#tel aviv 2019

[travelblog]

[tatsuma-forever]

i’m going to try to explain this in very basic terms so everyone understands

the only reason russia was banned from eurovision is because the groups funding eurovision threatened to pull out if they were allowed to compete. these groups have not applied the same pressure to eurovision over israel committing genocide. these groups have not applied the same pressure regarding azerbaijan either.

no matter how much you hear the opposite, eurovision is extremely political. the ‘no politics’ rule exists to silence people the broadcasters disagree with. in 2019, eurovision was held in tel aviv. the icelandic group hatari brought out palestinian banners while their points were being announced, and they got booed and fined. politics are allowed if eurovision deems them palatable. war is ‘okay’ to talk about IF you agree with eurovision

if belarus was disqualified for propaganda, israel should be too.

[kropotkindersurprise]

May 2024 - With Eurovision coming up, and the fascist state of Israel being allowed to pinkwash their genocide of the Palestinian people once again, let's remember Icelandic anti-capitalist band Hatari who showed their support for Palestine in 2019 when Eurovision was being held in Tel Aviv, and were fined for it (€5000,- lmao). Later that same month they brought out the pro-Palestinian song Klefi / Samed (صامد) together with Palestinian artist Bashar Murad.

anyway, the BDS movement is calling for a boycott of Eurovision 2024!

[sayruq]

Meta identifies networks pushing deceptive content likely generated by AI

Meta (META.O) said on Wednesday it had found "likely AI-generated" content used deceptively on its Facebook and Instagram platforms, including comments praising Israel's handling of the war in Gaza published below posts from global news organizations and U.S. lawmakers. The social media company, in a quarterly security report, said the accounts posed as Jewish students, African Americans and other concerned citizens, targeting audiences in the United States and Canada. It attributed the campaign to Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm STOIC. While Meta has found basic profile photos generated by artificial intelligence in influence operations since 2019, the report is the first to disclose the use of text-based generative AI technology since it emerged in late 2022. Researchers have fretted that generative AI, which can quickly and cheaply produce human-like text, imagery and audio, could lead to more effective disinformation campaigns and sway elections. In a press call, Meta security executives said they removed the Israeli campaign early and did not think novel AI technologies had impeded their ability to disrupt influence networks, which are coordinated attempts to push messages.

[las-microfisuras]

Ellen Auerbach Strand cerca de Tel Aviv, 1934 © Akademie der Künste, Berlín, Kunstsammlung Inv.Nr.: Auerbach 4935 / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2019

[heritageposts]

🍉 Bashar Murad - MASKHARA بشار مراد مسخرة

From a 2021 interview with Bashar, where he explains some of the choices behind his music video for Maskhara:

[...] Meanwhile, the coffee cup reading is a metaphor of family expectations, and the pink outfits, the pink lighting and filters, and pink roses stuffed into a military tank are a nod to pinkwashing – the promotion of the queer-friendliness of a political entity to distract from human rights abuses. As a gay Palestinian himself, the latter hits close to home. In 2019, Bashar attracted global headlines through his involvement in Globalvision, an alternative concert that was livestreamed simultaneously with Eurovision in Tel Aviv – which had been plagued with pinkwashing controversy. "We didn't get the same number of viewers as Eurovision, but it still felt like we were doing something important," Bashar recalls. "Eurovision is a very queer event. It's also a musical event, so it was not just pinkwashing, it was also artwashing. As a gay artist, it was so important for me to make a statement. "They were also emphasising the fact that Eurovision is not political when it's the epitome of politics. It's different countries voting for and against each other and flags being waved everywhere. "But when it comes to Palestine and our voices, we were shut down. We were told that no, this is not a political event, this is a party and this is a happy event."

. . . continues at The New Arab (5 Mar 2021)

[komsomolka]

Despite Israel’s ongoing brutal assault on the Gaza Strip and its 2.4 million Palestinians, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) continues to pursue a controversial deal to normalize relations with the occupation state. Riyadh has persisted in deepening relations with Tel Aviv in multiple sectors despite receiving ‘death threats’ from opponents of normalization in the kingdom.

