August 1, 2024 — Abu Dhabi
The following column originally appeared in Times of Israel.
On July 20, the Israeli Air Force struck targets at the Port of Hudaida in a part of Yemen controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthis. It was in retaliation for a drone that struck a residential area of Tel Aviv the day before, killing one Israeli civilian and wounding several others.
The Hudaida strike should be seen in the context of the difficulties faced by the multinational maritime coalition, led by the United States, in deterring near-daily Houthi attacks on Israel as well as the group’s actions against freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
Israel’s action underscores the need to reconsider the US-led coalition’s military logic. It is encouraging to read that U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla reportedly is advocating for more aggressive military operations, whether against the Houthis or their Iranian and Iranian proxy supply and intelligence networks.
Given Iran’s role in the Houthi attacks, the time has come to look for opportunities to take more aggressive action against Iranian weapon smuggling, training bases, intelligence platforms, and Houthi leadership. Playing defense is no longer enough to curtail the growing Houthi threat.
It is important to look at how we got to this point. While the Houthis openly declare their commitment to Israel’s destruction (indeed the Houthis’ slogan is “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam,”) there was no history of conflict between Yemen and Israel before last year, when the Houthis began attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea, a decision they claimed was in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Jews for millennia played a prominent role in Yemen’s cultural and economic life, a role that largely came to an end in 1949-50 when the vast majority of Yemeni Jews were airlifted to the newly established State of Israel. Today, about 400,000 Israeli Jews are at least partly of Yemeni origin. Although small groups of Jews remained in Yemen from 1950 until the Houthi takeover, Yemen’s age-old Jewish presence is effectively over, with any remaining Jews subject to threats of imprisonment and violence.
The Houthis, who call themselves Ansar Allah (the partisans of God), began to emerge among the Zaidi Shia population in the northern Yemeni province of Saada in the 1990s. The Houthis fought the Yemeni government headed by President Ali Abdullah Salih, claiming their community was marginalized and impoverished as a result of Salih’s policies.
But in 2014 they formed an alliance with Salih against the new, Saudi-backed government. As the Houthi/Salih alliance moved south, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced the formation of an Arab coalition to restore by force the legitimate Yemeni government.
Sensing a strategic opportunity, Iran stepped up its involvement in Yemen, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launching a clandestine effort to supply the Houthis with weapons, including ballistic missiles and exploding drones. With IRGC support and training, the Houthis and their allies were able to fight the Arab coalition to a standstill. Salih turned against the Houthis and tried to join the Arab coalition, but Houthi forces in Sanaa besieged Salih’s home and killed him.
In a clear precedent for their later attacks on Israel, the Houthis launched repeated drone, cruise missile, and ballistic missile attacks against Saudi and Emirati civilian targets, including cities and airports. As the war, which had lasted over five years, reached a stalemate, the UN special envoy, backed by the U.S. and UK, negotiated a ceasefire agreement. Ongoing diplomatic efforts produced an agreement on a power-sharing arrangement between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, but it has not been implemented.
After President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the U.S. ended all military support for the Arab coalition against the Houthis and revoked the Trump administration’s designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization (the designation was partially restored early this year).
Even as Yemen appeared headed toward an internationally backed post-war political arrangement, the IRGC continued to smuggle advanced weapons to the Houthis.
The Houthis’ targeting of international commercial shipping in the Red Sea and the Bab El Mandeb straits took place despite the ceasefire. Initially claiming to target ships headed to Israel or owned by Israeli shipping companies, the Houthis began indiscriminately attacking shipping along the southwestern coast of Yemen in an attempt to block vital international waterways.
Last December, the U.S. announced the formation of an international maritime coalition to stop the Houthi threat. But as a senior Emirati official told me privately, while the coalition’s almost-exclusively defensive tactics limited the damage the Houthis could cause, they have proved insufficient to deter Houthi attacks on shipping and on Israel.
Since October 7, the Houthis have become a full-fledged member of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” along with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iraq’s Shia militias. The Houthis’ claim that they are at war with Israel and the U.S. should be taken as a new factor redefining Yemen’s role in the region.
Even if Israel’s retaliatory strike on Hudaida has not deterred the Houthis, it has cost the Houthis significant assets, including fuel depots and port facilities.
Now is the time to significantly degrade the Houthis’ capabilities, before the Houthi threats to freedom of navigation as well as to the security of Israel and our Gulf Arab partners trigger a much broader and more dangerous conflict in the Arabian and Red Seas.
Ambassador (ret.) Marc J. Sievers, is the Director of AJC Abu Dhabi: The Sidney Lerner Center for Arab-Jewish Understanding. A U.S. diplomat for more than 30 years, he served across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as in Turkey, including postings in Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.
