyone and everything with the exception of Antarctic penguins.

      • mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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        10 months ago

        No no its

        Your country is actively supporting {insert country with deranged policies supported by your government} from committing {insert warcrime}. Please send me your address so I can torch your house.

        Which, as a German, I find fair.

        • PugJesus@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          So you don’t mind us torching the Houthis’ houses either? Considering that they’ve undertaken deranged policies and are committing war crimes?

          • mathemachristian[he]@lemm.ee
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            Nope they haven’t. They are justified in their attacks. Just stop the genocide. That’s it. Also the US and Allies have been doing that anyway for the past decade or so what’s the difference.

            • PugJesus@kbin.social
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              Nope they haven’t.

              Oh, okay, pulling civilians’ fingernails off and burning their genitals and murdering LGBT people aren’t deranged policies or war crimes in your eyes. Good to know.

              • rambaroo@lemmy.world
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                Oh look, the neolibs suddenly care about Yemenis when they can use them to justify their colonizer bloodlust.

                • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                  “Houthis attacking random civilian ships is okay because war crimes”

                  “So the reverse, attacking Houthis at random, for war crimes, is okay too, right?”

                  “THE COLONIZER’S BLOODLUST SHOWS ITSELF”

                  Sorry for using someone’s logic against them to show it’s morally and intellectually bankrupt, I know that’s frightening to people with a sophomoric view of the world.

                • PugJesus@kbin.social
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                  10 months ago

                  Targeting civilians is a war crime, torture is a war crime, and Yemen is in a state of civil war.

        • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 months ago

          Easy one then, tell me your address, I’ve a Deutschlandticket so I can do full country fire delivery. Do you feel personally responsible for which genocide that Germany tolerates? Palestine by Israel? Uighurs by China? Or any other in particular?

          (If anyone from the BfV reads this, I’m being sarcastic)