Making Hooey of the Houthis

A Seussian Story

In case you haven’t noticed, the Houthis of Yemen have been disrupting global shipping routes. I know, I haven’t been paying much attention either. With Hezbollah to the north, and Hamas to the south, I have had my fill of “letter H” terror organizations for a while, thanks. And to be honest, I’m not sure I will ever be able to take seriously a marauding clan that sounds like it stepped out of a Dr. Seuss story.

But now that a coalition of ten countries has formed to counter Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, the time has come to ask, “Who are the Houthis?”

A quick summary: The Houthis are a Yemeni militia that emerged in the 1990s to oppose foreign interference in their country. They seek to rule Yemen, and to defy America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Once outliers, they are now one of the most stable and organized social and political movements in Yemen.

What matters: The Houthis are backed by, and serve as a proxy for, Iran (big surprise.) Like much of the Arab world, they seem to love a good conspiracy theory (the Jews created and spread COVID-19, Israel was responsible for 9/11, the Holocaust is a myth… you get the idea). Their official slogan is, “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam.” In case that wasn’t clear, and, for the illiterate of Yemen (the majority of citizens aged 15 and up), the slogan is helpfully color-coded when in print: green for God is Great and Victory to Islam, red for America, Israel, and the Jews.

What matters now: Since October 7, the Houthis have been firing missiles and drones at Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city, and on the shipping lanes of the Red Sea, through which much of the world’s oil passes. On October 31, they literally “went ballistic.” In a truth-is-stranger-than science fiction moment, the Houthis fired a ballistic missile at Israel, causing us to deploy our long-range Arrow defense system, which intercepted the missile outside the Earth’s atmosphere—a first in the history of human warfare. Yes, you read that correctly. Yemen—one of the least developed and poorest countries in the world, which has been engulfed in a civil war for nearly a decade, and is currently ranked sixth on the Global Hunger Index—now holds the title, “First Nation in Human History to Start a Space War.”

Though the Houthis may have legitimate gripes about Western intervention in this part of the world, they are using the same, crude strategies as those other “H” organizations—saber rattling, weapons smuggling, and infamy basking—all while allowing their own, impoverished people to starve. And as their Hamas allies unmistakably demonstrated on October 7, the modus operandi of their grand Islamist plan amounts to nothing more than a centuries-old-style conquest, replete with slaughter, kidnapping, and rape.

Rather than accept the Houthis for who they are, I prefer to think of them as a fictitious lot in a Seussian plot, as their name suggests. They are in excellent company with Dr. Seuss’ Yertle the Turtle, whose despotic rule and expansionist ambition bear striking resemblance to Hitler’s. The Houthis can relate well to the Sneetches, those cruel creatures with “stars upon thars,” who shun those without. I think they would especially appreciate the North-Going Zax and the South-Going Zax, who meet face-to-face “on the Prairie of Prax,” and unwilling to budge, are left standing “unbudged,” as the world progresses around them. Or maybe the Houthis and their “H” friends would be happiest joining the animals who inhabit Dr. Seuss’ H-packed Horton Hears a Who!, as they mock Horton the Elephant, and attempt to steal and burn Whoville, a tiny planet situated on a speck of dust (a parable about America and Israel?)

I say, let’s make hooey of the Houthis in Seussian style. After all, they can’t be serious, can they?

The Houthis of Yemen
After Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss

In the parched Middle East near the Suez Canal
Was a sea they called Red though it wasn’t at all.
Through the waves of that sea giant ships skimmed and swept
Bringing oils and gases far out to the West.

’Til one day came the Houthis who plotted and eyed
(Though Tehran was the one who was really the guide)
Those big ships, those great fleets with their goods and their freight
And what’s more, they did seethe at that small Jewish state.

So they fired their guns and their missiles and drones
Making others deploy what before were unknowns.
Interceptors were readied and shot in the air.
They reached deep outer space, who’d have thought, who’d have dared?

But the Houthis of Yemen held fast to their theory.
Those Houthis of Yemen were not at all weary.
They aimed and they fired, they fanned and they flapped
Though admitedly we knew not where on the map.

Until Biden and Blinken could no longer wait.
With the help of King Bibi they’d set those Houths straight.
They called quick to their friends and they rallied the troops.
Even Spain and the Seychelles signed up for the group.

They committed themselves to a de-escalation
Best reached, they decided, through utter cessation.
And that meant a purge to a place far away
Via tickets marked plainly, “Valid one-way.”

But what’s more, they agreed, ’cause they had their own druthers,
To throw in Hamasniks, Hezbollah, and others—
Islamists, jihadists, extremists, our own—
To put all the no-goodniks in an H Letter Zone.

And from there they can scrimmage and skirmish and scuff
With each other, that’s right, cause we’ve all had enough.
And the world’s other peoples that start A to Z
—Just not H— will be safe, will stay sane, and live free.