What the Red Sea ship attacks are really about

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Published 2024-03-25
Yemen's Houthis say they're avenging Gaza. But there's a lot more to it.

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After the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, 2023, the Houthis, a Yemeni rebel group, began attacking ships passing through the Red Sea. The Houthis pledged to attack any ship in these waters that does business with Israel, to protest Israel’s war on Gaza and to show solidarity with Palestinians there. But as the attacks have continued, another motive for them has become apparent: strengthening the Houthis’ control of Yemen.

After a nine-year civil war, the Houthis today control a sizable area in Yemen, with over 70 percent of the Yemeni population within the group’s territory. The conflict has devastated the country, creating one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. More than 377,000 Yemenis have been killed — by airstrikes from a Saudi-led coalition; landmines and detonations planted by the Houthis; a lack of medical services; and scarcity of food and water due to a naval blockade. And both the Saudi-led coalition and the Houthis have been accused of committing war crimes against Yemenis.

Today, the Houthis are attempting to establish themselves as Yemen's legitimate leaders in the eyes of Yemenis, though they’ve done little to improve the country’s humanitarian crisis. The Red Sea attacks, which appear to have significant support among the Yemeni people, might be a means to achieve that goal.

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00:00 The Red Sea attacks
1:09 Saleh and the Zaydis
3:19 The Arab Spring
4:24 Civil war
7:23 Ceasefire talks
8:23 Legitimacy

Sources and further reading:

Back in 2018, we produced a video on how the Saudi-led coalition uses weapons made by the United States to target Yemenis. You can watch that here for more context on Saudi Arabia’s and the United States’ involvement in this war:
How the Saudis ended up with so many American weapons
   • How the Saudis ended up with so many ...  

Here are a couple of analyses about the Houthis by the expert in our video, Fatima Abo Alasrar, that we found very useful:

“The perils of underestimating the Houthi threat”
www.mei.edu/publications/perils-underestimating-ho…

“From Yemen to Palestine: The strategic depth of the Houthi-Iranian alliance”
www.mei.edu/publications/yemen-palestine-strategic…

“The Houthis’ war and Yemen’s future”
www.mei.edu/publications/houthis-war-and-yemens-fu…

These reports helped us understand the political dynamics of the Zaydis and the 1962 revolution in Yemen:

“The international history of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-1968”
dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/12269828/Orkab…

“Yemen’s war-torn rivalries for religious education”
carnegieendowment.org/2021/06/07/yemen-s-war-torn-…

USIP Yemen country profile
www.usip.org/programs/religion-and-conflict-countr…

For our graphics, we relied on these maps:

Critical Threats and the New York Times for the Houthis’ expansion over time:
www.criticalthreats.org/analysis/al-houthi-areas-o…
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/03/26/world/middl…

USIP for the Sunni-Shia breakdown:
www.usip.org/sites/default/files/styles/image_with…

Institute for the Study of War for the Houthis’ current stronghold:
understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Houthi%20…

To understand the Yemeni experience under Houthi control, we referred to reporting by Human Rights Watch:

“Yemen: Houthi landmines kill civilians, block aid”
www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/22/yemen-houthi-landmines…

“Houthi and Yemeni Government Violations of the Right to Water in Taizz”
www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/11/death-more-merciful-…

And lastly, to understand the daily reality of the huge numbers of Yemenis still suffering from the effects of the civil war and humanitarian crises, we recommend the stories featured in the Yemen Listening Project:
yemenlisteningproject.thenewhumanitarian.org/stori…

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All Comments (21)
  • @Vox
    Back in 2018, we produced a video on how the Saudi-led coalition uses weapons made by the United States to target Yemenis. You can watch that here for more context on Saudi Arabia's and the US’s involvement in this war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbdBIuFrIE
  • @ibnthani
    did you guys get paid by the UAE not to mention them on this
  • @owenc.8288
    When the audience is more educated than the presenter
  • @mat_max
    why didn't you ever mention US' involvement in the civil war???
  • I really like your videos usually but this one was too short to explain this issue and totally ignored the UAE involvement.
  • @Neptune0404
    I find it shocking how little I've heard about this conflict. I've heard it mentioned in passing often enough that I knew there was some form of conflict. But rarely if ever have I seen videos of any other media going into any debt, so thanks for bringing it into focus. (Edit to specify. I've heard about it recently, but feel like a lot of the past stuff is news to me, and I feel that even now much of what I have seen can often be summed up as "unrest in yemen" and not much more)
  • 5:34 Reminder: Houthi-controlled doesnt mean just military bases. It means anywhere they have power, which includes cities full of citizens. Saudi Arabia bombed and killed many of them
  • @aeolia80
    While this report is not wrong, I remember young men from Yemen fleeing to places like Jeju in Korea, when I lived in Korea, to avoid the civil war. I wanted to point out that it not completely desolate in Yemen. Someone I met in my immigration classes here where I live now in France is from Yemen, and she still goes home to Aden to visit. And from pics I've seen there is still a bit of functioning life, people even going to and graduating from university, women do wear hijab but not required to wear burkas (actually the way I saw in my acquaintances pics they wear their hijabs fairly colorfully and in an interesting style). Don't get me wrong, things are still bad there, but life still goes on.
  • @SMelk01
    Didn't knew Vox delete Comments. Where the audience is more educated and can give profound Criticism.
  • Interesting how you skipped the fact that Hadi's extended term expired, he resigned, than changed his mind, fleed to neighbouring country (Saudi Arabia) and invited them to invide his own country to take back the power. You can read all that in Wiki. Imagine Yanukovich would did the same after fleeing from Ukraine to Russia? Somehow this was OK when done by US ally.
  • @darrensurff8554
    So you forgot to mention british involved in Yemen they had army bases there in the 60s 😅
  • I don't necessarily disgree with the possibility of your conclusions about other motivations for the attacks in Red Sea. But your analysis frames the US and Britain in a wholly positive light and place all blame for the current problems on the Houthis and none on Saudi/US/UAE/UK bombing, assassinations, blockades, etc. which surely don't help the population you express concern for in this piece. I don't recall any Vox video being less than sanguine when addressing Israel and U.S. intentions in the Middle East. The scholar from the Middle East Institute compares the Houthis to the Taliban (who the U.S. sends billions to). Ok, fair enough. Who do you compare the US/Saudis to as they caused a mass famine and many civilian deaths with carpet bombings in Yemen?
  • @kisselev
    king & generals did a better video on this if you really want to know the history
  • wild how the quality of vox has diminished despite the extra funding