Yemen’s Houthis declare war on Israel; is the Middle East about to explode?
Distance: Yemeni missiles have to travel more than 1,000 miles to get to Israel – over Saudi Arabian airspace, possibly triggering a re-ignition of other hostilities.
The conflict between Israel and Gaza has widened with a declaration of war against the Israelis from the Houthi movement in Yemen.
🇾🇪 Yemen has declared war on Israel
October 31, there were reports of a rocket attack on Israel from Yemen. Now there has been an official statement indicating that the country is officially entering into combat.
The official spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces, Brigadier… pic.twitter.com/6rSAsJ1eow
— gudetem (@gudetems) October 31, 2023
Considering the fragile state of that country – it exists in a condition of civil war in which the Houthis are just one of several participants, with others including a coalition of Muslim states led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the US, UK and France – this decision seems to be another act of lunacy.
Yemen is the poorest of the Muslim states. The ongoing conflict has led to a severe humanitarian crisis. It ranks highest on the Fragile State Index and second-worst on the Global Hunger Index, and has the lowest Human Development Index out of all non-African countries.
Still, Reuters tells us this:
Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree said in a televised statement the group had launched a “large number” of ballistic missiles and drones towards Israel, and there would be more such attacks to come “to help the Palestinians to victory”.
Saree said it was the Houthis’ third attack on Israel since the start of the conflict, appearing to confirm they were behind a drone attack on Oct. 28 that resulted in blasts in Egypt and was blamed by Israel on the Houthis, and an Oct. 19 incident in which the U.S. navy intercepted three cruise missiles.
Israeli National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said the Houthi attacks were intolerable, but declined to elaborate when asked how Israel might respond.
So it seems Israel intends to retaliate – but is that wise?
The strongest military power in the Middle East would be attacking the weakest country there; the optics (as they’re described) would be appalling.
And Yemen is part of a so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’ backed by Iran – so Israel attacking that country could expand what is currently a very limited confrontation to engulf the whole of the Middle East.
Let’s remember also that Saudi Arabia, after enjoying around a year of relative peace with Yemen, has recently re-opened diplomatic ties with Iran; with Yemen launching missiles over its territory, hostilities may be renewed and that country may end up being dragged into conflict with both the Houthis and their backer.
Benjamin Netanyahu had better be very careful. If he makes the wrong decision now, he could set the whole of the Middle East alight.
Source: Yemen’s Houthis enter Mideast fray, hardening spillover fears | Reuters
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Sad to say this is exactly what they want. It will give them the excuse to nuke the lot of them. They have no respect for human life..
America’s decline as a world power is being vigorously defied by them but the only option left to them is set the world on fire. What with Ukraine in flames affecting the economies of Europe and US blatant provocations against China and now the hell hole which is Gaza destabilising the Middle East it can be seen that US decline is set on blowing up the world. But will it happen? US itself is deeply divided. China has said they should look to enemies at home in response to all the gun massacres. A divided country is essentially weak and that might in the end save all our souls. No country in the world has a truly united population and well we should take a close look at America and be reassured that the end of world maniacs and military supremacists don’t have the political system to themselves. Who knows maybe another Kennedy will win the presidential election next year as an independent and change America dramatically. As China says America can win in concert with China. There is no need to fear China’s economic miracle because their inherent philosophy is about helping others to win as much as helping themselves to win. My opinion is that the Western ideological infrastructure rooted in colonial conquest is demented and demonic. Its apartheid class system which has barely altered over hundreds of years has created a so called ‘middle class’ monster. Ideas form nature and character and those ideas which flow from the colonial rulers have deformed and separated socially and internally as individuals the whole mass of millions of people. They’re separated from themselves. So the ideas of the so called ruling class are not as is constantly stated the ideas that rule the people but are the ideas that through practice, practical planning, form and govern the so called ‘middle class’ an engineered formation that has no ideas of its own. How else could a small clique subject the wider population to unfair rule and maintain it? They need a bureaucratic strata plus a military and police machine to enforce their rules and their laws.
I’ve gone off script but at the heart of war and unfair government is the apartheid system, the system of class division. We need a socialist consciousness, not an artificially created apartheid mental machinery, the so called ‘middle class’. They cannot survive the dissolution of the colonial regime which made them, limited them and separated them in housing, education and mental infrastructure. The two are joined at the hip. It is a superior/inferior relationship. People will survive but the conditions that existed which governed their minds and groomed them from birth onwards, imprisoned them, will no longer exist, they will no longer have overwhelming backing for their innate prejudices and ignorance. They will no longer be reflected in public life. They will have to muck in with everyone else and together create a genuine dialogue that unites them not forcefully disunites them. It is the only way to get peace in the world, do away with the criminal Western regimes and their demented philosophy, let their bureaucratic creation of millions of apartheid persons fall with them. No to the apartheid class system. Yes to unity, solidarity and independent republics.
The chief threat from the Houthis is less directly to Israel, more that they can disrupt shipping through the Red Sea. Their alliance with Iran – fellow Shi’ites – will keep them well-supplied with arms and ammo, at least for a few months, and the Suez Canal runs from the north coast of the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. It is an absolutely critical trade route, including for oil being shipped to the west from the Persian Gulf. If that gets disrupted, even for a few days, the economic damage it will do in Europe and North America will be serious.
Israel will therefore need to guard the Red Sea, which means critical resources will have to reallocated southwards, away from Gaza and Lebanon. With Syria also getting increasingly unhappy with the IDF firing rockets into their territory accidentally-on-purpose, there is now a serious possibility that Israel could be poised to fight on four fronts; one against Hamas in Gaza, one against Hezbollah in Lebanon, one against the Assad regime in Syria (probably backed by Jordan, which has withdrawn its envoy from Israel in protest at the slaughter of Palestinians), and one guarding the Red Sea from the Houthis.
Even with so many opponents being undersized, that’s quite a bit of overstretch. The US have a huge fleet on its way into the conflict zone, and may have to engage directly to ease the pressure on the Israelis from the south. But that is something they want to be cautious about, because active involvement against the Houthis would mean openly fighting a war against Iran, whose response no one can predict. Also, even Sunni countries like Syria would be very unhappy at the USA encroaching in the region, and would probably be reluctantly prepared to side with Iran.
Turkey would almost certainly intervene too on the Israeli side – despite Erdogan’s (for once correct) disgust at what Israel is doing. This could in turn trigger a new Kurdish uprising against BOTH sides, maybe also a paranoid counter-attack by Armenia, whose people still bitterly fear the Turks due to the 1915 Genocide by the Ottoman Empire.
It’s a vast domino set similar to Europe at the start of World War I. I don’t think those lunatics in Jerusalem realise the potential size of the machine they’ve set in motion.
No matter whose ‘side’ you are on, these next few weeks are going to be very, very scary, unless a ceasefire is imposed.