Is energy prices about to shoot up?

[pooya87]

This is part of my Energy Crisis 2.0 topic but since this is a significant change, I placed it in a new topic which I may lock after Friday since we will enter a new phase with possibly significant changes after Friday.

A quick explanation of this map for a visualization of where everything is located.
Yemen is 1700 km away from the occupied Palestine and has dominance over the strait of Bab al-Mandab (where Gulf of Aden and Red Sea meet) and by extension can affect the Red Sea and the Suez Canal (green circle).
The significance of the sea region is shown with the yellow and black arrows. The yellow arrows mostly show the direction of the energy and resources heading to the West and the black arrows show the route for majority of Western exports (West meaning mainly Europe).


Over the past week Yemen officially entered the ongoing war in West Asia.
The first step was sending at least two light slow cruise missiles towards USS Carney, the US Navy destroyer in Red Sea as a warning that in case of intervention they will be sunk with heavier and faster anti-ship cruise missiles.
The second step was a small ballistic missile attack on Israeli terrorist bases in the southmost part of occupied Palestine, the Eilat port shown by the red circle.

What does this have to do with energy and consequently economy?
Well, this effectively expanded the war to the Red Sea and will affect the routes I drew on the map above.
Specially since US Navy is already present in the region and the terrorist ships entered Red Sea today and considering that they are all legitimate targets we could see the international trade disrupted in the coming days if those warships are attacked.
That means for example all the LNG shipments to Europe from Qatar would stop. Same with oil tankers and all other kind of shipments.

The other thing to consider is the possibility of Yemenis attacks expanding to include more legitimate targets in Saudi Arabia and UAE. Both oil rich countries and both legitimate targets because their coalition with US has invaded Yemen and it would only be retaliation according to international laws. Also legitimate targets because they both are helping the terrorist organization commit genocide in Palestine (eg. UAE fighter jets are reported to be participating in bombing Gaza in the past days).
That can translate into much more than just oil price rising, there will be oil shortage.

What's interesting is that oil price has not shown any significant reaction to the events of past couple of days.
Possibly because the routes have not yet been threatened by the presence of terrorists and their supporters. But we still need to wait and see what the next move is, this is only speculation for now.

Let me know what you predict.

[1714577577]

1714577577

[1714577577]

1714577577

[1714577577]

1714577577

[1714577577]

1714577577

[1714577577]

1714577577

[1714577577]

1714577577

[EarnOnVictor]

Your concern is genuine, and so are your linkings and predictions by land and proxies as they are the rightest view of everyone now. This is one of the reasons why the focus on the Middle East is high this time, and more escalation in the region will surely shoot the price of energy higher. Crude oil moved higher in the wake of the news of the Isrseal-Hamas issues and moved almost 1000 pips within a few days before dropping back. The reason is justified as we all know the importance of the Middle East in the energy market. But the effect was still temporary and of course also a warning for the world if the Israel-Hamas war escalates.

The Middle East has over 43% of the world's oil reserve, so I don't know the trick the world would play if such a region is at war to the extent that oil pumping stops partially or totally. OPEC and others won't be able to manipulate this time as many of the members state can't have the capacity to quantify for the expected shortfall.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Maybe we should accept this as the impeding consequences to the global world economy system deteriorating and the inflation that is fast covering the surface of the earth, if there's inflation then almost every aspect of the economy remain being affected and definitely there will be a price change in energy likewise it's consumption will be affected, we all know how there's high dependency on the energy consumption rate and it daily demand, people cannot leave without the use of energy each day of their lives, we have to remember that the higher the dependency the higher the demand and also the price under economic law of consumption, demand and supply.

[Lucius]

I'm not an expert in geopolitics, but my thinking is that a real war in that area can only happen if Iran intervenes. Although so far we have heard a lot of harsh words from Iran, for now it seems that everything will remain only on threats, and all the other incidents that you have already mentioned are only isolated incidents that cannot significantly disrupt traffic through the Suez Canal, and even less through gas pipelines or oil pipelines.