So why, then, does the crown prince insist on trudging down this unpopular path unless he believes that establishing ties with Israel is crucial for securing his ascendency to the Saudi throne? [...]

The two states share several strategic goals. Saudi Arabia is opposed to the regional Axis of Resistance, which includes Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Ansarallah, Hamas, and other non-state actors, and has implemented repressive measures against the Palestinian resistance. The kingdom has for years targeted supporters of Hamas and individuals funneling funds to the Palestinian territories. This includes the arrest of more than 60 Palestinians in 2019, some of them Hamas officials and Saudi nationals who received lengthy prison terms.

As recently as May, Saudi Arabia stepped up its campaign to arrest social media users in the kingdom who attacked Israel online – this after more than 34,000 Palestinians had been killed in relentless Israeli airstrikes on population centers.

From the sidelines, Saudi Arabia has also supported the normalization efforts of Bahrain and Sudan while offering the occupied West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) economic incentives to collaborate further with Israel. [...]

Economic normalization is crucial for MbS’s coveted Vision 2030 project, which aims to transform the kingdom’s economy and institute social liberalization. The deal with Israel includes opening Saudi airspace to Israeli flights and encouraging Israeli investment in Saudi heritage sites. Jared Kushner, the architect of the 2020 Abraham Accords, has played a prominent role in these efforts, working to establish an investment corridor between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

Among the most ambitious projects is the fiber optic cable linking Tel Aviv to Persian Gulf countries, as well as a planned railway expansion that would connect Saudi Arabia to Israel via Jordan. Ibrahim contends that the Palestinian resistance’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation last October disrupted these plans, placing a whole host of these economic projects in jeopardy: The Al-Aqsa Flood came and thwarted this project and disrupted it for an unknown period. Therefore, the Saudi regime, along with the US and the Israeli entity, was the first to feel that the Al-Aqsa Flood was directed primarily at the normalization project in the region.

Cultural and media strategies have played an advanced role in acclimating Saudis to normalization with Israel. Since the events of 11 September 2001, Saudi Arabia has worked on revising its education curricula, gradually removing references to Israel as an enemy and promoting a more neutral stance on the occupation state. Art and media have also played a role, with Saudi TV channels airing programs that subtly promote peace with Israel.

The media, in particular, has been a powerful tool in shaping public perception, with Saudi outlets often hosting Israeli officials and broadcasting reports from within the kingdom. This propaganda campaign has aimed to create a climate conducive to normalization, although public support for such a move has fluctuated, especially after the events of 7 October.

At the heart of the crown prince’s Vision 2030 is his desire to position Saudi Arabia as a global sports hub. The Public Investment Fund, Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, leads this expansive project by purchasing major foreign sports franchises and hosting international sporting events in the kingdom.

The sports sector has been yet another tool of soft normalization, paving the way for official Israeli teams to appear in Saudi Arabia, where they raise the occupation state’s flag and sing its national anthem. Official matches and competitions are held between Saudi and Israeli players, and the Saudi national football team has even participated in matches held in the occupied West Bank.

[splatoonpolls]

So Eurovision had a singer who participated before in the opening ceremony. The singer is Eric Saade and he’s Palestinian. For that he wore the keffiyeh which the EBU didn’t like.

“I got this keffiyeh by my dad when I was little, to never forget where my family came from. I didn’t know that one day it would be called a “political symbol”. It’s like calling the dalahäst (a type of wooden horse that’s associated with Sweden) a politician symbol. In my eyes that’s racism. I just wanted to be inclusive and wear something that’s true to me, but the EBU thinks my ethnicity is controversial. It says nothing about me, but everything about them. I’m saying the same thing as this years Eurovision slogan “united by music”

And like when Madonna performed in Tel Aviv 2019, they decided to not publish his performance. (Madonna showed two dancers, one with the Israeli flag and one with the Palestinian flag walking together).

