Mick Hartley

It's not just in Gaza that the people relied on foreign aid while the rulers – Hamas – spent the money on expanding their military capabilities. According to Steven Stalinsky at MEMRI it's the same story with the Youthis in Yemen. Both, not coincidentally, are Iranian proxies:

Across the Middle East, failed states and territories depend on massive amounts of humanitarian aid from the West to feed and care for populations. Many of these are run, de facto, by Iran via proxies. One such proxy is the Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, the organization that controls much of the country, including the capital Sana'a and 70%-80% of the population –and which has, for the past decade, been supplied by Iran with advanced and sophisticated weaponry.

Yet while Yemen, whose 32 million people are among the poorest and hungriest in the world, receives billions of dollars in humanitarian aid every year, the Houthis maintain a vast military, complete with arsenals of the latest weapons and equipment, including missiles and drones that are, based on observation, worth tens of millions or even billions of dollars. These are stockpiled under the noses of the Western bodies and organizations on the ground – just as happened in Gaza with Hamas and in Lebanon with Hezbollah….

The Houthis – whose official motto is "God is great, death to America, death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews, victory to Islam" – are laser-focused on building military might and carrying out attacks on ships in the Red Sea – to the point where the State Department, on February 21, condemned them for "continu[ing] to demonstrate disregard to the Yemeni people" for "risking spillage of fertilizer and fuel into the sea and threatening Yemen's fishing industry" and "bringing corn and other food supplies to the Yemeni people." It added that they are "preventing the delivery of food and essential items on which the Yemeni people rely and making it difficult for humanitarians to do their essential work, endangering an already fragile humanitarian situation."

More than two-thirds of Yemen's population – some 21.6 million people – depend on food and humanitarian aid from international organizations to avoid starvation. Severe maternal malnutrition and mahram restrictions on women preventing them from going anywhere without a male family member exacerbate the situation.

The United Nations warned as early as 2017 that Yemen was facing "the largest famine the world has seen for many decades, with millions of victims," and that "Yemenis are not going hungry, they are being starved." The World Health Organization has noted that Yemen's health system is near collapse; a WHO official said in April 2023 that 540,000 children under five are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition "with a direct risk of death." Doctors and nurses describe children who are "just skin and bones," motionless on hospital beds, their bodies covered with sores, and with barely enough energy to breathe or open their eyes.

We don't hear abou it, no doubt, because Israel can't be blamed.

It has been known for years that the Houthis are stealing aid directly from the mouths of the people of Yemen, and this is ongoing. As of 2018 and 2019, according to a UN World Food Program report as well as media and the Yemen government itself, food aid was being stolen, withheld, and misappropriated by the Houthis. A 2020 Human Rights report also stated that the Houthis were diverting and blocking aid. It is known that the Houthi organization, The Supreme Council for the Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and International Cooperation, has complete oversight over all humanitarian aid work in territories under most of Yemen.

Meanwhile the idiot crowds on the London anti-Israel marches indulge in pro-Houthi chants..

As the Houthis gain prominence across the Middle East, and now in the West, for their actions against both Israel and the U.S., the left has been touting their "long tradition of solidarity with the Palestinian people" and their role as an anti-imperialist resistance movement. Beginning in December in New York City, protests are featuring crowds chanting "Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around!" and "Hands Off Yemen." Pro-Houthi marches continued, including with a January 12 "Hands Off Yemen" rally outside the Yemen UN Mission in New York. The chant was heard at a 200,000-strong protest in London as well on January 13. Meanwhile, back in Yemen, the Houthis continue to impose their will on the populations under their control – including with death sentences for university students, as well as punishments such as flogging and stoning for "immoral acts," and shaving boys' heads for the crime of sporting "Western hairstyles."