Since Russia attacked Ukraine, some things have changed significantly in the EU, which means that many alternative sources of oil and gas supply have been found, primarily from the US and Africa (Algeria, Nigeria) and increased production from Norway. The latest data indicate that EU gas storage facilities are about 99% full, and temperatures are still around 20 degrees Celsius (daily), and long-term forecasts point to a relatively warm winter.

In addition, progress is also being made in terms of using energy from renewable sources.

The EU's net greenhouse gas emissions decreased by around 3% in 2022, reaching a reduction of 32.5% compared to 1990 levels;
The EU drastically reduced its dependence on Russian fossil fuel: phasing out coal imports; reducing oil imports by 90%; reducing gas imports from 155bcm in 2021 to around 80 bcm in 2022 and to an estimated 40-45 bcm in 2023;
The EU reduced gas demand by more than 18% compared with the previous five years, saving around 53 bcm of gas;
Gas storage facilities were filled to 95% of capacity ahead of the winter of 2022-2023 and stand at over 98% full today, ahead of the coming winter;
The EU Energy Platform organised three rounds of joint purchase of gas, collecting 44.75bcm of demand and matching it with 52bcm of supply offers;
2022 was a record year for new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity (+41 GW), which is 60% more than in 2021 (+26 GW). New onshore and offshore wind capacity was 45% higher than in 2021;
In 2022, 39% of electricity was generated by renewables, and in May wind and solar surpassed fossil fuels for the first time in EU electricity generation;
Legislative targets were agreed for a minimum share of 42.5% of renewable energy in the EU by 2030, and the ambition to reach 45%. Energy efficiency targets were also increased, to reduce final energy consumption by 11.7% by 2030.

[Findingnemo]

The longevity of the tension in the Gaza Strip region may be reflected in the prices in the Western region but for the sake of comparison this event with Russia and Ukraine affected most of the economies, here the one side Gaza and its supporters are relatively weak and Israel has the upper hand so this can be bring to an end in one or other way whereas in Russia and Ukraine both were supported by other big nations so such kind of approach wasn't possible which dragged the war for longer period of times.

The Middle East has over 43% of the world's oil reserve, so I don't know the trick the world would play if such a region is at war to the extent that oil pumping stops partially or totally. OPEC and others won't be able to manipulate this time as many of the members state can't have the capacity to quantify for the expected shortfall.

Oil resources are non-renewable even if nothing happens it is gonna dries out at some point and that is why governments are focusing on creating energy with other renewable sources but it's a long-term transition that may take a decade or two until there won't be any situation hopefully.

[Faisal2202]

The other thing to consider is the possibility of Yemenis attacks expanding to include more legitimate targets in Saudi Arabia and UAE. Both oil rich countries and both legitimate targets because their coalition with US has invaded Yemen and it would only be retaliation according to international laws.

You have raised a good point, I did not gave it a thought before, because concerns were on war not giving any thoughts to energy crisis that might come if war goes on. Just like we have seen energy crisis during the war of Ukraine and Russia.  Well, this resistance group (ran by Iran which they do not agree on) knows as axis of resistances did attacked Israel with ballistic missiles and these missiles fly from the western side of Saudia Arabia  and then Jordan to Israel. And Saudia Arabia is in relation with US and have to chose sides now. Which seems to be a difficult situation for them because Saudia is a Islamic state and they should support Palestine and we know more than 3200 child (only childs) have been killed by Israel and those childs belong to muslim families so it should be hard for Saudia arabia to chose sides.

They did not made any statement yet and don't want to, but I say they should not take sides yet, they can stop those missiles to go into the boundary of Israel by destroying them from there western side but they are also not doing that and that really of concerns. Even if they not want to interrupt in these war of Axis Group Of resistance backing Palestine, Hamas against Israel they are not interrupting because they will be attacked too and I think they don't want it but besides this reason they might be loving this attack on Israeli terrorists like many of us. (Note* I say the war should be stopped).

Overall, KSA not doing anything and that's good because they also lost many lives of worker in drone attacks from Yemen.

Also legitimate targets because they both are helping the terrorist organization commit genocide in Palestine (eg. UAE fighter jets are reported to be participating in bombing Gaza in the past days).