Here’s the full article, it is in Swedish though

[moonmoonthecrabking]

if you like eurovision, i think you know it’s time to boycott.

if you like eurovision, have been watching it for years, even if it’s only just for the music, you know that it is inherently political. from bloc voting to song bans to how and when russia and ukraine have participated in the past decade, it’s very clearly political.

which is why israel’s participation this year is very much a statement. if they are not excluded, which they have not been, it is a validation of their horrific acts against palestine. russia was banned, because of the invasion of ukraine, but doing nothing to israel because of palestine suggests the state’s* actions are “not that bad” or even are acceptable. they are not. formally, the rules of the contest don’t allow propaganda, but israel still attempted to submit a song with political lyrics. israel’s presence in eurovision also has contributed to pinkwashing, portraying it as the perfect place for queer people, especially with how it is perceived as a country in the middle east. this was particularly true when the contest was held in tel aviv in 2019.

i’m not going to say “eurovision is trashy”, because that can be a reason behind liking it, or not your personal experience. i’m not going to ask why israel, a non-european nation, is involved in eurovision (it’s because the european broadcasting union is not confined to europe necessarily, and it wants to make money). those are moot points. what i am going to say is that israel’s continued presence in the eurovision song contest, especially after this year, sides the ebu with the genocide in gaza.

the ebu, as well as each country’s broadcasters, wants money. if we don’t watch and don’t vote, we vote with our time and our dollar to say this is unacceptable. it will not fix the damage that has been done, but at least we won’t be encouraging this behaviour.

boycott eurovision. free palestine.

[gothhabiba]

The historical link between meat and colonisation in Israel

In her PhD thesis on the historical role of Tel Aviv under the British Mandate for Palestine, Dr Efrat Gilad shows that while Zionist technocrats promoted a diet of little to no beef, urban settlers enjoyed their steaks and stews. Furthermore, their love for meat led them to play a key role in the colonisation of Palestine. (23 March 2021).

In your thesis you studied colonisation in Israel through attitudes towards meat consumption. What gave you this idea and why was it a worthwhile one?

There were various indicators that meat would be a useful entry point to the history of Jewish settlers in Palestine. One indicator had to do with a surprising statistic I came across. In 2019, according to OECD statistics, the world’s leading beef consumers were Argentina, the United States, and almost tied for third place were Brazil and Israel. Israel is an anomaly on this list. The other countries that tend to lead in meat consumption are also global meat producers and exporters. Their meat industries evolved over centuries, beginning with European settlers who used cattle to colonise. As cowboys or gauchos drove livestock across vast territories dominating the land, producing and consuming meat became linked to national identity. 

Israel, however, does not produce the majority of the beef it consumes; rather, it mostly relies on imports. While colonisation is part of Israel’s past and present, Jewish settlers did not drive herds of animals to dominate Palestine’s landscape as did the cowboys and gauchos of the Americas. The ecologies and economies of livestock in Palestine were vastly different than in the above-mentioned countries. This does not mean there is no historical link between meat and colonisation in Israel – my research actually shows that there is – but that the historical trajectory that led Israelis to consume as much beef as Brazilians was different, and thus required further investigation. My dissertation is the first comprehensive history of meat in Palestine/Israel grounded in extensive archival research. 

Can you describe your research questions and the methodology you used to approach those questions?

As a historian, my methodology involves archival research and analysis of historical documents. Early on I noticed a gap between two types of sources. On the one hand, there was a clear correlation between the growing numbers of European Jews settling in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s and the soaring demand for meat. This was evident in many sources including data on livestock imports and slaughter, newspaper articles on the price of meat and its availability, the building of new slaughterhouses in Palestine’s cities, and multiple disputes between consumers, butchers and cattle dealers. On the other hand, when reading through sources produced by Zionist technocrats – such as economists, agronomists and nutritionists – I noticed a vastly different attitude to meat. While urban settlers were preoccupied with gaining more access to meat, Zionist technocrats seemed determined to convince Jewish settlers to adopt a diet of little to no beef.

