Yahya Saraya issued a statement on the 22nd, saying that the organization fired several missiles at the USS "Sea Jazz", a US cargo ship sailing in the Gulf of Aden, and hit the ship. Xinhua News Agency.
According to Xinhua News Agency 27**, Yemen's Houthi spokesman Yahya Sareya claimed that the oil tanker "Marin Luanda" owned by a British company was hit by a missile fired by the group**. The Houthis also fired an anti-ship ballistic missile at the USS Qarney, a US destroyer sailing in the Gulf of Aden, which was intercepted by the US ship.
On the same day, the U.S. and Britain carried out two waves of airstrikes on the Yemeni Red Sea city of Hodeidah on the same day, hitting the Ras Issa district northwest of the city, according to Houthi-controlled Masira TV.
Since November 19 last year, the Houthis have launched a series of attacks on ships coming and going in the Red Sea, and some shipping companies have suspended their shipping activities in the Red Sea. Since January 12 this year, the United States and the United Kingdom have launched successive airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, killing and injuring many people. Some countries condemned the actions of the United States and the United Kingdom, arguing that they were a violation of Yemen's sovereignty and would exacerbate regional tensions.
As the most influential spillover from the current Palestinian-Israeli conflict, how will the Red Sea shipping channel crisis unfold in 2024? What is the risk of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict expanding? Chao News interviewed Jin Canrong, a well-known scholar of international affairs and a professor at the School of International Relations of the Chinese People's University.
On January 12, Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, was hit by a U.S. and British airstrike. Xinhua News Agency.
Israel wants to pull Iran into the water
The aim is to get the United States fully involved
Regarding the variables of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in 2024, the risk that Jin Canrong first mentioned is Israel's expansion of military operations. "Israel has threatened Allah that if you don't stop attacking me, I might take care of it myself. Will it go north and open up a battlefield to fight Lebanon? This is a variable. ”
There is also the variable that Israel threatens to cross the border to attack the Houthis if the Red Sea navigation crisis is not resolved. Because Israel and Yemen are separated by Saudi Arabia, it will be a big move to engage in cross-border operations, and it will be very difficult.
There is another circumstance, which deserves our vigilance in the eyes of Jin Canrong, that is, Israel attacked the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria before New Year's Day, which caused the anger of the whole country, and then Iran used ballistic missiles to strike Israeli-related targets in Iraq and Syria.
Israel has always wanted to pull Iran into the water so that the United States can fully intervene. However, the United States is unwilling to do this now, and most of the international community still does not want the conflict to expand. Jin Canrong analyzed, "The overall position of the United States is to pull the bias and help Israel, but now it also has to control the overall cost, hoping that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be controlled at the level of 'low-intensity war'." ”
At present, the United States has begun to demand that Israel settle the problem as soon as possible, because the longer it drags on, the more unfavorable it will be to the United States, and what it really wants to invest in is the Asia-Pacific direction. As a result, one Russia, Ukraine and one Palestinian-Israeli have dragged down the power of the United States, and the cost is very high. "A Houthi drone is only $2,000, and the US Navy has a 'standard' ship-to-air missile for $2 million. ”
Jin Canrong predicts that the contradictions between the United States and Israel in 2024 will mainly appear in "how to fight", "how to end", "when to end" and so on. "The general position of the United States will be to support Israel and will continue to 'pull the strings', but at the technical level, the contradictions between the United States and Israel will continue to rise. ”
On January 12, people marched in Sana'a to condemn U.S. and British airstrikes against Houthi targets. Xinhua News Agency.
The Houthi structure is "decentralized".
We are not afraid of the United States and Israel engaging in "decapitation operations."
At present, although the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has spilled over, the extent of its spillover is still relatively limited. The Arab world as a whole has been more restrained, and Egypt and Jordan, which border Palestine and Israel, insist that the bottom line is that Israel cannot drive the Palestinians in Gaza to us, but there is no concrete action. ”
Jin Canrong pointed out that the local spillover of the conflict that has occurred so far is actually related to the militias supported by Iran. "In the north of Israel, Allah Lebanon has carried out some attacks on the Israeli border areas from time to time; Pro-Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq have had some attacks on U.S. troops and U.S. embassies there, but they were limited in scale. ”
Most notably, the ongoing confrontation between Yemen's Houthis and the United States and Britain in the Red Sea region is most striking.
If you look at the map, you can see that Yemen is just in the southwest corner of the Arabian Peninsula, with the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden to the south, and Yemen to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Yemen is also quite large, with an area of more than 500,000 square kilometers and a population of more than 33 million. Therefore, the Houthis are definitely a "tough bone".