This is something new I was not aware of this, I did not found any source to this news can you please verify it because the news I found was of 2018 and that news was also fake.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2018/08/11/uae-participated-in-bombing-of-gaza-with-israeli-army-journalist/amp

What's interesting is that oil price has not shown any significant reaction to the events of past couple of days.

Well, that's because Yemen's or whoever's this group is AKA axis of resistance which attacked Israel, took part in this Hamas-Israel war on 31 October which was yesterday and the the effect will take sometime to be noted.

[pooya87]

I'm not an expert in geopolitics, but my thinking is that a real war in that area can only happen if Iran intervenes. Although so far we have heard a lot of harsh words from Iran, for now it seems that everything will remain only on threats,

The Iran's hegemonic strategy is a very complex one that is hard to explain. If I wanted to summarize it I'd say it is cancer treatment; it is to end occupation of Middle East by any foreign force. So Iran is already deeply involved, not just because we are talking about Iran's neighborhood but also because supporting the oppressed is part of Iran's constitution. And since the colonizers aren't going to end their occupation of the most resource filled region of the world peacefully, the "tumor removal" will be hurtful.

So why isn't Iran directly intervening in Gaza?
We have to first realize that the enemy is the biggest and most cunning propagandist in this world with full control over majority of the Western mainstream and social media. We are talking about Israel, an apartheid regime that murders thousands of children every day but fills the media with a fake news about Hamas having killed children using a deepfaked image! So the world needed to see the true face of Israel as a terrorist organization to first shatter that fake illusion they had created over the past decades. That seems to have happened already when we look at the large scale protests across the globe specially in the West like the last one that even reached United States Senate.
If Iran had entered from day one, the Israeli terrorists would have easily turned the public opinion around. For example they could simply blame the bombs they dropped on a Palestinian concentration camp yesterday that weighed a total of 6 tons on Iran saying it was an Iranian missile trying to hit them. But today the world sees this crime and knows it was Israel that murdered all those people in a blinking of an eye.

Another way of looking at it is that at the end of the day this is a Palestinian issue and if others intervened from day one, it would have turned it into THEIR war and Palestinian cause would have been forgotten and possibly erased forever. It needed to be Palestinian freedom fighters rising up against the invaders first before others could start helping (as they have been).

It needs to be added that Iran has always supported the legitimate struggle of Palestinians for freedom officially and loudly. Check out the last speech by the Iranian foreign minister in UN. The recent video of an advanced UUV released by Qassam brigade shows the quality of that support.
So for now Iran's support of Palestine will continue but direct intervention would remain outside Palestine focusing on CENTCOM (ie. Northern Africa and West Asia). For example if you check out Syrian and Iraqi news you can see the increasing number of attacks on US bases there with videos, something that is mostly censored in Western media.

and all the other incidents that you have already mentioned are only isolated incidents that cannot significantly disrupt traffic through the Suez Canal, and even less through gas pipelines or oil pipelines.

That's true but things are changing real fast. For example last week Yemen was silent, now the battlefield is expanded by a radius of 2000 km overnight. So I'm just speculating here about possibilities based on what develops, after Friday this battle could be entirely different, from genocide of Palestinians halting abruptly all the way to US aircraft carriers sinking to the bottom of Mediterranean sea.

[DeathAngel]

I hope not because although unit rates have dropped since last winter, they are still extremely high. They are significantly higher than what they were prior to COVID & the Ukraine war. The cynical side of my thought processes say that energy companies are preying on consumers & using those things as an excuse to drive up prices. To conclude, I really hope prices don’t rise again because the cost of living is at unprecedented levels in my country right now.

[pooya87]

this resistance group (ran by Iran which they do not agree on)

Resistance isn't run by Iran, they are friends of Iran each striving for the same goal.

Which seems to be a difficult situation for them because Saudia is a Islamic state and they should support Palestine

That shouldn't be difficult at all though. Apart from the fact that the holy city of Quds or Beit od-Moqdas was the first qibla of Muslims and is currently occupied by those who regularly desecrate Al-Aqsa Mosque, the majority of population of Saudi Arabia are Sunni Arabs and should be the one supporting Sunni Arabs of Palestine. But in reality the Shia Persians of Iran are the only supporters of Palestine!