My work then focused on three interconnected questions: Why did Zionist technocrats oppose meat consumption? How did urban settlers create systems to allow them access to meat in a country of limited supply (and in defiance of national experts)? And finally, how did urban settlers – in creating those systems – promote the colonisation of Palestine?

What are your answers?

First, I found out why Zionist technocrats opposed meat consumption, and this was entangled in ideas about climate, nutrition and economy. Zionist technocrats adopted an idea rooted in colonial medicine according to which consuming meat was harmful in Palestine’s heat. This was a significant finding because it highlights European Jewish settlers’ alienation from Palestine’s environment, and resonates with histories of other settler colonies, allowing us to think comparatively and transnationally about colonisation. The second layer in the discourse against meat was linked to the settler colonial economy. Beef consumption depended on Palestinian breeders and regional Arab livestock merchants, and increasingly also on overseas imports. This threatened Zionist leaders’ aspirations for a self-reliant Jewish settlement, which they believed was essential to its expansion. Thus, technocrats believed, high levels of beef consumption obstructed Zionist goals.  

My second major finding shows how urban Jewish settlers ignored technocrats by generating a booming meat economy. Settlers first supported Palestine’s existing meat economy but gradually also created separate systems of import and slaughter. Because local supply chains of beef were deemed insufficient and firmly in the hands of Arab and Palestinian merchants, Jewish butchers and cattle dealers tapped into their connections to the European trade and created new networks of overseas cattle import. In creating their own meat infrastructures, especially in Tel Aviv, settlers worked to dominate Palestine’s meat trade. Whereas the literature often focuses on ideologues or rural “pioneers”, I show how urban settlers are historical agents who were perhaps oblivious or defiant of national ideologies pertaining to the meat trade but who nevertheless played a key role in a national endeavour: the colonisation of Palestine. 

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

By Eli Lake and Danielle Shapiro

Since the October 7 massacre, a small “charity” based in Canada has been ubiquitous on elite college campuses, celebrating the bloodbath at public rallies and seminars. The group is called Samidoun, and it claims to be an NGO advocating on behalf of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

On Tuesday, the U.S. and Canadian governments put an end to that charade. 

Samidoun is not a charity at all. Rather, it’s a group “that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization,” according to a press release issued Tuesday by the Treasury Department. The government describes it as a “sham.”

For anyone who has followed the history of Palestinian terrorism, PFLP is a name you’re no doubt familiar with. It was founded in 1967 as a Marxist revolutionary group, and was supported during the Cold War by China and the Soviet Union. In 1976, the PFLP teamed up with West Germany’s Baader-Meinhof group to hijack a flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Entebbe, Uganda, separating Jewish and non-Jewish passenger hostages. Eventually, Israeli commandos freed the hostages. The episode was turned into the movie 7 Days in Entebbe.

For most of the 1990s and 2000s, PFLP was largely an afterthought for both Israelis and Palestinians (though it did murder an Israeli tourism minister in 2001). That began to change in 2019, when the PFLP killed a 17-year-old girl in the West Bank with a roadside bomb that also injured her father and brother. Since then, the government of Israel has pressed its allies to designate Samidoun as a terrorist front for the PFLP. The designations from Canada and the U.S. on Tuesday are the culmination of that effort. 

One place where that designation will have an effect is elite campuses, where Samidoun has long established itself as a partner—and funder—for anti-Israel student initiatives. Just in the past year, Samidoun has co-sponsored a divestment rally at Princeton, taught an “Abolish Imperialism” lecture at Harvard Law School and, most infamously, led a “Palestinian Resistance 101” teach-in at Columbia University that resulted in the suspension of multiple student organizers who used the event to “promote the use of terror or violence.” 

