After fourteen months of war, the ceasefire in Lebanon is still holding, the fighting in the Gaza Strip is low-intensity, and the number of missiles fired at Israel from Iraq has decreased, but the Houthis in Yemen are not stopping. In the early hours of Saturday morning, they fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv that landed in a park in Jaffa, wounding sixteen people, after a similar incident last week that sent millions of Israelis fleeing to air raid shelters.
Throughout the war, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have had a close relationship with Iran. But now, when things calm down on other fronts, they are maintaining their aggressive stance. The Israeli incursion into the buffer zone on the Syrian border is tantamount to… Victims of war For them, though, the Iranians withdrew from Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad. While Iran’s network of regional powers has largely collapsed, the Houthis appear to be maintaining a military front against the West. Have they transformed from a pro-Iranian militia into an independent militia?
“Iran raises concerns.”
The rulers of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, may be Shiite, but they are not from the same Shiite sect as the ayatollahs who rule Iran. The Iranians are Jaafari Shiites – the most widespread Shiite sect in the world – while the Houthis are Zaidis. Inbal Naseem Lofton, an expert on modern Yemen at the Open University, explains that the relationship between the two is not a natural alliance, but something more appropriate, according to overlapping interests and shared hostility to the West in general, and to the West in general. United States and Israel. “The Zaidis have been ‘Iranized’, and not everyone in the Zaidi establishment is in favor of that,” says Nassim Lofton. “At the very least, it is causing unease among some in the Houthi ranks. I’m not sure they will all be very happy to join the ranks, and at the very least it will “Some of them are happy to see their influence diminished.”
Dr. Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), adds: “The Houthis’ independence has always been there, and Iranian control over them has not been as tight as it was over Hezbollah and the Assad regime.” “It is not clear how much coordination there is at the moment, and it is possible that the Iranians have an interest in presenting their axis as active, despite the situation.”
Nassim Lofton points out that the Houthis, first and foremost, serve their own interests. He added: “They are operating in a way that suits them first, even if it does not necessarily align with the interests of individual Iranians. We have seen this in the improvement of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia in 2023 and in bilateral relations.” Mutual opening of embassies with China’s mediation, the Iranians asked the Houthis to lower their profile, but they continued to attack coalition targets.
Benny Sabati, an expert on Iranian affairs at the Institute for National Security Studies, confirms that when the ceasefire agreement was signed with Hezbollah, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced that “resistance” would continue, and offers an alternative explanation for the Houthis’ behavior. “‘Resistance’ is a higher goal for Iran. There are tactical breaks along the way, which sometimes apply to all and sometimes only to some. There are also vague orders that allow partial freedom of action for outlying militias such as the Houthis.”
It is no longer just a regional problem
Unlike other Iranian tentacles, in the early phase of the war, the Houthis created a global threat. Their strategic location north of the Bab al-Mandab Strait, the southern entrance to the Red Sea through which 14% of global maritime trade passes, enabled them to disrupt maritime traffic in the region.
The threat to sea lanes has forced ships to sail around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope, instead of the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, lengthening supply chains by at least two weeks. Egypt, which in normal times derives 2% of its GDP from Suez Canal tolls, has been hit hard. The head of the Suez Canal Authority said that the total revenues of the canal in the 2023-2024 fiscal year amounted to $7.2 billion, which is much less than the total of $9.4 billion in the previous year.
“The Houthis will continue to pose a threat to global security for several reasons: their location in Bab al-Mandab; their proximity to an important oil producer, Saudi Arabia; and their capabilities provided by Iran coupled with the development of independent capabilities,” explains Dr. Guzansky.
The Houthis also constitute a subversive element within Yemen itself. The Yemeni government, which is recognized by the international community, is in Aden. According to the World Bank, in the first half of 2024, it lost 42% of its revenues. Damage to oil exports and reliance on imported products led to the value of the Yemeni riyal falling from 1,619 riyals to the US dollar in January to 1,917 riyals in August. There were reports of food shortages in some areas of the country. According to the International Monetary Fund, Yemen’s gross domestic product will shrink by 1% in 2024, after shrinking by 2% last year.
Published by Globes, Israel Business News – en.globes.co.il – on December 22, 2024.
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