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Will the US Task Force Undo Years of Neglecting the Houthi Threat?
FILE PHOTO: Houthi military helicopter flies over the Galaxy Leader cargo ship in the Red Sea in this photo released November 20, 2023. Photo: Houthi Military Media/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
JNS.org – As the U.S.-led naval task force in the Red Sea operates defensively against the threat posed by the Houthis in Yemen, the wider question of whether Washington will reverse years of neglect and downplaying of the Iran-backed Houthi threat remains open.
It remains unclear whether the increased tensions in the region will develop into conflict, or whether Washington will make due with minimal defensive measures.
Iran and its Houthi proxy are likely gambling on wearing out Washington’s patience and blockading shipping to Israel indefinitely, creating a threat that Israel cannot accept.
And if they succeed, Tehran likely has its sights set on the Persian Gulf, experts warn.
In recent days, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian spoke with his British counterpart, David Cameron, to discuss regional developments. Cameron told Abdollahian that Iran bore responsibility for preventing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, the Meir Amit Intelligence Terrorism Information Center reported, citing Iranian media.
Abdollahian said Iran would respond forcefully to any aggression by the “Zionist entity” and that stopping a “Zionist ship in the Red Sea” could not be seen as a threat to the security of the shipping routes while Israel was allowed to carry out “massacres of women and children” and ignite the region, according to the report.
In a recent sign of ongoing Iran-Houthi coordination, on Dec. 31 Iranian state media reported that Ali-Akbar Ahmadian, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council—the main Iranian military decision-making body—met with the Houthi spokesman and chief negotiator Mohammad Abdeslam.
Ahmadian praised the Houthis’ recent actions, which included a spate of attacks on Red Sea commercial shipping and the firing of missiles and UAVs at Eilat, most of which have been intercepted by American, Israeli, Egyptian and Saudi air defenses.
On that same day, Reuters reported that at least 10 Houthis were killed and two wounded in an attack carried out by American forces on four Houthi boats trying to take control of a Danish ship in the Red Sea.
In response, Yahya Saria, spokesman for the Houthi armed forces, said the United States was responsible for the “crime” and its consequences. He said the American military operation in the Red Sea was designed to protect Israeli ships but would not prevent Yemen from “fulfilling its duty to support the Palestinians.”
He reiterated that the Houthi forces would continue to prevent the passage of Israeli ships or ships sailing towards Israeli ports—thereby confirming the Houthi—Iranian strategy of blockading Israel’s Red Sea shipping lanes, posing a severe threat to its economy, as well as to the wider global economy.
Abdeslam Hajaf, a member of the Houthis’ Shura Council and Defense and Security Committee, claimed that the American attack was a “declaration of war.”
Britain’s Times newspaper, meanwhile, reported that Britain and the United States are preparing to carry out a series of attacks against the Houthis, and may be joined by another European country.
In a sign of the orchestrated nature of the Houthi actions as part of the Iranian radical terror axis, the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued an announcement on Dec. 31 condemning the American action against Houthi forces, and called on Arab and Islamic nations to “confront the American aggression against Yemen by all possible means.”
Iran’s Alborz warship has entered the Red Sea after passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, an Iranian news agency reported on Jan. 1. In its report, Tasnim, which is said to be close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), did not specify the details of the Alborz’s mission but linked the move to Israel’s war against Hamas.
“Following rising tensions in the Gaza war, there has been an acceleration in developments in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait,” it said.
IDF Col. (res.) Shaul Shay, a lecturer at Reichman University in Herzliya and a senior research associate at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism, noted that the strong connection between Iran and the Houthis goes back to 2014, when the Houthis conquered the Yemenite capital of Sana’a, and from there began expanding to other parts of the country, almost seizing Aden as well.
“Then the Saudis established their coalition and entered the battle to push back the Houthis and save the legitimate government. What happened is that at this stage of the war, in fact, the main advantage of the Saudis, of the coalition was, in air power, and they really tried to use it to the best of their ability. And this created two processes that in my opinion affect what we are at today,” said Shay, who served as deputy head of Israel’s National Security Council from 2007 to 2009.
The first is that Iran entered the war on the side of the Houthis in a very distinct manner, despite its many denials. In practice, said Shay, Iran began providing the Houthis with a strategic answer to Saudi air superiority, such as UAVs, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles.
“From the Iranian perspective, this quickly became a proxy war, which was about regional hegemony in the Middle East. Iran against the Saudi axis,” said Shay.
The second process involved the Western reaction. Unfortunately, said Shay, at this stage, the United States and Western Europe began to blame Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and its many civilian casualties, while failing to recognize that this was a strategic battle for the fate of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the Houthis began bombarding Saudi cities and military sites with missiles and UAVs. In 2019, strikes targeted Saudi oil fields at Abqaiq and Khurais, which stopped half of Saudi oil exports at the time and which according to a U.S. investigation originated from Iran directly, despite Houthi claims of responsibility.
In order to avoid repeating the same mistake now, Shay argued, the U.S. task force in the Red Sea will need to go further than merely providing a protective envelope against missiles and sea mines targeting shipping.
“If this is how it ends, the Iranians and Houthis will win the war. The scenario of an Iranian victory includes the Houthis continuing to threaten the ships,” Shay added.
This would encourage Iran to replicate what it is doing in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Persian Gulf’s Strait of Hormuz, through which pass most oil exports from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.
“They will close it when they want to, and through the Houthis, they control the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. This has huge strategic implications, also economically, on the entire global economy,” said Shay. “The Bab el-Mandeb issue should have been solved a few years ago. But if we’ve come this far, this is not an Israeli problem. It is about strategic control over a critical waterway via militias.”
As of this writing, Shay noted that not only are the Iranians not being punished for activating the Houthis, but neither are the Houthis themselves.
“This situation is, at least in my view, intolerable,” he said.
The post Will the US Task Force Undo Years of Neglecting the Houthi Threat? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
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Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
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