As far back as 2017, Princeton’s Palestine club shared links from Samidoun’s media page and encouraged students to work with the group on initiatives to free a Palestinian activist who had assaulted an Israeli soldier. In 2022, Princeton’s Palestine club again partnered with Samidoun to lead a “Palestinian Prisoner Letter-Writing Session” on campus. This long and close relationship between Princeton students and faculty and Samidoun has been replicated at top universities across the country.

Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a former FBI analyst and deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury Department, told The Free Press that the U.S. and Canadian governments have debated over the last year about designating Samidoun a terrorist group. Their reservation was due to the fact that Western governments do not sanction organizations based just on violent and hateful speech. “They have been saying horrible and nasty things,” Levitt said. “We don’t designate people for saying nasty things.” 

What turned the tide, according to Levitt, was that Israel had accumulated mounds of evidence that Samidoun was, in effect, a fundraising arm for the PFLP. Some of this information has been available for some time. For example, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy released a report in 2019 that detailed Samidoun’s role in raising money for the PFLP. That report claims that PFLP operatives transferred money from Lebanon to a man named Khaled Barakat when he was living in Europe. On Tuesday, Barakat was also designated as a foreign terrorist financier. His wife, Charlotte Kates, is Samidoun’s “international coordinator.” 

In 2022, the Netherlands barred Kates and Barakat from entering the country where they had planned to land and then drive to a pro-Palestine march in Belgium. More recently, Germany designated Samidoun as a terrorist organization in November 2023. 

Even though PFLP has not captured the headlines of better-known groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, it remains deadly. Although it was not involved in the original planning for October 7, the terrorist group joined the massacre once it was underway. NGO Monitor has published PFLP statements and Telegram posts that show its participation in the 2023 attack, joining after the first wave of Hamas operatives.

[travelblog]

[emmikatjohnson]

I designed and printed this poster in 2019. It has never sold well and I still have a lot left that I've been selling as clearance at my live events. They are scratched very easily and many of them are already scratched as show in the images. It does add a fun weathered band posted kind of vibe.

When I pulled them out for an event recently, I realized in horror that when I had designed them 5 years ago I had added Tel Aviv, Israel on the tour list. At the time, I was unaware of Israel's politics, but in light of their continued genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, I have decided to hand modify each remaining poster by crossing out the city and writing "Ceasefire Now!" in it's place.

All proceeds of this poster will be donated to the victims of the genocide.

Support Now!

I have included the "pay what you want" feature, so if you'd like to donate more, you can do that, as well.

I'd like to believe that that is what The Hex Girls meant when they said "Love the Earth"…and everyone in it!

[opencommunion]

"On July 26, 2014, the nineteenth day of Israel’s 2014 summer assault on Gaza, I saw a large group of Israelis on the news marching in the streets of Tel Aviv waving Israeli flags, encouraging their state to continue its bombardment of Gaza while chanting in celebration: In Gaza there’s no studying No children are left there, There’s no school tomorrow, There’s no children left in Gaza! Oleh! Gaza is a graveyard. Calls for the killing of Palestinian children, the destruction of their schools, and the transformation of their home, the Gaza Strip, into a graveyard are not confined to the chanting of angry rightwing nationalist mobs, as some might argue in an effort to dismiss the acute danger of such spectacles and the messages that are implicit or explicit in such displays. High-ranking Israeli officials and policymakers also speak this language of the mob. In July 2014, Israeli lawmaker and justice minister Ayelet Shaked posted the text of an article by Uri Elitzur, the late Israeli journalist and advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to Palestinian children as little snakes: 'They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.' In calling for the genocide of the Palestinians while simultaneously animalizing their children, the justice minister’s rhetoric goes hand in hand with that of the mob – there shall be no schooling in Gaza because no children must remain there. ... Keeping Palestinians living as dogs, as [Moshe] Dayan stated, or labelling them 'little snakes,' as Shaked did, are acts rooted in the violent formation of the settler-colonial state. This language presents a classic case of blaming the victim. It animalizes the Other in order to normalize and decriminalize genocidal acts against them. ... Inside Gaza, an unending process of displacement and dismemberment is the way of life, amounting to an ongoing genocide." Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding (2019)

