On November 14, 2023, a fortnight into Israel’s murderous assault on the Palestinians in Gaza, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, one of the rulers of Ansar Allah and of the state of Yemen, delivered a discourse that was broadcast on Al-Masirah broadcast.
He said,” We keep an eye on any Israeli ship while it is constantly being looked for.” ” The enemy relies on camouflage in its movement in the Red Sea, especially in Bab al-Mandab, and]does ] not dare to raise Israeli flags on its ships”.
The Bab al-Mandab, the Gate of Grief, is the 14-nautical-mile vast lake between Djibouti and Yemen. What is exciting is that, by United Nations convention, a state claims 12 nautical miles as its regional control, this means a huge part of the lakes are within Yemen’s control.
Five days later, Yemeni soldiers flew in a helicopter over the cargo ship Galaxy Leader, which is partly owned by Abraham Ungar ( one of Israel’s wealthiest men ), but is registered in the Bahamas and runs by the Chinese NYK transport line.
The ship continues to be held within Yemen’s regional waters in the harbor of Saleef, with its 25 staff members as captives in Al-Hudaydah governorate. This abuse on Galaxy Leader, and then on some other Israeli-owned arteries, halted the transportation of goods to the Port of Eliat, which sits at the end of the Gulf of Aqaba.
This port, which squeezes between Egypt and Jordan and is the only port in the Mediterranean Sea that allows Israel to access the Mediterranean Sea, is no longer capable of handling cargo ships, and the port’s personal operator has declared it to be about bankrupt.
The port has been the target of drone and missile attacks from Bahrain, Iraq, and Yemen over the course of the previous year.
US strikes hardly working
If Israel stopped its murderous war against the Palestinians, Yemen’s government said it would refrain from attacking. Since the Israeli invasion continues, Yemen’s problems have also continued.
These Yemeni problems have resulted in numerous attack on Yemen’s now unstable infrastructure, including frequent American missile strikes and Jewish strikes on Yemen’s port town of Hodeidah in July.
When US President Joe Biden was asked if the US strikes and weapon strikes on Oman were working, he answered frankly:” When you say’ working,’ are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Indeed”.
In other words, Yemen’s government, mistakenly called the Houthis after the Zaydi history of Islam, is still attacking Israel despite US and Israeli pressure.
The Zaydi group, the Ansar Allah movements, and the Yemeni government are among the Yemenis who are most opposed to the Jewish holocaust. Yet Tawakkol Karman, who received the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2011 and is a writer of the Yemeni state, has been outspoken in her criticism of Israel.
Biden was correct in saying that US missile strikes wo n’t stop Yemen from attacking. Saudi Arabia bombarded Yemen from 2015 to 2023, killing a lot of the country’s system.
The Yemenis continue to fire at Jewish target despite this. In October 2024, the US defense deployed B-2 Spirit aircraft to reach what the Pentagon called, “five underwater goals”.
Although it was unclear whether these arms stores had been destroyed, it does indicate how desperate Israel and the US are to prevent the Yemeni attacks. The names of the US missions ( OPE Poseidon Archer and OP Prosperity Guardian ) sound intriguing.
A number of ship strike organizations that work to defend Israel and to reach Yemen as well as those that work to stop Israel’s genocide are supporting them. At least 40 000 US soldiers are stationed in the Middle East, and at least one ship strike party can be found using ships and aircraft carriers at once.
As USS Abraham Lincoln departs from the Pacific Ocean, the US Navy reports that there are two destroyers en route to the Mediterranean Sea ( USS Bulkeley and USS Arleigh Burke ) and two in the Red Sea ( USS Cole and USS Jason Dunham ), both of which are anchored by the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman.
In the area surrounding Israel, US weapons is present.
A social alternative
Biden is not the only one who claims that the US’s strikes on Yemen were futile. US Vice Admiral George Wikoff, who leads Operation Prosperity Guardian, addressed an market in Washington, DC from his office in Bahrain in August.
According to Wikoff, the United States is unable to “find a central center of gravity” for Yemenis, which would mean putting forth” a typical punishment policy.” If the United States ca n’t stop the Yemeni government’s leadership from attacking Israeli shipping and infrastructure, then it ca n’t stop the attacks.
According to Wikoff,” We have undoubtedly degraded their capability,” in reference to the US weapons ‘ robots and weapons. Wikoff did not mention that US missiles and drones used by Yemeni soldiers cost about US$ 2, 000, whereas US weapons used to shoot them down charge US$ 2 million.
In the end, Yemenis may be responsible for degrading the US military ( the Wall Street Journal reported in October that the US is running out of air-defense missiles, and the same newspaper reported in June that the US has spent$ 1 billion on its war on Yemen since October 2023 ).
Like Biden, Wikoff reflected:” Have we stopped them? No”. In an intriguing away, Wikoff said,” The answer is not going to come at the end of a weapon system”.
The only thing Israel can do is put an end to its murder, according to the Yemeni government. But yet a ceasefire might not be enough. In early November, the United Nations national Louise Wateridge posted a video on X of the loneliness in northeastern Gaza, and therefore wrote,” An whole world now a cemetery”.
If Israel continues to pursue its improper policies of murder, ethnic cleansing, and segregation, the Yemeni government’s capacity to halt shipping to Israel and impose sanctions on the country off its coast might encourage it to do so.
Both Wikoff and Biden both acknowledge that the US policy has n’t worked, and Wikoff even claimed that using military force will be the answer. It will have to be social.
Globetrotter provided the content for this article, which is now republished with authority.
Vijay Prashad is an American writer, director, and journalist. He is a writing brother and chief editor at Globetrotter. He is an director of LeftWord Books and the producer of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
He has written more than 20 publications, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest ebooks are On Cuba: Views on 70 Times of Revolution and Struggle, Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Actions for Socialism, and ( with Noam Chomsky ) The Removal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power.