The Houthis demand peace in Gaza, the USA and the UK bomb them

The end of the Israeli aggression – a permanent ceasefire – in the Gaza Strip is what the Houthis want. The same demand is supported by an overwhelming majority of the international community as indicated by the UN General Assembly Resolution, which was approved by a recorded vote of 153 in favour to 10 against and 23 abstentions.

The USA President Joe Biden could use US leverage to support a ceasefire in Gaza Strip and end the Houthis’ attacks on commercial ships and none of what we are watching unfolding now in the Middle East would have to happen. It could have all been avoided. Instead, he’s chosen to escalate the Gaza war by bombing Yemen.

The ethnic cleansing and mass murder in Gaza could end, the Houthi attacks on international shipping could stop, the wider, catastrophic war that day by day gets closer to breaking out in the Middle East could be prevented.

If the aim of the USA military presence in the area was to prevent escalation, Joe Biden would have done what he has persistently refused to do, in the face of all political logic, common sense, and public pressure: Support a permanent ceasefire and use the enormous power and leverage Washington has over the tiny Middle Eastern country, Israel, to make it stop its war on Gaza.

The USA bombing — done in concert with loyal lapdog Great Britain using their “sovereign bases” in Cyprus, and with the verbal support of some other countries that the USA president couldn’t get to join in — is ostensibly meant to end the attacks from Yemen’s ruling Houthi government on commercial ships in the Red Sea headed to or from Israeli ports.

The attacks had caused some of the world’s biggest shipping firms to suspend shipping in the Red Sea entirely, leading the White House to threaten, and eventually carry out, its own strikes to protect “the free flow of international commerce” and to not allow “hostile actors to imperil freedom of navigation.”

The irony has not been lost on anyone that John Biden is willing to bomb and kill to protect the rights of shipping containers, but has been just fine with 250 human beings slaughtered and more than ten children losing legs each day in Gaza.

Nor has it escaped notice that Washington isn’t exactly a consistent defender of the freedom of navigation: under its illegal sanctions on Iran, US forces have repeatedly intercepted Iranian vessels and seized the oil they were carrying (before shamelessly selling the stolen goods for a profit).

Likewise, Washington said nothing when Israeli forces killed nine people in 2010, including a US citizen, on a Turkish flotilla traveling to Gaza with humanitarian goods, in order to enforce Israel’s own illegal blockade on Gaza.

In any case, it’s hard to take seriously that the USA/UK show of force is going to achieve what it’s meant to achieve. For seven years, the people of Yemen endured a merciless blockade and indiscriminate bombing campaign that triggered widespread starvation, an explosion of disease, and the deaths of at least 377,000 people.

In fact, Yemenis have already reacted with defiance, with Houthi officials warning that the US strikes would “not go unanswered and unpunished” and that they were “ready to deter and respond,” and tens of thousands of Yemenis rallying angrily across the country.

The most likely thing that will come of USA/UK aggression against Yemeni people is a counter-response from the Houthis, a cycle of escalation, and the miserable killing in Gaza coming closer to exploding into yet another disastrous, US-fought war in the Middle East.

Even the Saudi government that spent years pitilessly brutalizing Yemen was alarmed by Biden’s decision, calling for restraint and “avoiding escalation” in response to the US strikes.

While they keep hypocritically repeating that their forces are in the area to prevent escalation, their true aim is to help and protect Israel to carry on with impunity for as long as it pleases with its aggression and deter those who could potentially intervene to defend the Palestinians.

The US military have already bombed targets in Iraq and Syria numerous times, while US bases in the two countries have been attacked 127 times in the past three months thanks to Biden’s support for what Israel’s doing.

Taking advantage of the fact that Russia is fighting a war with Ukraine, they are consolidating their hegemony in the Middle East and Israel is an indispensable accessory to that effort.

Therefore, it is clear that in the longer term Israel will be allowed to do whatever they wish and such a state of affairs could develop into serious threat for world peace. A regional war has become an alarming possibility.

USA officials are now drawing up contingency plans to fight one. The US bombing of Yemen came shortly after the Israeli government decided to carry out a drone strike on a Hamas official in Beirut (killing six other people), and then quickly followed it up with the killing of a Hezbollah commander in the country’s south.

The absurd thing is that Israel, with the help of the USA, is the only party that wants to perpetuate the war, and none of the resistance groups or the countries that support them want it to continue. They are all interested in one and the same thing: an end to the killing in Gaza.

The Houthi government has made very clear that their attacks on shipping are a response to Israel’s “ongoing horrific massacres, genocide, and siege against Palestinians in Gaza,” and that their intention is to pressure the United States and Israel to support a ceasefire.