The Cost of Crossing Yemen

The poorest nation in the world seized three Israeli tankers to disrupt the genocidal violence in Gaza, while oil-rich Arab nations stood idle and silent

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arab world. The nation, ravaged by nearly a decade of a Saudi-led war, lies on the margins of a peninsula drenched with oil, gas, and the limitless riches they bring.

The embattled country stands on the economic opposite of Qatar and the UAE, Bahrain and the Saudi giant that sunk it even deeper. Yet, the nation that birthed the Arab peoples stands apart in ways that money and power cannot measure. This was vividly illustrated over the last two weeks, when the Houthi rebels - the nation’s standing military - did what no other Arab nation dare do.

At the onset of the crisis, the Houthis declared their condemnation of the genocidal violence in Gaza. Their rhetoric was emphatic, followed by missiles sent toward Israel that elicited more jeer than fear.

Yemen, a nation synonymous with poverty and chaos to foreign journalists and figureheads alike, could not impact the situation in Gaza - they echoed. Yemen was a non-factor, logic presumed and pundits peddled, the real actors were the gas and oil-rich Arab nations that stood idly by as the Palestinian death doll in Gaza mounted; that remained silents as the Israeli siege into Gaza devolved deeper south and deeper into genocide.

“Where are the Arabs?”

This question, asked over and again to the point of cliche, fixated in every direction except the corner where Arabs always there. In fact, the land where Arabs originate and spread from, on the margins of a peninsula left out of place and out of view by proxy wars that decimated the nation and its people.

But the Yemenis were coming.

And oh boy, did they come.

On November 20, the Houthis seized an Israeli oil-tanker called the Galaxy. Shortly after, they captured a second tanker shipping phosphorus - presumptively used in the white phosphorus offenses sprayed upon Gaza and southern Lebanese towns.

“The Yemeni armed forces reiterate their warning to all ships belonging to or dealing with the Israeli enemy that they will become a legitimate target for armed forces,” Houthi leadership maintained, maintaining the warning until “the violence in Gaza stops.”

Yemen showed itself to be a force. More importantly, it showed itself to be a friend to besieged Palestinians in Gaza deserted by Arabs nations drenched in wealth but dry in courage.

Perhaps empathy, and the intimacy of its protracted experience of mass death, pushed the Yemenis toward action. Maybe it was pride and principle, a commodity spiraling in value but abundant in Yemeni culture, that fueled them.

Regardless of the catalysts at play, Yemen was pushed into deliberate action. The Yemenis came. Then came again.

Only days later, Yemen captured a ZIM ship. Passing through the Red Sea off the coast of western Yemen, Israel’s largest container service was taken in. Marking the third time, in ten days time, that the Houthis reeled in an Israeli tanker.

Yemen, the poorest Arab nation in the region, impacted the politics and economics of genocide in Gaza to a measure unimaginable by those who flippantly dismissed. To a realpolitik scale that outsized the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab governments that Palestinians waited for but never came.

Yemen not only showed up. But left an indelible mark. And pushed the largest Israeli shipping company far from its coastline and reeling financially.

“The [ZIM}carrier did not say which of its vessels would be sent on longer voyages around Africa, but the extra fuel charges and wages will add further pressure on the company's finances. Zim announced a loss of $2.2 billion in the third quarter, including a $2 billion non-cash impairment charge.”

The economic toll, and “collateral damage,” were resounding. Israeli tankers were forced to make the trek around Africa to avoid Yemen, delaying the entry of military resources and armaments and compounding the costs of war for Israel. The genocidal pitch in Gaza was immense at this time, and Yemen’s maritime exploits would make it more costly to kill Palestinians.

Israeli ships veered far from Yemen, and the actualized threat posed by the Houthis veered further from the grandiose rhetoric of Arab and Muslim figureheads that said a lot but did nothing. The stature of longtime giants like Turkey’s Erdogan and Lebanon’s Nasrullah shrank with every uttered word followed by inaction, while the Houthis of Yemen spoke little but acted loudly.

In the words of the gridiron philosopher Marshawn Lynch, Yemen“was about that action.”

For the Palestinians people, left as sheep for slaughter by Arab governments that primed them for genocide, Yemen came. Then came again.

However, this came with costs.

On December 5th, the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) halted distribution of food in Yemen. It claimed that “funds were limited,” but realpolitik revealed a more nefarious motive.

The Yemeni, collectively were being punished for the maritime defenses taken on by the Houthis. A people ravaged by war, famine, cholera and more were being reprimanded for standing with the people of Gaza, in the most draconian ways.

Denied of food. The costs of standing on the right side of history, for Yemen, came with consequences. This is another measure by which the international community enables genocide, and halts any effort to slow it.

Starving support, literally, as the people in Yemen know quite well.

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Khaled A. Beydoun is an author and law professor. He publishes his daily insights on his socials @khaledbeydoun.