Houthis between Gaza and Yemen

It is clear that the massive transformations, not all of them positive, that have swept the region since October 7, 2023 have not yet convinced the Houthi Ansar Allah group to understand that what it describes as painful operations against Israel under the slogan of “supporting Gaza” have not provided any real, useful support to the Palestinians. Neither has the Israeli occupation stopped killing the residents of Gaza nor its systematic destruction, nor has the daily displacement from one area to another inside Gaza ended. Rather, the brutality and abuse increased and extended to areas in the West Bank.

It is logical, humane and moral for every believer in humanity and freedoms to support and back the resistance of the people of Gaza in particular, Palestine and all occupied lands in general, and to help them with everything any human being can. However, it is not necessary that support and backing precede and demand humane and moral treatment within the homeland from which these campaigns are launched. When a citizen is oppressed in his country and deprived of his most basic rights, and barely possesses the minimum necessities of life, the issue of his call for support and backing becomes a motive for questioning the true intentions of those calling for it.

It is true that the operations carried out by the Houthis are the first of their kind in the history of the Arab conflict with Israel, and it is acceptable that they have worried the occupying state, and it is true that they have managed to penetrate the defense lines, but it is also true that they will not change the military and strategic equation in the region. The reason is that the Israeli government, in addition to its scientific, technical and military superiority, relies on amazing external support that covers all costs and losses, while it will be difficult, if not impossible, to compensate for the losses to the infrastructure, which all Yemenis possess, as a result of the American, British and Israeli attacks.

I have repeatedly said that it is difficult to condemn the operations carried out by the Houthi group, but these actions do not achieve the goal they claim to seek. The matter here requires a simple inventory of what all these operations have provided to stop the ongoing genocide and physical and psychological destruction of the Palestinians. Then what has the compulsory summoning of hungry and oppressed citizens to go out in demonstrations in support and assistance achieved, while they are forbidden to demonstrate in protest and objection to their poor conditions, hardship, oppression by the authorities, and the looting of their property? This contradiction can only be explained by the duality of the view of the ordinary citizen in the face of the group’s leader’s self-aggrandizement and his desire to become important even at the expense of the homeland and the citizens.

It is absurd to insist on continuing the path of military support despite not objecting to it in principle, but for a poor, divided, exhausted and dilapidated country to go to an open war with the world is foolish, absurd and obsessive, indicating that it is a miserable attempt to escape internal obligations, especially after we all saw what the Israeli enemy did in Gaza, which it turned into a pile of corpses and dirt, then moved to Lebanon and destroyed most of Hezbollah’s capabilities, and its appetite will not stop until it is guaranteed that it is safe from every threat that could reach it, no matter how small.

The Assad regime was a guarantor of Israel’s security and a guardian of its borders and the Golan Heights. It did not use any of its military tools except internally to suppress its citizens. Despite this, Tel Aviv decided to give itself early insurance, knowing the poor quality of its equipment, its age and its deterioration. It carried out a preemptive operation in which it destroyed all the capabilities of the Syrian army. If the regime had relied on a popular base that supported its internal policies, the tragic and expected end would not have been the same.

Everyone knows that the decision of power in Sana'a is in the hands of the leader of the "group" and the one his supporters call "the learned leader". It is clear that he has begun to assume, without the capabilities and skills, the role of the global Islamic leader who resists injustice in the world, a role he cannot achieve because he lacks a popular and national base. Abdulmalik al-Houthi, in reality, lives in a state of denial that victory in wars requires more than mobilizing citizens, and he does not realize that talk of sympathy and support for Gaza in particular is an ethical matter beyond reproach, but Yemen's capabilities are too weak to be a real source of threat.

What the "group" is doing is providing justifications for the same powers it claims to be fighting to obtain advanced military bases, in addition to the fleets it possesses that roam the seas. The illusion of the world's panic and fear of operations against the Houthis is simply an exaggeration of them so that getting rid of them is an issue that Yemenis and the world agree on.

The "group" is not more powerful than "Hezbollah", nor Syria, nor Iran, but it is more noisy and disturbing, and it will be punished by destroying Yemen. It should not be tempted by the world's cries of its threats, and the real serious beginning in granting citizens their freedoms and dignity at home.

*Quoted from Independent Arabia