[mariacallous]

Since the Houthis began attacking international shipping, media coverage and official statements have defined them as an Iranian proxy, but this downplays the Houthis’ threat and obscures the solution to it. In truth, the Houthis are not an Iranian proxy, even though they benefit from Iranian support. Rigorous definitions of the term “proxy” require that the sponsor has some means of controlling the proxy, as this is what differentiates a proxy from a partner/ally. But Iran lacks control over Houthi behavior and the Houthis are not acting primarily on behalf of Iran. This is important because the Houthis have demonstrated that they are often a more unpredictable and aggressive actor than their Iranian supporters.

Rather than being part of a centralized proxy system, the Houthis are an independent part of an increasingly complex network that allows them to work directly with over a dozen other groups to share expertise, coordinate activities, and even collaborate on joint attacks. This web enables a proliferation of chaos far beyond what Iran could orchestrate by itself, and beyond what it can effectively control. For this reason, attempts to address the Houthis’ threat by putting pressure on or engaging with Iran are doomed to fail.

The Houthis are an independent actor

After a Houthi drone killed an Israeli citizen and wounded several others in Tel Aviv on July 19, the Houthis quickly announced that Iran only learned of the attack after the fact in an attempt to assert their own independence. The Houthis have consistently demonstrated that they retain sole authority over decisionmaking. At times, this has included taking actions that run counter to Iranian interests, as they did by declaring a unilateral cease-fire with Saudi Arabia in 2019, even as Iran sought to use the Houthis to escalate tensions in the region.

The Houthis have also tried to mitigate their dependence on Iranian weapons flows, securing critical weapons parts from China, developing independent financing schemes for weapons procurement, and now pursuing military support from Russia. While still dependent on external parts, the Houthis have improved their ability to manufacture weapons inside of Yemen and have honed their independent expertise with new weapons, leveraging the fact that they are battle-tested in a way Iran is not. Over the past several months alone, they have rapidly improved their use of unmanned surface vessels, allowing them to sink a Greek coal ship in June.

The Houthis’ independence from Iran is important because the Houthis are currently more likely than Iran to escalate. The Houthis are less vulnerable than Iran to U.S. and international pressure, meaning they can afford to take greater risks. After several years of a Saudi-led coalition air campaign, the Houthis have grown accustomed to shielding their weapons supply from airstrikes, which is why recent U.S. and U.K. strikes have failed to significantly erode the Houthis’ attack capabilities.

The Houthis are also less vulnerable to international sanctions, as they operate largely outside of the international financial system. Iran has been forced to cope with domestic unrest and the economic impact of financial sanctions. Yemenis, on the other hand, have been facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises for a decade, making them unfortunately more accustomed to the economic deprivation and violence that the Houthi approach has perpetuated in the country.

In Yemen, conflict has become the norm in a way that is not the case in Iran, and the Houthis have presented themselves as the sole defenders of Yemen against external aggression—a narrative that depends on continued conflict. For years, that “aggression” came from the Saudi-led coalition, but this year, the narrative expanded to include the United States. And after January 20, Israel, arguably the most compelling foe for the Houthis and their supporters, joined the fray. In this way, Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Yemen in July will serve to greatly embolden the Houthis and incentivize them to pursue continued and even greater conflict with Israel, potentially even after a Gaza cease-fire is in place. While the Houthis have framed their maritime and regional attacks in the context of the Gaza war, Yemen analysts widely agree that the Houthi’s attacks are largely driven by their own domestic imperatives and regional ambitions, such that the threat will likely persist even after a Gaza cease-fire is in place.

