Almost six months after the first Houthi missile attack aimed at Israel and six months after the first of many recurring Houthi attacks targeting international shipping routes in the Red Sea, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday signed a decree designating the Ansar Allah Movement, also known as the Houthi movement, as a formally recognized terrorist organization.
The unheeded call
The move comes two years after the previous attempt to designate the organization as a terrorist group. In January 2022, former MK and Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Zvi Hauser called on Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to designate the Houthis as terrorist organizations.
He cited Iran’s supplying of the Houthis with long-range cruise missiles and maritime capabilities, featuring intelligence-gathering and potential hostilities against naval targets.
By that point, the Biden administration had canceled the Trump administration’s designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, Hauser told The Jerusalem Post, saying he wanted Israel to spearhead the fight against terrorism in the Middle East on the backdrop of the Houthi attacks against the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
Hauser praised Israel’s decision and said he hoped the Israeli security apparatuses would carry out an internal investigation to understand how to better prepare for any upcoming threats in the future.
“At the basis of my call two years ago was a general, birds-eye stance vis-à-vis the regional issues, as such a step also constitutes an important alignment with the Saudis and the Emiratis against the Iranian axis,” he said.
Houthis: A history of repression and war
According to Inbal Nissim Louvton, an expert on modern Yemen, lecturer at the Open University, and a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, the Houthis are a religious revival movement of Shi’ite-Zaydi Islam. This denomination differs in many aspects from the one in Iran and Lebanon.
She said the movement began operating in the 1990s and is named after the members of the al-Houthi family. She added, “The common and accepted use of this name, and not their official name, Ansar Allah, can testify to the dominance of the members of the Houthi family in the foundation of the movement and its leadership and emphasize the importance of the local context within Yemen.”
“The Houthis acted against the central government in Yemen and the influences of Sunni-Wahhabi Islam in their living areas, seeking to restore the vitality of Zaydi Islam that had been suppressed for decades in favor of the Yemeni state and its institutions,” Nissim Louvton said.
“On top of the religious marginalization felt by the Houthis, feelings of deprivation on the economic and social basis were added, stemming from the peripheral location of their original base, the mountainous northern province of Saada,” she said.
“As the Houthis grew disappointed from the limited outcomes of political and social struggle, radicalization processes took place in the early 2000s, which contributed to the worsening of the struggle and led to violent clashes with the central Yemeni powers.”
Between the years 2004-2010, the central Yemeni regime and the Houthis engaged in at least six local wars, the last of which spilled over into Saudi Arabia and sparked its involvement, Nissim Louvton said. In parallel, the regional dimension of the war also expanded with the strengthening of the relationship between Iran and the Houthis, especially since 2009.
In March 2015, Saudi Arabia joined the fight against the Houthis, which was led by a coalition of mainly Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates.
Inner mediation attempts within Yemen under the auspices of Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were unsuccessful. Even the federative solution proposed by the new Yemeni president, Abd Rabu Hadi Mansour, was rejected by the Houthis in the north and the separatists in the south.
In parallel, the Houthis began to gain more power and slowly conquered more parts of Yemen. In September 2014, they took over the capital, Sanaa. Today, the Houthis control about a quarter of the country’s territory, and about half of Yemen’s population lives in the areas under their control.
“A ceasefire was reached through international mediation in Ramadan two years ago and officially lasted for six months, although it is largely maintained even now,” Nissim Louvton said.
“Negotiations have yielded understandings and agreements between the parties, including considerable concessions to the Houthis. However, a final and complete agreement has not yet been signed.
Furthermore, such an agreement will not necessarily herald the end of the civil war in Yemen and will mainly serve the Houthis on the one hand and the Saudis on the other.”
Is the designation effective?
Regarding the designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization, Nissim Louvton said some people criticized the move at the end of Trump’s term, claiming that it would further isolate the Houthis and push them into the open arms of Iran, meaning that it would radicalize their activity and make it difficult to conduct negotiations to end the civil war.
“The Houthis are now gaining sympathy and support in the Arab and Muslim world, and it seems that the US and its partners in the naval coalition have no way to subdue them as of now,” she said.
“I believe that the declaration, once approved and entered into force, is an act of having no other choice. It could help limit, for example, the Houthis’ funding sources and take over bank accounts or assets abroad.
“The question is how effective such a move can be in ending the Houthi aggression in the Red Sea. In this sense, I am not sure that a ceasefire or an end to the Iron Swords war would also ensure an end to that aggression, and this is even though they attempt to present their activity in the context of the war and out of a desire to help the Palestinian cause,” Nissim Louvton said.
According to Jason Brodsky, policy director of the organization United Against Nuclear Iran, “Any decision to designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization contributes to the counterterrorism sanctions architecture globally.
The US designation, however, is most critical because of the tools it provides Washington to pursue Houthi fundraising networks, given the primacy of the American economy.Israel’s designation will assist this critical work, he said, adding: “The designation also will target the burgeoning coordination between Hamas and the Houthis.
Hamas has a representative in Yemen, Mo’az Abu Shamala, and an Israeli designation may be able to crack down on those illicit ties.
Joint fundraising and propaganda channels among the Axis of Resistance may also exist, which an Israeli Houthi designation would help thwart.
“Lastly, a Houthi designation may provide added legal justification for Israeli kinetic activity against the group, as for the first time, the Houthis have opened up another front during a Gaza conflict post-October 7,” Brodsky said.