In their hatred of Israel, leftists found a new ally in the Houthi movement of Yemen, which has been attacking ships in the Red Sea in an expression of protest against Israel’s war against Hamas.
“Yemen, Yemen, make us proud, turn another ship around!” has become the catchy chant, first expressed at Columbus Circle on December 31, where a mostly white crowd of self-identified progressives cheered on the Houthi piracy campaign in one of the world’s busiest waterways.
Following the Biden administration’s announcement on January 11 that Houthi military bases would be bombed, in partnership with the British, leftist crowds brought back slogans from previous wars involving this nation and our longtime strategic partner. “Not in my name,” and “Hands off Yemen,” were added to their repertoire and the Yemeni flag flies alongside the Palestinian flag as symbols of resistance to western hegemony.
Supporters of Israel know that leftists have no ideology, as their support for Hamas defies their stated views concerning gender identity, orientation, abortion, women’s rights, and practically all other matters with the exception of their shared opposition to the existence of Israel.
In contrast to its neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has a long history of instability in which the Houthis are one faction in a protracted civil war that began with the Arab Spring in 2011. They represent the Zaydi Shia branch of Islam that is dominant in northern Yemen, whose imams ruled the country as kings until a republican revolution toppled them in 1962.
Located opposite the horn of Africa, where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean, Yemen has been at the crossroads of trade for centuries, with its south colonized by the British in the late 19th century and its north controlled by the Ottoman Empire. It had a historic Jewish community whose presence in Yemen predates the arrival of Islam.
Their emigration occurred in tandem with the departure of the British and the subsequent outbursts of nationalism and religious extremism. The Houthis offered no compromise to Jews, only the choice of conversion or death. By 2022, the UN reported only one known Jew remaining in Yemen, Levi Salem Marhabi, who was imprisoned by the Houthis in 2016 after smuggling a centuries-old sefer Torah out of the country. Occasionally, his name appears in the news, usually as a result of Jewish organizations and the State Department calling for his release; but like the hostages held by Hamas, his captors refuse to provide his location, state of health, or whether he is alive.
Cleared of its Jewish population, Yemen remains a deeply anti-Semitic society. The Houthi banner reads, “God Is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, A Curse Upon the Jews, Victory to Islam.” It is a slogan inspired by their coreligionists in Iran, whose revolution in 1979 seized power with the slogan “Death to America.”
Having survived a genocide, Jews remember when it was expressed as a relocation, with gates at death camps that promised freedom through labor, euphemisms designed to conceal the crime. With Hamas and the Houthis, the intention is in the mission statement: The murder of Jews is shared on social media and cheered on by crowds where children wear uniforms and carry weapons, groomed to kill Jews.
As mentioned earlier, Yemen is in a decade-long civil war that also involves the internationally recognized government of Yemen that was chased out of the capital Sanaa, the secessionist Southern Transitional Council, tribal militias, and elements of the Islamic State. Yemen receives little humanitarian aid, and the destruction of structures and artifacts dating back millennia cannot be undone. Under the Houthis, Jews were chased out of the country, with political moderates and Sunni Muslims as subsequent targets. Their act of protest in an international waterway speaks of harming Israel, but also harms the global economy and certainly the people of Yemen.
Given the choice between a better future for Yemen or its continued use as a base for piracy by Iranian-backed religious extremists, many leftists in the West have chosen the latter. Most of the young people chanting “Yemen, Yemen” do not speak Arabic or understand Islam. But for Mizrachi Jews who fled from Yemen and victims of Islamism worldwide, the chant has an ominous tune, having been attributed to Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin.
“Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud, jaish Muhammad soufa ya’oud,” which translates to “Khaybar Khaybar oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.” It speaks of a battle in the seventh century in which the army of Islam’s defining prophet led an attack on a Jewish oasis, murdered most of its inhabitants, and forced the commander’s daughter to marry him and convert.
It is a call for the destruction of Israel hidden under lyrics for Yemen, chanted by useful idiots who have nothing else in common with the Houthis.
By Sergey Kadinsky
