Israel Just Picked a Fight It CAN'T Win

Right, so Israel is now talking about striking Yemen, and the justification being offered is as ever security and self-defence, all despite the fact that Ansarallah, the Houthis, aren’t actually striking Israel at the moment due to the Gaza ceasefire. The launches toward Eilat have paused, as has the blockade in the Red Sea and the strikes on Ben Gurion airport and the like. The movement has said publicly that their operations are tied to the war on Gaza and will stop when the war stops, hence why they have downed tools whilst the ceasefire, Israeli violations of it aside, still holds. If Israel hits Yemen now, therefore it won’t be answering anything. It will be starting something. And the Houthis have already stated how they will respond. If Netanyahu wants some he can have some. They will answer directly. That is their recorded position. That is what they have always done in the past.
So the issue here isn’t security or self defence. It’s a government under pressure, looking for a move that can be framed as decisive, desperate for yet another war front. But opening a new front doesn’t make the existing ones disappear, nor does it save Netanyahu from his ongoing corruption trial and coalition divisions. It stacks the consequences. It raises the cost. It kicks his problems down the road for a little longer. It shows where the strain already is.
Right, so Israel is talking about striking Yemen. Calling it self-defence. But the Houthis aren’t striking Israel right now. Their position has been stated in public: their operations are tied to the genocide on Gaza and will stop when the genocide stops, paise as ceasefires hold as allegedly is the case right now, though who has ceased and who is still firing is another matter of course. As far as Ansarallah are concerned, the Houthis, they announced a pause in their Red Sea actions, conditional on Israel not escalating and bringing down the ceasefire once again. Their spokespeople made the position clear: if Israel escalates, they resume, and if Israel attacks Yemen directly, they will respond. If Israel want to have a go, the Houthis are saying you know where we are.
But if Israel strikes Yemen now, it is not answering anything. It is starting something. And the consequences of that start are not unknown. They are recorded. There is a track record. They have happened before. Not just to Israel either, but to others who already tried to break this movement. And they failed. Not because they didn’t try hard enough. But because the Houthis have beaten everybody who has tried before.
Saudi Arabia for instance. Years of bombing. Blockade. Air superiority. Wealth. Hardware. International backing. The stated objective was to remove the Houthis from power in the capital. That did not happen.
Saudi Arabia didn’t just fail to break the Houthis. It took the hits. Real ones. The Houthis struck Saudi oil infrastructure in 2019, hitting Abqaiq and Khurais, cutting Saudi oil output by roughly half in the aftermath —The world’s largest oil exporter had production drop in a single day because a movement it was trying to crush reached inside its territory and hit its economic core. And that was after years of airstrikes meant to stop them. Not before. After.
That’s the record. Not survival. Counter-strike.
The UAE saw the same thing. It didn’t leave Yemen where it was feeding into other dissident groups, backing the likes of the RSF there, before they started committing genocide in Sudan as they are currently doing. It shifted its posture. In mid-2019 they announced what they called a “strategic redeployment.” Front-line units pulled back.
And now, today, Emirati personnel are involved in training forces being moved toward operations linked to Gaza on behalf of Israel of course, the UAE are an ongoing absolute disgrace.
Then the United States and the United Kingdom tried to force the Red Sea open after the Houthis began blocking the Red Sea to Israeli linked shipping. Strikes on launch sites. Strikes on radar. Strikes on storage. Statements about protecting shipping lanes. But the strikes never worked, they had not stopped Houthi attacks on shipping. The blockade remained in place. Shipping was forced to reroute around the Cape of Good Hope, adding thousands of miles and all the expense that goes with it to journeys. Shipping companies did not return to the Red Sea because someone at a podium said “secure.” They will return when the risk changes. And the risk has not changed. Which means those strikes did not achieve the stated objective and indeed the US taking their naval vessels and leaving proved that point. Even they couldn’t beat the Houthis, even with Israel and the UK and whoever else helping them.
Israel knows this. Netanyahu knows this. This is the record Israel is walking into yet again.
The Houthis have launched missiles and drones toward Israel on and off depending on when other ceasefires occurred since late 2023. Israel intercepted some, but not all, and setting the sirens off and having people running for cover every single night, is arguably more the objective than causing any real damage. The point is not whether the missile lands. The point is that it reached. Once reach is proven, reach exists and the psychological effect on Israelis will take its toll
Ben Gurion Airport has been shut to take offs before under threat conditions and it’s a particularly strategic target not just because arms shipments do travel through there, but the bulk of international passengers do too. Tourism has been hit and airlines have cancelled flights for ongoing durations as a consequence. Civil aviation is not hardened infrastructure. It is confidence-based infrastructure. Confidence moves quickly. It does not need to collapse to break. It only needs the fear that it might.