The Houthis as a new model of Iranian support

The tendency to consider all Iranian-backed groups as proxies may be due to the fact that Lebanese Hezbollah, the most powerful Iranian-backed group in the region, is in fact a proxy that has served as a model for Iran’s support to other groups. But this is an oversimplification: The level and nature of Iran’s support to groups like the Houthis and Hamas never came close to what it provided Hezbollah (the U.S. government assesses Iran still provides $700 million annually to Hezbollah), and they never shared Iran and Hezbollah’s level of ideological alignment. Replicating the decades-long, major investment Iran made in Hezbollah would be impractical at scale.

Iranian support for the Houthis instead represents a different model: limited initial investments in a group that shares some ideological alignment but comes from a distinct religious background (the Houthis ascribe to the Zaydi branch of Shia Islam, which varies significantly from the Twelver branch dominant in Iran). That investment then expands over time as the group demonstrates its strength, while Iran cedes control over the group’s decisionmaking but seeks to strengthen their ideological alignment. Because this model requires much fewer resources and works with groups that do not adhere to Iran’s Twelver Shia branch of Islam, Iran can effectively deploy this model across the Middle East and beyond.

The Houthis’ role in a larger network

When analysts and officials center Iran in the Houthi’s attacks, they misconstrue the nature of the network that has developed between the Houthis and other Iranian-backed groups. Because the Houthis work directly with many of the groups in this network, it creates a greater, more diffuse threat that may or may not involve Iran.

In June, the Houthis claimed a joint attack with the Islamic Resistance of Iraq on Israel’s Haifa port. Such coordinated attacks from multiple directions could become more regular and complicate defensive efforts. The Houthis’ cooperation could extend beyond the Middle East as well. U.S. officials recently reported that the Houthis are providing weapons to Somali militant group al-Shabab; coordinated attacks between the Houthis and al-Shabab against ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea could further raise the costs of maritime shipping and frustrate U.S. attempts to combat the attacks. While only a fraction of Houthi attacks have resulted in serious damage to ships, they have stopped major shippers from sailing through the Red Sea, forcing a diversion to longer and costlier routes with cascading consequences for the industry. According to the Drewery World Container Index, container shipping costs have increased almost four-fold since the Houthi attacks began.1

This interconnected network also yields a faster proliferation of weapons and expertise. The Houthis have used years of war to hone their expertise and experiment with modifications to Iranian weapons—allowing them to successfully send drones over 1,600 miles and sink ships using unmanned boats. The Houthis’ direct engagement with groups like Hezbollah, who has similarly battled with its more powerful neighbors, was important to their development, and now the Houthis may share their expertise with other groups in the Middle East and Africa, exponentially increasing the regional threat.

Iran is not the solution to the Houthi threat

For too long, countries have sought to solve the Houthi threat via pressure on or engagement with Iran. This approach assumes that Iran either controls the Houthis, or that it has sufficient leverage to convince them to fundamentally change their behavior. Even if Iran were willing to cut off its support to the Houthis—which appears unlikely—the Houthis’ attempts to minimize their dependence on Iran and the diffuse nature of the network of Iranian-supported groups means the Houthis would endure.

Saudi Arabia’s détente agreement with Iran in March 2023 is perhaps the clearest example of why this approach is flawed. Many analysts hoped the agreement could help resolve the conflict in Yemen and promote regional stability. But that did not occur. By the time China helped broker that agreement, Yemen was a year into a U.N.-mediated truce that continues to prevent major Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia. It was not the agreement with Iran that allowed Saudi Arabia to de-escalate with the Houthis, it was the Yemen agreement that created the space for the Saudis to de-escalate with Iran. The Saudis realized that the solution to their Houthi problem did not run through Tehran but Sanaa. Israel and others who have focused on the Houthis as part of an Iranian threat, and countries like China that seek to appeal to Tehran to change Houthi behavior in the Red Sea, have not yet learned this lesson.