They did not made any statement yet and don't want to, but I say they should not take sides yet,

That's the problem with dictators that are either installed or backed by the West. They can not make any actual moves against Western interest even if all their population demanded it.

they can stop those missiles to go into the boundary of Israel by destroying them from there western side but they are also not doing that and that really of concerns.

Technically they can't stop the attacks because if they could they would have stopped the attacks on Aramco for instance. But they are trying and have already intercepted some of them like the Yemeni drone that Egypt shot down a couple of days ago.
This caricature by an Arab artist says it all: https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/11/01/tX4IW.jpeg

This is something new I was not aware of this, I did not found any source to this news can you please verify it because the news I found was of 2018 and that news was also fake.

The cooperation between Israel and some of the Arab regimes is not new. Although if you want solid proof of this particular UAE participation there are none. We only have some reports from different sources. The one that made a lot of noise recently was the report by France24 channel. I couldn't find the full video but here is a mirror showing part of it in a Persian newspaper: https://ettelaat.com/00058P my Arabic isn't that good but it is talking about the "sellah" and "ta'erat al-emarati" which is the Emirati Weapons and Aircrafts.

[Spaceman1000$]

This is part of my Energy Crisis 2.0 topic but since this is a significant change, I placed it in a new topic which I may lock after Friday since we will enter a new phase with possibly significant changes after Friday.

A quick explanation of this map for a visualization of where everything is located.
Yemen is 1700 km away from the occupied Palestine and has dominance over the strait of Bab al-Mandab (where Gulf of Aden and Red Sea meet) and by extension can affect the Red Sea and the Suez Canal (green circle).
The significance of the sea region is shown with the yellow and black arrows. The yellow arrows mostly show the direction of the energy and resources heading to the West and the black arrows show the route for majority of Western exports (West meaning mainly Europe).


Over the past week Yemen officially entered the ongoing war in West Asia.
The first step was sending at least two light slow cruise missiles towards USS Carney, the US Navy destroyer in Red Sea as a warning that in case of intervention they will be sunk with heavier and faster anti-ship cruise missiles.
The second step was a small ballistic missile attack on Israeli terrorist bases in the southmost part of occupied Palestine, the Eilat port shown by the red circle.

What does this have to do with energy and consequently economy?
Well, this effectively expanded the war to the Red Sea and will affect the routes I drew on the map above.
Specially since US Navy is already present in the region and the terrorist ships entered Red Sea today and considering that they are all legitimate targets we could see the international trade disrupted in the coming days if those warships are attacked.
That means for example all the LNG shipments to Europe from Qatar would stop. Same with oil tankers and all other kind of shipments.

The other thing to consider is the possibility of Yemenis attacks expanding to include more legitimate targets in Saudi Arabia and UAE. Both oil rich countries and both legitimate targets because their coalition with US has invaded Yemen and it would only be retaliation according to international laws. Also legitimate targets because they both are helping the terrorist organization commit genocide in Palestine (eg. UAE fighter jets are reported to be participating in bombing Gaza in the past days).
That can translate into much more than just oil price rising, there will be oil shortage.

What's interesting is that oil price has not shown any significant reaction to the events of past couple of days.
Possibly because the routes have not yet been threatened by the presence of terrorists and their supporters. But we still need to wait and see what the next move is, this is only speculation for now.

Let me know what you predict.

I think, if there is a shortfall of supply of oil and gas from the middle East, there are other oil producing countries and continents in the world that will meet up there OPEC quarter, and they can successfully supply oil and gas across Europe and the world at large, even when Russia and Ukraine crisis we are the heat, Nations within Europe where  still able to get gas and oil, even though there was a shortfall. so what I'm saying in essence is that, there will be one way or the other to get oil and gas if the crisis currently happening in Israel and Gaza continue to intensify.

[Faisal2202]

Resistance isn't run by Iran, they are friends of Iran each striving for the same goal.

Ok, actually, many news outlets are saying that Iran supports this group. Well, aren't they both the same thing? If they are friends, they must be supporting each other as they both have the same purpose here.

That shouldn't be difficult at all though. Apart from the fact that the holy city of Quds or Beit od-Moqdas was the first qibla of Muslims and is currently occupied by those who regularly desecrate Al-Aqsa Mosque, the majority of population of Saudi Arabia are Sunni Arabs and should be the one supporting Sunni Arabs of Palestine. But in reality the Shia Persians of Iran are the only supporters of Palestine!