The Houthis do not need to overwhelm Israeli air defence. They need to introduce instability into civilian logistics. A handful of drones. A handful of missiles. Not to destroy. To signal. To force commercial decision-making. To move insurance premiums. To shift shipping paths again. To remind investors that Israel can be reached. Iran already demonstrated that back in April of 2024 during Operation True Promise I, when they launched more than three hundred drones and missiles at Israel. Most were intercepted. It did not matter. The point was proven. If only Israel had taken the hint, they might not have ended up facing Operations True Promise II and III, but its that same logic that is driving them back into the conflict with the Houthis.
Israel is not considering striking Yemen because it believes the strike removes the threat. The Houthis’ infrastructure is distributed, mobile, hardened, and adaptable. The UN Security Council Panel of Experts reports document that clearly. There is no central site to destroy. There is no single command to remove. This is not a mechanised army with a headquarters you can vaporise and call it done. It is a network that changes its shape under pressure and retains capability.
So if the planned strike does not remove the threat, what does it do?
It removes the condition that is currently limiting Houthi operations.
Right now, the Red Sea campaign is paused. Conditional. Held in reserve. It is not over. It is waiting. Everyone expects Israel to breach this ceasefire again at some point soon. Waiting is not surrender. Waiting is posture. Conditional pause is leverage. It allows escalation to be seen as response, not initiation.
If Israel hits Yemen now, the Houthis shift from those paused solidarity operations to self-defence. Self-defence carries legitimacy across the region, though typically it is secondary to Israel’s right to that, because they always come first it seems. It reframes every drone, every missile, every interdiction. It means escalation does not drain political capital. It builds it.
Israel is under pressure. It is material. It is visible. The government cannot show a decisive win in Gaza right now. It cannot break Hamas, who are still negotiating. It cannot close the file on the dead. The living hostages have all been returned under the deal. The remains are still coming back as and when they are being located and identified as Israel refuse forensic equipment and DNA test kits into Gaza along with the machinery to remove rubble. It cannot stop international legal scrutiny. It cannot stop international disgust. It cannot stop diplomatic costs. It cannot stop the political timeline closing in on Benjamin Netanyahu either.
A state in that position does not escalate because escalation solves something.
A state in that position escalates because escalation delays something.
But it is the only interpretation that fits any kind of logic.
Because everything about the Yemen strike scenario leads back to a single structural truth:
Israel has more to lose from the response than Yemen has to lose from the strike.
Shipping routes. Civil aviation. Market confidence. Tourism. Energy corridor stability. International perception of safety. All of these are levers.
Not symbolic levers. Structural ones.
The Houthis do not need to hit Ben Gurion every day. They simply need to fire at it now and again to prove they can hit it. Or be seen trying. Airline risk departments and insurance underwriters will do the rest. That is how the modern economy works. It punishes uncertainty. It prices fear. It moves faster than any government does.
Israel opening a new front does not close the Gaza front. It does not relieve the northern front with Lebanon. It does not fix domestic legitimacy. It does not restore deterrence. Deterrence cannot be restored by acting desperate. Deterrence only works if the other side believes you can choose not to strike. And right now, Israel is acting as though it cannot choose that.
This is a government that has run out of wins and now needs movement to stand in for outcome.
Saudi Arabia tried to break the Houthis and ended up negotiating with them.
The UAE tried to take them on and failed, largely now having walked away.
The US and UK tried to deter them in alliance with Israel and even combined they failed too.
The Houthis could still block shipping, could still fire on Israel.
The Houthis have already said they will respond if Israel strikes. Only a fool would doubt them and only a fool would start a fight with them with no way of winning. Benjamin Netanyahu is such a fool, but that’s what desperation gets you.
Now you might have heard about Israel screaming that Hamas were sending them the wrong remains back from Gaza and threatening to tear up the ceasefire over it, but you’re less likely to have heard about the fact they’ve stopped DNA kits amongst other forensic equipment getting in to help perform the proper identifications, as I mentioned here a moment ago, so to find out more do check out this recommendation here.
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