An apparent ploy to disrupt peace talks and inflame passions in the Middle East is meeting resistance in some quarters but other politicians seem to be playing right into the hands of their enemies.
Yemen was targeted by intense air strikes by the US and Britain, following a series of attacks by Houthi forces on Red Sea shipping that aimed at pressuring Israel to cease its military actions in Gaza.
The Iran-backed Houthi movement is a Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged in the 1990s as an opposition movement to Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom they accused of corruption linked to Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Part of the motive for the October 7 Hamas attack was to disrupt several Middle East countries that were normalizing their relationships with Israel without a solution to the problem of Palestinian statehood but following his visit to Riyadh, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had discussed the potential normalization of relations with Israel and that the Saudis still had a clear interest in progressing this.
Saudi Arabia sees Israel’s military operation in Gaza in a much more critical light than most Western nations but it has confounded the expectation that the ploy would exacerbate sectarian divides within the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region, despite Prime Monster Benjamin Netanyahu’s overreaction to the terrorism incident.
Despite the criticism of Israel since the beginning of the Gaza conflict, Saudi Arabia has not drastically changed its foreign policy objective of working on a better relationship with Israel because the kingdom wants to continue to enjoy a good relationship with the US. a more solid and reliable security partnership with the USA, support for its nuclear program and arms cooperation.
Netanyahu’s brutal attack on Gaza has been called genocide by South Africa, which filed a complaint in the World Court, but the Israeli leader seems to want to expand the conflict into open warfare against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and the revolutionary government in Iran.
More than 23,000 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and almost 59,000 were reportedly injured. That’s in addition to about 1,200 people killed by Hamas in Israel on October 7, plus 330 Palestinians killed in the West Bank since that initial terrorism incident.
The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) said in November that about 10,000 civilians, including more than 560 children, have been killed and over 18,500 have been injured since Russia launched its full-scale armed attack against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Israel supporters argue that a ceasefire or pause can be manipulated by Hamas and they disputed Palestinians casualty claims, as if murdering fewer than 10,000 innocent children in Gaza would be more defensible.
Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day, which massively exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years, according to Oxfam, a global organization founded in 1942 to fight inequality, alleviate poverty, and end injustice.
Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan is leading a diplomatic committee mandated by the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation, to tour various international capitals and argue for an immediate ceasefire.
At the same time, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has praised Saudi Arabia’s “constructive” position concerning Israel during the conflict and the Gulf nation’s action to shoot down Houthi missiles that were bound for Israel.
Germany, which started blocking weapons deliveries to Saudi Arabia in 2018 after the brutal assassination of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi highlighted the country’s human rights violations, will no longer block the sale of Eurofighter jets and guided missiles to the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which resulted in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, Khashoggi’s murder, and the country’s human rights violations now seem to be forgotten as it and Iran are engaged in an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East and other regions of the Muslim world.
The two countries have provided varying degrees of support to opposing sides in nearby conflicts, including the civil wars in Syria and Yemen; and disputes in Bahrain, Lebanon, Qatar, and Iraq. The struggle also extends to disputes or broader competition in other countries globally including in Africa, Asia, the Balkans, and the Caucasus.
In 2003, influenced by the Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, the Houthis adopted their official slogan: “God is great, death to the US, death to Israel, curse the Jews, and victory for Islam,” which is an almost word-for-word translation of Ayatollah Khomeini’s slogan.
An airbase, airports, and a military camp were the main targets of Friday’s strikes, as reported by the Houthi rebels’ and confirmed by Western correspondents who witnessed the bombardment.
Meanwhile, Israel is defending itself at the International Court of Justice, aiming to counter South Africa’s claims that it has been engaging in genocide in Gaza, where Israel’s military killed over 23,000 Palestinians, including nearly 10,000 children.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed responsibility for missile attacks on what it alleged were Israeli “spy headquarters,” near the U.S. consulate in the Iraqi city of Erbil, where missiles targeted eight locations and killed four people.
American military officials said two elite Navy SEALs were lost at sea during a nighttime ship-boarding operation, backed by helicopters and drones, near Somalia last week that recovered Iranian-made missile warheads and disrupted the weapons resupply of militants in Yemen. The crew of 14 were taken into custody and the boat was sunk, according to a statement by U.S. Central Command.
During the Israel-Hamas war, Oman maintained its neutrality from other neighboring Arab countries but Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, who promised to uphold his predecessor’s peace-making foreign policy, condemned American and British strikes in rebel-held Yemen, warning of the risk of escalating conflict in the region.
“All American-British interests have become legitimate targets for the Yemeni armed forces in response to their direct and declared aggression against the Republic of Yemen,” the Houthis’ Supreme Political Council said in a statement on their official media.
Meanwhile, Jordan said “Israel’s brutal aggression against Gaza” was responsible for soaring tensions and fears of regional war.
In comments published by official news agency Petra, Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned the international community against allowing the Israeli government’s “hatred and racism to drag the region” into conflict.
“Israel’s brutal aggression against Gaza” and violations of Palestinians’ rights “pose the greatest threat” to regional stability, Safadi said.
He added that the kingdom was “keeping a close eye on the developments in the Red Sea”.
“The international community is at a crossroads in terms of security, morality, law and humanitarianism,” Safadi said, describing a choice between ending the Israel-Hamas war or risking wider conflict.
Amid this turmoil, the Doomsday Clock, symbolizing the world’s proximity to disaster of our own making, is the closest it has ever been at 90 seconds to midnight. As the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists updates the clock on January 23 at 10 a.m., global leaders need to stop engaging in warmongering madness, prioritize peace and avert a catastrophe.
As the Middle East bloodshed threatens to mushroom into a larger conflict with the potential to destroy our world.