You are right, this should not be a difficult decision to make, but KSA has already been in some deals with Yemen for some time, and they were trying to make some pieces, but I prefer not to take sides because if they do, things can become a little bumpy for the overall economy, and I don't care that much because help should be given to the needy, war should be stopped, and terrorists should be in jail. All I am saying is that if Yemen or the Axis of Resistance is making moves, then do not disturb them and let them make.

That's the problem with dictators that are either installed or backed by the West. They can not make any actual moves against Western interest even if all their population demanded it.

Actually, they (the KSA) were trying to get a defense pact in order to make peace with Israel so that they could sell more oil to Washington as inroads are off from China. This pact deal was going to occur on September 29, but just after a few days, war started and this meeting is still on hold. I don't know or have anything to say about whether the KSA is really going to accept Israel, but they did make a condition there that they should go easy on Palestine. I mean, yeah, they did say

will not hold up a deal even if Israel does not offer major concessions to Palestinians in their bid for statehood

This caricature by an Arab artist says it all: https://www.talkimg.com/images/2023/11/01/tX4IW.jpeg

Indeed

[coupable]

So why isn't Iran directly intervening in Gaza?
We have to first realize that the enemy is the biggest and most cunning propagandist in this world with full control over majority of the Western mainstream and social media. We are talking about Israel, an apartheid regime that murders thousands of children every day but fills the media with a fake news about Hamas having killed children using a deepfaked image! So the world needed to see the true face of Israel as a terrorist organization to first shatter that fake illusion they had created over the past decades. That seems to have happened already when we look at the large scale protests across the globe specially in the West like the last one that even reached United States Senate.
If Iran had entered from day one, the Israeli terrorists would have easily turned the public opinion around. For example they could simply blame the bombs they dropped on a Palestinian concentration camp yesterday that weighed a total of 6 tons on Iran saying it was an Iranian missile trying to hit them. But today the world sees this crime and knows it was Israel that murdered all those people in a blinking of an eye.

Another way of looking at it is that at the end of the day this is a Palestinian issue and if others intervened from day one, it would have turned it into THEIR war and Palestinian cause would have been forgotten and possibly erased forever. It needed to be Palestinian freedom fighters rising up against the invaders first before others could start helping (as they have been).

It needs to be added that Iran has always supported the legitimate struggle of Palestinians for freedom officially and loudly. Check out the last speech by the Iranian foreign minister in UN. The recent video of an advanced UUV released by Qassam brigade shows the quality of that support.
So for now Iran's support of Palestine will continue but direct intervention would remain outside Palestine focusing on CENTCOM (ie. Northern Africa and West Asia). For example if you check out Syrian and Iraqi news you can see the increasing number of attacks on US bases there with videos, something that is mostly censored in Western media.

It can be said that Iran is the only power in the region (perhaps in the world as well) that provides military and logistical support to Palestinian groups fighting against Israeli tyranny. This has been and continues to continue since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which declared its unconditional loyalty to the cause of the Palestinian people.
Iran supports the Syrian regime to continue extending its influence over the region and prevent Israel from expanding in its lands and even in its alliances, since Israel succeeded in winning over both Egypt and Jordan as peaceful neighbors in exchange for many concessions. On the northern front, Iran supports Khazbollah, which controls the entire south of Lebanon on the Israeli border. Then, two days ago, the Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen announced their support for the Palestinians and actually began firing long-range missiles. Had the American and Saudi defenses not confronted them, they would have reached Tel Aviv.
Iran prefers these proxy wars to direct confrontation because this is not in its interest at the present time.

[pooya87]

I think, if there is a shortfall of supply of oil and gas from the middle East, there are other oil producing countries and continents in the world that will meet up there OPEC quarter, and they can successfully supply oil and gas across Europe and the world at large

Who exactly do you mean?
All producers outside West Asia are already producing at max capacity and beyond, not to mention that over the past year there has been a higher demand than supply. It is impossible to cover any kind of shortage specially if we are talking about a massive 40-50% shortage!

