What is most painful about some Arab writing on Yemen is not the difference of opinion over what is happening there, but the reduction of an ancient country and an entire people to an armed militia that imposed itself by force.
How can the Houthis, who seized Sanaa and state institutions by force of arms, be presented as though they were Yemen and the Yemeni people? And how can a militia that came to power neither through elections nor national consensus be transformed into the representative of a people who have never stopped resisting it in every province, city, and village?
The Houthis are not Yemen. Yemen is a vast and diverse society. It encompasses tribes and political parties, the right and the left, nationalists and pan-Arabists, civilians and soldiers, northerners and southerners, Zaydis, Shafi‘is, Ismailis, and all its other social and political components. It is a people that has paid a heavy price to defend its state, its republic, and its right to a country where all citizens are equal before the law.
It is ironic that some speak of the “siege of the Houthis” as though it were a siege of Yemen, while ignoring what the Houthis have done to Yemenis in their own cities. Taiz alone has endured two sieges. The first began in 2015, when its roads were closed and the delivery of medicine, oxygen, hospital supplies, food, water, fuel, and electricity was obstructed, while its neighborhoods and residents came under bombardment.
Today, the city is once again facing attacks and siege, as though the Houthis have failed to learn that Taiz does not surrender and that its people will not accept their city being held hostage to the Houthi project.
Civilians in Marib, Taiz, Hodeidah, Lahij, Aden, Al-Bayda, Shabwa, Al-Jawf, and elsewhere have paid the price of missiles, shells, and landmines. Among the victims have been women, children, displaced people, and civilians with no connection to any battle.
A handful of missiles fired from Yemen toward the Zionist enemy cannot serve as a certificate of innocence for crimes committed inside Yemen. The Palestinian cause belongs to all Arabs, and neither the Houthis nor anyone else has the right to monopolize it or use it as a cover for their own project.
Any position against Israel does not give a militia the right to shell Yemeni cities, recruit children, plant mines, usurp the state, or subjugate people by force. Nor does it turn the killing or besieging of Yemenis into an act of patriotism or resistance. Resistance cannot mean oppressing a people, turning Yemeni suffering into propaganda, or using against the Yemeni people the very methods employed by an occupying power.
In areas controlled by the Houthis, there is no state founded on rights and the rule of law, but rather rule by force of arms, without a constitution, elections, or independent institutions. Freedoms are suppressed; politicians, journalists, and activists are detained; public employees are deprived of their salaries; and levies are imposed on people even as they struggle to make a living.
Homes have been demolished, mosques and property attacked, and millions of Yemenis displaced inside and outside the country as a result of the war the Houthis ignited and the violations they committed.
It is a project that produces poverty, ignorance, and backwardness, and stands in opposition to everything that sustains life: education, the economy, freedom, urban society, and the state. It has built neither a factory nor a national institution nor an economy capable of protecting people, yet it claims to manufacture missiles and drones.
The reality is that its advanced weaponry is linked to foreign technology and expertise, foremost among them Iranian expertise and technology, which are used to serve Iran’s agenda, threaten the Yemeni people and the Gulf states, and endanger international navigation.
The Houthi seizure of Yemen’s western coast and Bab al-Mandab was not undertaken for Yemen or in defense of its sovereignty. Rather, it directly served the Iranian project of turning Arab waterways into instruments of pressure and blackmail. Bab al-Mandab does not belong to any single group, nor is it an arena for adventurism. It is an artery of international trade and regional security, and its security is a Yemeni, Arab, and international interest.
At the heart of its project, the Houthi movement does not view politics as competition among equal citizens, nor does it regard the state as a national compact governed by a constitution and elections. It is not a political project with which compromise can simply be reached. Rather, it is an ideological military project built on armed force and rooted in the notion that lineage takes precedence over citizenship.
When citizenship is replaced by hierarchies of descent, and people are divided in some of the movement’s discourse using labels such as “qanadil” and “zanabil,” we are no longer dealing with an ordinary political disagreement, but with a discriminatory logic that contradicts both the republic and the very meaning of modern Yemen.
This language exposes the essence of the ideology the Houthis use to justify their privilege and monopoly on power. Abdul Malik al-Houthi does not accept being merely a citizen competing with others. Instead, he speaks and acts as though he possesses an alleged divine right to rule, something Yemenis of all backgrounds, sects, political parties, and tribes reject.
Saudi Arabia today stands with the Yemeni republic and its internationally recognized legitimate government, supporting the restoration of the state that the Houthis overthrew. Egypt’s backing, or that of any other Arab state, for Saudi Arabia in confronting the Houthis is not support against the Yemeni people, as some claim. Yemenis themselves, through their legitimate government, political parties, and national forces, support the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia in confronting the coup and restoring the state.
Saudi Arabia is subjected to Houthi attacks because it stands alongside the Yemeni people and their legitimate government, not because it is hostile to Yemen. It is remarkable that attacks on Saudi cities, airports, and civilian facilities are treated as though they were minor details that can simply be overlooked, merely because some people view the Gulf states through a preconceived lens that refuses to see them as Arab states with their own peoples, sovereignty, and right to security.
Egypt’s position, under the leadership of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, also deserves full appreciation. Its decision to support Saudi Arabia affirms that the Kingdom’s security is inseparable from Egypt’s security and from Arab national security, and that when Cairo and Riyadh unite in confronting threats, they protect Yemen, the region, and the interests of the Arab nation.
At the same time, sympathy with Iran’s anti-Israel rhetoric does not justify silence regarding its regional project, which is based on building militias outside the authority of the state, fragmenting nation-states, and weakening national armies and institutions. Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Yemenis have paid an enormous price when militias were presented as “resistance,” only to become powers standing above their countries and their peoples.
Anyone who truly wants to do justice to Yemen must begin by refusing to conflate Yemen with the Houthis. Yemenis are not subjects of an Iranian project, nor are they fuel for a regional conflict, nor are they a people whose will can be disregarded in the name of Palestine, the “axis of resistance,” or any other slogan. They are a people who rose up against the Imamate, who resist its return, and who want one state, one army, one source of arms, and one constitution.
Standing with the real Yemen begins with this simple truth: there can be no genuine resistance without freedom; Palestine cannot be liberated by oppressing Yemenis; and Arab unity cannot be safeguarded by destroying Arab states and handing them over to militias.
