Those Houthi missiles: Part 2

See also, Those Houthi Missiles Part 1

The situation as I see it:

• Israel commits brazen genocide on a civilian population coralled in what many sources, some of them Israeli, have called a giant concentration camp. Disregarding the clearest signals, from the outset and at the highest levels of Israel’s government and military, that the intent is ethnic cleansing and land grab …

… the ‘international community’ ¹ as depicted here …

… not only stands idly by but actively aids the genocide as a proportionate response to the Hamas breakout of October 7, 2023. Politicians from Britain’s Labour prime minister through the EC president to Germany’s Green foreign minister speak in Orwellian terms of “Israel’s right to self defence”.

• One of the most impoverished nations on the planet – likely supported and, to a degree, influenced by but neither reliant on nor controlled by Iran – wages asymmetric but highly effective warfare on the genocidal state, leveraging advantages set out in part 1:

The BBC puts traffic through the Red Sea – hence through a Bab el-Mandab choke point just 16 miles wide at its narrowest – at 12% of the world’s total. Shippers Hillebrand GORI, a DHL subsidiary, put it at 15%: rising to 30% for container ships. From this reality – and those of Yemen’s topography, asymmetric fighting experience, and the vulnerability of aircraft carriers in so confined a sea – Ansar Allah punches way above its weight.

• AA makes abundantly clear that its attacks will stop the moment Israel halts its program of mass murder.
• Instead of applauding this principled and courageous stand against war crimes, Western media portray Ansar Allah, aka  the Houthis, as villains, while the states at the forefront in backing Israel, namely USA and UK, “go after” Yemen, having learned nothing from that country’s seeing off, after a decade and more of attempted regime change from the sky, a Saudi/Emirate force backed by US, UK and Israeli materiel, intelligence and logistics.
• The extent of its hubris is swiftly bought home to Team Trump as the Houthis expose the vulnerability of its presence in the Red Sea, with Reaper Drones at $30 million a pop downed, and three F-18s lost – at least one flung from the flight deck of the USS Harry S. Truman when that behemoth was forced by Houthi missiles into an abrupt swerve.
• Trump makes peace with AA. They’ll desist from further attacks on US forces, while the latter will halt the bombing of Yemen. Since no part of the deal obliges AA to cease its attacks on Israel – the reason the US attacked Yemen in the first place – or even to spare US merchant ships if Israel bound, most folk with a mental age above six would see this as a clear victory for Ansar Allah. Especially since global shipping costs have soared due to insurers no longer offering cover for merchant ships in the Red Sea, thereby denying passage through the Suez Canal and ipso facto necessitating a costly detour via South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
• Trump being Trump – and an infantilised US public being, well, an infantilised US public – he claims a magnificent victory. The Houthis, he brags, have been cowed. ²
• Israel, seemingly completely out of the loop on the talks which led to this ceasefire, must be very worried indeed. Says the Times of Israel yesterday:

If the agreement holds, Israel, it seems, is on its own in the fight against the Houthis …  Trump didn’t even mention the Houthis’ attacks on Israel…

It is unclear what exactly was achieved by Trump’s two-month bombing campaign, which cost over $1 billion….

If the Houthis do continue firing at Israeli-linked civilian ships and at the country itself, Israel is unlikely to be capable of forcing them to stop through airstrikes.

It’s not even clear that US strikes are what caused the Houthis to agree to a ceasefire with Washington. Two Iranian officials told The New York Times that it was Iran that persuaded the Houthis to stop their attacks on US assets, as Tehran engages in nuclear talks with the US.

The ToI story from which the above is taken came to my attention via a Naked Capitalism piece, by Yves Smith, well worth reading in its entirety:

Karma Arriving? Times of Israel Frets Over Trump Abandonment With Houthis and Perhaps Even Iran

Israel has gone all in on its bet that its patron, the US, would be always and ever loyal to its interests. That in finance is called an undiversified bet and is considered to be particularly hazardous. Israel has further engaged in the finance equivalent of leveraging that wager by piling on: engaging in in-your-face genocide in Gaza, intensified ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, attacking civilians relentlessly in Lebanon (notably but far from exclusively Beirut), and overextending itself in Syria. Most YouTube geopolitical regulars depict US Middle East policy as totally captured by Israel; Larry Wilkerson has been a lone opponent, contending that the Israel’s conduct, no matter how appalling, serves and is driven by US interests.

If this new story in the Times of Israel is any guide, Israel assumptions that the Zionist state and US interests are joined at the hip just took a big hit, in the form of Trump negotiating with and concluding a deal with Ansar Allah of Yemen, aka the Houthis.

Not only was Israel not a party to the talks, but the (only vaguely described) pact covers only the US and Yemen. Yemen is to stop attacking US ships and the US will stop shelling Yemen. So Yemen is free to and no doubt will continue to attack any Israel-bound vessels. There remains the interesting question of whether the US will try to provoke Yemen by getting a US carrier to go to Israel.

But even more distressing to Israelis is that this pact was agreed after the successful Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport. This is a serious psychological as well as practical blow. Apparently, a single missile got though Israel’s much-touted air defenses, including recently-supplied THAAD systems.¹ So unlike the staged Iran retaliation in April, where Iran got through not just Israel and US but also supplementary French and UK air defenses via among other things a drone swarm which overwhelmed the air defenses, this attack demonstrated conclusively how vulnerable Israel proper is to the stereotyped sandal-wearing Houthis. Even if the damage can be repaired quickly, the airport was out of service and foreign carrier cancelled flights. It’s not clear how quickly they can be persuaded to restore full schedules.

Despite the spectacle of Gaza violence and now starvation having the effect of making distress in Israel look like whinging by pampered sadists, there is more and more evidence that the country is coming apart. Alastair Crooke pointed out right after October 7 that it did profound damage to core premise of the state of Israel, that it was a safe haven for Jews. The justification for the savage and disproportionate violence against Palestinians over decades was to maintain that status. The brutal lashing out after October 7 looks like a further manifestation of displacement activity, even before getting to the fact that eschatological crazies now dominate the government.

Despite Netanyahu’s deeply offensive braying, Israel has not fared well since October 7 …

Read in full at Naked Capitalism …

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1. I don’t say the global south, tacitly but routinely omitted when corporate media speak of the ‘international community’ (e.g. when painting Russia as a pariah state) has rushed to Gaza’s aid. Far from it. But for the most part a Muslim world vehemently denunciatory of Israel is guilty of the quite different offence of not walking the talk, a fact rendering Yemen’s actions all the more commendable.
2. For once Trump isn’t calling the agreement a “deal”. This Forbes clip has him at a press conference next to Canada PM and former Bank of England chief, Mark Carney. Taking a question on the ceasefire, the Don says this: “No it’s not a deal [the Houthis] have said uh please don’t bomb us anymore and we’re not going to attack your ships.”