Resistance isn't run by Iran, they are friends of Iran each striving for the same goal.

Ok, actually, many news outlets are saying that Iran supports this group. Well, aren't they both the same thing? If they are friends, they must be supporting each other as they both have the same purpose here.

That's correct. What I meant was that the relationship between Iran and the international resistance is not a hierarchy where Iran runs them or they are Iran's "proxy". Instead it is an alliance with an unbreakable bond. Obviously Iran as the strongest member of the resistance supports all of them.

Then, two days ago, the Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen announced their support for the Palestinians and actually began firing long-range missiles. Had the American and Saudi defenses not confronted them, they would have reached Tel Aviv.

Ansarollah didn't start supporting Palestine two days ago, they've been doing it for a while now. Last year they were also threatening to bomb the terrorist positions when there was another bombardment of Gaza. This year they acted on those threats.
They also are not targeting Tel Aviv, that is not in the list of targets for heavy attacks yet anyway. The light rockets from Gaza is enough for now. Instead Ansarollah is targeting a very strategic location in occupied Palestine that has never been targeted before. The southmost region called Eilat and the ports there. Specially since the fuel for the terrorists tanks and aircrafts is heading to that port coming from Baku with the help of Turkey.
I believe there has been 3 attacks already and they've all hit their targets successfully as reported by eyewitnesses; that is despite the Saudi + US + Egyptian + Jordanian attempts to stop them.

They are also targeting other bases of Israeli terrorists elsewhere such as the base in Eritrea they hit hard this past week.

You see it's like separation of concerns.
Palestine is involved in the land attack as the ground forces and have already repelled 8 attempts to invade Gaza (3 of which were US commandos or more specifically the Delta Force) and slaughtered the invaders.
Lebanon is slowly bombing all terrorist bases from the north and progressing every day.
Syria is focusing on occupied Golan Heights and have been bombing terrorist positions there.
Yemen is focusing on the South as I said above.
The rest (Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Africa, etc.) are focusing on US bases.

[jasonjm]

A slight hike in global oil prices was observed after the Israel and Hamas fighting erupted because of the concerns over the effects of this war on the energy-producing Middle East. European natural gas spikes up by 14% while global oil pumped 4%.

Although both Israel and the Gaza Strip are not major players in oil production, the price hike could be due to the fear that this conflict will spread to the rest of the Arab countries. The Middle East accounts for 31% of global oil production and 18% of gas production.

The Middle East is the hub of oil production and has major oil producers such as Iran and Saudi Arabia and one of the main transit routes, "the Strait of Hormuz" (the world’s most important oil chokepoint). This conflict could disrupt the main energy supply routes. Yemen's involvement in this war could mean that the conflict is spreading to other countries. Yemen's Houthis, however, are a rebel group which controls Yemen's capital. 

Two key factors in this conflict are;

1) Whether or not Iran directly gets involved in the conflict. Amid increasing tensions and direct confrontation, Iran might close the Strait of Hormuz (chokepoint for nearly a third of seaborne oil).
 
2) Hezbollah (a Lebanon-based armed group) starts an attack on Israel.
It is reported that border tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have been on the rise for the past few days. 

In the past, the World has seen a global effect of the Israel and Palestine war in 1973 when Egypt and Syria got involved in the fight, and all Arab oil-producing nations cut the oil supply and imposed an embargo on the US and its allies. This caused a major oil price surge in the world within a few months. However, the situation is different this time, but who knows the long-term consequences?

Morgan Stanley said in a note on Monday that the near-term risk to oil supply was low, but that could change if the conflict spread to other countries.

In conclusion, if the conflict remains localised and the major oil-producing nations or transit routes are not affected, we may see a slight fluctuation in global energy prices. However, if the conflict spreads to neighbouring countries, it will not only impact oil production but also affect transit routes.

[boltz]

Honestly , I really hope they won't because things in my country are already way to expensive for most of our citizens. Another rise in energy prices would simply bring people out in the streets but I'm sure that won't change anything because we will not be the only ones affected by this. On the other side , the war Ukraine - Russia already made Romanian prices to go up in all sectors so I really hope the conflict from Israel and Hamas would not have the same effect and I do hope a solution will be available for the world soon.

