[News] How Ansarallah Became Israel and the US’ Strongest Challenge in the Middle East

[Anti-Imperialist News]

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How Ansarallah Became Israel and the US’ Strongest Challenge in the Middle
EastSeptember 8, 2025
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Ansarallah military spokesman, Yahya Saree. (Design: Palestine Chronicle)

*By Ramzy Baroud & Romana Rubeo
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/ramzy-baroud-romana-rubeo>*

Ansarallah’s growing military and political role has reshaped Israel’s
regional calculations, turning Yemen into an unexpected center of
resistance.

Yemen remains Israel’s biggest challenge in the Middle East.

With the help of its friends in the region, Israel managed to at least
sideline the powerful Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah from its direct
fight for dominance. Indeed, Hezbollah would have remained an integral part
of the equation if it were not for the fact that part of Lebanon’s ruling
elites, often bankrolled and beholden to Arab and American diktats,
exploited Hezbollah’s military engagement with Israel to achieve paltry
political gains.

Another factor in the sidelining of Hezbollah is the fall of Syria to
pro-US groups that, until recently, were designated as ‘terrorists’ with
the darkest affiliations with the region’s most notorious violent actors.

Even Iran, which remains a powerful regional force, has its own political
calculations: on the one hand, it remains steadfast in the face of
US-Israeli-Western, and even some Arab countries’, pressure, but on the
other hand, it is also careful not to walk into a war that would serve no
one’s interests aside from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
his American benefactors.

As a result, Iran remains committed to the same balancing act: blocking
Netanyahu’s path toward total regional dominance, yet without being a
direct factor in Netanyahu’s ongoing genocide in Gaza or the colonization
of the West Bank.

Ansarallah, a group that until recently seemed a marginal Yemeni political
actor, has now become arguably the most powerful geopolitical force in the
region. Combined with the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, Ansarallah
continues to increase pressure on the Israeli government. Time will prove
that Israel’s military calculations in Palestine and throughout the region
were, in great part, affected by Ansarallah’s military escalation.
*Yemen Hits Ramon Airport*

On Sunday, a Yemeni drone managed to strike Ramon Airport in the Naqab, one
of the most fortified airports anywhere in the world.

Nearly two years into the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Ansarallah’s direct
involvement in the war, Yemen remains a puzzle. Everything that has been
done, including an outright declaration of war by the US and its allies on
December 18, 2023, did not prevent what was considered a small Yemeni
militia from escalating its actions against Israel in solidarity with Gaza.

US, Israeli, and Western media rarely give much space to speeches by
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Ansarallah, as if the political
discourse of the Yemeni group did not matter. In actuality, every statement
delivered by al-Houthi, or by the Yemeni Armed Forces affiliated with
Ansarallah, almost always precedes or follows a clear and decisive action.
Every time Ansarallah declares that they have entered a new phase of the
solidarity war against Israel, they deliver.

On December 18, 2023, the US and a reluctant Western coalition declared the
so-called Operation Prosperity Guardian, which later escalated into
Operation Rough Rider under the Trump Administration on March 15, 2025.

Despite the dumping of massive quantities of explosives over Yemeni
civilian infrastructure, the US, on May 6, eventually opted out.

The US, however, did not opt out of supporting Israel in the genocide in
Gaza or its other regional military adventures elsewhere in the Middle
East. There is a critical political lesson here. The unity of the Yemeni
people, the refusal to succumb to pressure, and the daring of Yemeni action
proved too taxing for the US.

Compare that with Syria, for example, where Israeli forces invade the
country’s territory at will, faced only by bashful political statements and
occasional diplomatic condemnations. In that case, the US has no reason to
opt out or pressure Israel to stop its deadly raids.

Aside from Yemen, Iran too is an exception, where decisive and pinpointed
Iranian responses to frequent Israeli aggressions have reminded the
Americans that the price of continued war is too much to bear.

On August 28, Israel escalated further by carrying out a massacre against
the political leadership of Yemen, killing Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb
al-Rahwi, along with other ministers. That was, too, a desperate attempt at
scaring Ansarallah into surrender. The Yemeni response has been phased out
in stages, targeting Israeli ships in the Red Sea, striking various Israeli
targets using cluster ballistic missiles, and ultimately hitting Ramon
Airport.

Israeli media constantly describe Yemen as a ‘black hole’ for Israeli
intelligence, with commentators asking why Mossad managed to penetrate
various Middle Eastern societies, with the exception of Yemen.

The answer is simple: a tribal society motivated by ideals of honor,
family, and brotherhood is not easy to break or to purchase through money
and promises of power. Additionally, Israel never paid much heed to Yemen
because of the common mistake made by many others—that Yemen falls outside
the traditional centers of power in the Middle East, which have largely
been co-opted or weakened through internal conflicts.

This is why Yemen remains steadfast. But that steadfastness also means
there is a need to rethink the historical approach to analyzing the Middle
East, its powerful political players, and indeed, its very future.

Ansarallah’s solidarity actions with Gaza are troubling not only for
Israel, but for ruling classes across the region as well, which are being
sidelined as minor political actors, while yesterday’s marginal players are
actively shaping the very idea of what the new Middle East will ultimately
look like.

*(The Palestine Chronicle)*
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