There is no easy solution to the Houthi threat. Addressing this threat requires either eliminating the Houthi’s capability to conduct disruptive attacks—which both a major Saudi-led coalition and more limited U.S. and U.K. strikes have failed to do—or changing the Houthis’ intent. A U.N.-led peace process in Yemen has sought to achieve the latter by shifting the Houthis’ incentives. However, the war in Gaza and a profound power imbalance between the Houthis and other Yemeni parties have complicated these efforts. Still, the April 2022 truce is evidence that the Houthis’ incentives can be shifted away from continued war. The challenge will be striking a careful balance that does not simply appease the Houthis and embolden them to launch a new round of violence.

[girlactionfigure]

*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"

▪️GAZA - IDF ATTACKING RAFAH.. the most southern city of Gaza, and the one that connects Gaza to Egypt - both via entry port and likely smuggling tunnels, and the last Hamas stronghold.  Multiple reports of IDF airstrikes into Rafah this morning.

▪️HOSTAGE PROTEST IN FRONT OF IDF HQ.. Hostage families and activists for their release blocked Begin Road in front of the Kirya base in Tel Aviv (across from Arielli) last night in protest against the “poison campaign” that they say is being waged against the families and demanding a deal that would lead to the release of their relatives.

▪️DEFENSE MINISTER ON LEBANON.. "We are pushing the enemy. The military operation gives Hezbollah an understanding that it is better for it to choose the political path, and at the same time proves our military capabilities." 

▪️SYRIA - OVERNIGHT ATTACKS ON HOMS.. airstrikes, though local channels report civilian deaths from failed air defense missiles rather than the attack.  Sources associated with the regime list 4 sites that were attacked:  Elkzir area (Kosair) southwest of Homs- civilian casualties from air defenses, Havat Aloer and the eastern area of Tadmor Square, Hamra Street in the city of Homs, a building collapsed, and in the area of the municipal stadium - civilian casualties from air defenses, the Alauras area in Homs.  While likely Israel, the IDF does NOT confirm attacks in Syria.

▪️US HOUSE REJECTS ISRAEL AID DUE TO INTERNAL POLITICS..  The U.S. House of Representatives rejected a Republican-led bill on Tuesday that would provide $17.6 billion to Israel, as Democrats said they wanted a vote instead on a broader measure that would also provide assistance to Ukraine, international humanitarian funding and new money for border security.  The vote was 250 to 180, falling short because it was introduced under an expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority for passage.  The against was mostly Democrats.

▪️US PRESSURE… A senior American administration official told NBC: The Biden administration is exploring various options, including recognition of a Palestinian state, which would give legal and symbolic status to the Palestinians and add international pressure on Israel to take part in meaningful negotiations that would lead to sustainable peace. (( First, as always where is the pressure on Hamas or the Palestinian Authority for “meaningful negotiations”?  Second, this is a classic “we’re not doing that, but some anonymous official is saying we might - to create pressure” tactic. Third, we will not suicide because defending ourselves doesn’t meet your expectations. ))

▪️IRAN FUNDING HAMAS.. IDF captures documentation showing direct funding from Iran, in years 2014, 2015, 2019, and 2020, Hamas leader Sinwar received $15 million, $48 million, $42 million, and $12 million, respectively. 

▪️HOUTHI SHIPPING ATTACKS.. US Central Command: “Yesterday the Houthis launched 6 missiles at two merchant ships - one Greek and one British. 3 missiles were launched at the Greek ship, one exploded near the ship and caused minor damage. One was intercepted by the destroyer USS Laboon and one fell in the water. 3 missiles that were launched at the British ship - they all missed.

▪️US/UK ATTACKS ON YEMEN.. Arab sources reported a British-American attack overnight in the Hudaydah area of Yemen.

▪️IDF announces grants and tax reductions for disabled IDF veterans, according to the percentage of disability (in Israel you get a disability rating of 19-100%, and disability support is based on the percentage.)