[Lucius]

~snip~

I can agree that the East and the West look at the new situation in a completely different way, but that does not surprise me at all considering that everyone has their own interests in all of this. It's just bad for me that civilians are the hardest hit by all of this, especially children who are not guilty of anything - and as someone who somehow survived the merciless bombings in the aggression against my country 30+ years ago, I can only say that anyone who goes to war in that way cannot be called anything other than a war criminal, because the killing of thousands of children cannot be justified in any other way. I am far from justifying what Hamas did, but crime is not answered by committing even more crimes.

However, I thought a little about how Israel failed to prevent that attack from happening at all, and I can't shake the impression that they didn't know, not only that it was going to happen, but also that someone was arming Hamas so abundantly. I would venture to say that one of the sponsors is Russia, which wanted (and managed) to shift the focus from the war in Ukraine to another issue, and they failed to do so by provoking an armed rebellion in Kosovo shortly before the attack on Israel.

Another reason why I think that Russia actually did itself a favor and gave Israel a reason for such brutal revenge is that it remains neutral about the war in Ukraine all the time, even when President Zelinsky (who is Jewish) begs them for help.

However, although we should certainly be concerned about the economic consequences that may arise from a war in that part of the world, without the intervention of some external factors, I do not see that this conflict can last longer than a few months, when Israel will very likely take full control of the Gaza Strip.

Some parts of the world will certainly suffer much more economically than others if the situation gets complicated, but after the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, many countries have realized that they have to start providing alternative routes for the supply of energy, as well as that they should become as self-sufficient as possible.

[coupable]

Then, two days ago, the Iranian-backed Houthi forces in Yemen announced their support for the Palestinians and actually began firing long-range missiles. Had the American and Saudi defenses not confronted them, they would have reached Tel Aviv.

Ansarollah didn't start supporting Palestine two days ago, they've been doing it for a while now. Last year they were also threatening to bomb the terrorist positions when there was another bombardment of Gaza. This year they acted on those threats.
They also are not targeting Tel Aviv, that is not in the list of targets for heavy attacks yet anyway. The light rockets from Gaza is enough for now. Instead Ansarollah is targeting a very strategic location in occupied Palestine that has never been targeted before. The southmost region called Eilat and the ports there. Specially since the fuel for the terrorists tanks and aircrafts is heading to that port coming from Baku with the help of Turkey.
I believe there has been 3 attacks already and they've all hit their targets successfully as reported by eyewitnesses; that is despite the Saudi + US + Egyptian + Jordanian attempts to stop them.

They are also targeting other bases of Israeli terrorists elsewhere such as the base in Eritrea they hit hard this past week.

You see it's like separation of concerns.
Palestine is involved in the land attack as the ground forces and have already repelled 8 attempts to invade Gaza (3 of which were US commandos or more specifically the Delta Force) and slaughtered the invaders.
Lebanon is slowly bombing all terrorist bases from the north and progressing every day.
Syria is focusing on occupied Golan Heights and have been bombing terrorist positions there.
Yemen is focusing on the South as I said above.
The rest (Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Africa, etc.) are focusing on US bases.

Thanks for clarifying all these points in detail. You and I don't have very different views.
What can actually be concluded from all these overlapping elements of different war fronts is that Iran is actually leading the real confrontation movement against the occupying Zionist entity. The Lebanese Hezbollah is an Iranian creation. The Syrian regime is also supported by Iran, in addition to having a military presence in Syrian territory (Revolutionary Guards), and the Houthi group in Yemen is also an Iranian creation. Literally, it means that Persian Shiite Iran is the one supporting the cause of the Sunni Arabs instead of them. I do not want to give an ideological coloring to the Palestinian issue, but it cannot be overlooked that the Palestinian people are predominantly Sunni Muslims with Christian and Jewish minorities.

[topbitcoin]

Middle Eastern countries have never been free from conflict and to this day the Middle East remains the center of conflict, both between countries and conflicts within countries. And currently the impact of the conflict in the Middle East has begun to be taken into account by the world, especially the business world. Because the conflict that occurred in the Middle East has had a major impact on the manufacturing industry, causing oil and gas prices to increase. Oil and gas are basic needs, so this has an impact and can trigger price increases in other industrial and economic sectors.

We will never know when this conflict will be resolved and when this conflict will subside. So prepare ourselves to face global economic challenges and the threat of inflation amidst an unstable economy. The series of events started with the spread of the Covid-19 outbreak which caused the global economy to stagnate and slow down, Russia's attack on Ukraine which caused energy and food prices to become unstable, and now we are faced again with the turmoil of the Middle East conflict which has resulted in an energy crisis. So once again prepare ourselves to face all the challenges and threats that exist.

[pooya87]

I am far from justifying what Hamas did, but crime is not answered by committing even more crimes.

I'm curious whether you think when Ukrainians attack Russian invaders in their own homes they are also committing crimes? If not then why do you think Palestinians attacking Zionist invaders in their own homes is a crime?

without the intervention of some external factors, I do not see that this conflict can last longer than a few months, when Israel will very likely take full control of the Gaza Strip.

Actually without the intervention of United States this conflict would have ended more than 10 days ago. The Zionist regime would have been forced to stop the genocide and release thousands of men, women and children being tortured in their prisons and stop the settlements from expansion. Now the Israeli terrorists have to answer for the 8000+ civilians they've murdered.

The reason I say it would have ended in first days is that internally Israel has been falling apart (it's the 8th decade curse). If you followed the news over the past couple of years you could see how things have been progressing. For example each Zionist "government" could barely last a year before falling apart and being replaced. Or the fact that over the 40+ weeks leading to October 7 there has been mass protests against the regime by Israelis every day since they too consider their prime minister to be a criminal who needs to be hanged. Most important of all was the armed forces that had completely fallen apart as everyone was abandoning their posts.
From early days US military officers entered the occupied Palestine and took over the Israeli military and started the operations. As I said in my last post US troops are also in the front line attacking Gaza from land.

Interestingly enough they could not move an inch into Gaza without massive casualties so far! In other words it is not possible to "take full control of Gaza Strip" ever. And that's without the other arms of the Resistance intervening.
In about 8 hours the face of the battle can change entirely

I do not want to give an ideological coloring to the Palestinian issue, but it cannot be overlooked that the Palestinian people are predominantly Sunni Muslims with Christian and Jewish minorities.

It is interesting to know that ideology is only part of it, Iran's policy that is also in the constitution is "helping the oppressed". For example Venezuela is not even an ideological country and Iran has greatly helped the country specially after US that controlled lots of infrastructures in Venezuela (like the electrical grid) left the country and sabotaged everything behind them. It was Iran that helped rebuild the electrical grid, reactivate the sabotaged power plants, etc.

Or the massive amount of gasoline Iran sent to Venezuela to help the energy crisis that had halted all transport there was after US not only sanctioned Iran heavily because of that help! but also after US even threatened to attack or seize these tankers!
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/12/6/biggest-iranian-flotilla-yet-en-route-to-venezuela-with-fuel
That is in addition to the Venezuelan refineries that US sanctioned and sabotaged to cripple this Latin American country was fixed and brought back online by Iran.

It doesn't stop there either. There are loads of examples like this.

[jasonjm]

Actually without the intervention of United States this conflict would have ended more than 10 days ago. The Zionist regime would have been forced to stop the genocide and release thousands of men, women and children being tortured in their prisons and stop the settlements from expansion. Now the Israeli terrorists have to answer for the 8000+ civilians they've murdered.

As per the latest reports, over 9000 Palestinians died in this attack; among them are 3760 children and 2326 women. Over 7000 Palestinian children have been injured since 7th October. How can a person justify the killing of innocent civilians? They are bombing hospitals and refugee camps; this is a war crime. Why the World is not saying anything about this?
WHO said in a statement that it is almost impossible to bring humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza.

Israel is committing a genocide. Netanyahu invoked the theory of 'Amalek' to justify the killing of Gaza residents. He said;

“You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. 1 Samuel 15:3 ‘Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass’."

This statement is proof that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. 

The USA has continuously backed and supported Israel in the past few weeks of this war, but President Biden's latest statement about a "humanitarian pause" marked a shift in the position of the White House. 

We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.