In the past two months, the Houthis have interfered with shipping in the Red Sea to a certain extent and have also attacked US ships. In this case, the United States stepped forward to create an escort alliance. Jin Canrong believes that this alliance is very empty, and that it is the United States and Britain that really take concerted action, and other countries have sent a few observers to do nothing.
Beginning on January 12, the U.S.-British coalition carried out dozens of air strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen, with no ground troops. Jin Canrong's observation in this regard is that the United States and Britain have not achieved much effect in this attack.
Netizens call the Houthis the 'Slipper Army', you see that they often wear sandals and slippers when they fight, and when their spokesman Yahya came out, he was wearing a decent **, but he was wearing a pair of slippers on his feet, which was a big contrast. ”
Jin Canrong told Chao News that the internal structure of the Houthis is interesting, it does not have a clear leader, and its leadership body is a committee. "The United States, Britain and Israel are very good at assassination, and often engage in 'decapitation operations', but the Houthis can be said to be 'leaderless' organizationally, so assassination is of little effect on the Houthis. ”
At present, the main means of the US-British coalition against the Houthis is air-to-point target strikes. However, due to the fact that the entire Houthi armed forces are relatively fragmented and "decentralized", there is no obvious nerve hub, and they will not be paralyzed at the first time, so the US-British coalition is still quite difficult to deal with. "I estimate that unless the United States and Britain really have a single heart and organize 300,000 troops to land in Yemen itself, it will be possible to solve the Houthis, and it is only a possibility. ”
If the US-British coalition forces reach Yemen itself, the war will expand, and it will be difficult to end in the end. "The United States has been fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for 20 years, and in 2021 it still withdrew, and the withdrawal was still very embarrassing. The same is true of the Houthis, where the US-British coalition will not gain anything from entering Yemen itself, and the international community has generally come out against it. ”
Therefore, Jin Canrong feels that it is difficult for the United States and Britain to take this step. "The United States has not proposed to completely eradicate the Houthis, and so far, the Houthi attacks have not caused substantial damage to the United States and the United Kingdom. Next, the limited strikes of the US-British coalition on Houthi targets will inevitably continue, and the Houthis will continue to interfere with merchant ships in the Red Sea and the US-UK**, and the situation in the Red Sea region will remain deadlocked. ”
On January 3, the UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting on the situation in the Red Sea. Xinhua News Agency.
The goals of the two sides are seriously opposed
There is little hope for the success of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks
In the past two or three months, the international community, including China, has been actively trying to mediate peace in Palestine, but so far only sporadic and short-lived ceasefires have been achieved.
Egypt and Qatar are relatively active in peace talks, and Hamas's main financial resources are Qatar, but the results of peace talks are average. Jin Canrong told Chao News reporters that there had been a week-long ceasefire and the exchange of hostages, mainly women, children and other civilians. The next exchange is mainly for Israeli soldiers, which is an important bargaining chip in Hamas's hands, and Hamas will not hand it over easily.
But Israel is unlikely to accept the peace plan proposed by Egypt, because the third point of the plan is to allow intra-Palestinian reconciliation, that is, the reconciliation of the PLO in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip to jointly govern Gaza. But that's the opposite of Israel's goal, which thinks Hamas shouldn't exist. Hamas, for its part, said there would be no peace talks until Israel ceasefired. So in Jin Canrong's view, the hope of success in the peace talks is very slim.
Yemen's coast guards patrol the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on December 12. Xinhua News Agency.
The Red Sea crisis is prolonged
The impact on the Israeli economy has been limited
What is the impact of the ongoing fighting between the Houthis and the United States and Britain in the Red Sea, and the prolongation of the Red Sea shipping channel crisis on the economies of the world?
Let's start with Israel, the immediate target of the Houthis. "I've been to Israel seven times, it's the only developed country in the Middle East, and Tel Aviv is really prosperous. But in fact, Israel is very fragile, its territory is too small, materials are very scarce, this country is highly dependent on foreign countries, especially shipping, so the shipping route of Qatar is indeed a great threat to it. ”
However, Kim stressed that the impact of Houthi attacks on Israeli-related ships passing through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden may not be as great as everyone thinks. "Israel's overseas ** is mainly via the Mediterranean, not the Red Sea, and its economic ties with Europe and the United States are more frequent. "As a result, the Houthi actions have had some impact on the Israeli economy, but it is still relatively limited. The economic impact is mainly in Europe, Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, India, etc., as well as China.
There is a real possibility that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will spill over to the entire Middle East in 2024, but it is not very likely. Jin Canrong said that the lower the intensity of the conflict, the longer it may continue, and this long-term economic spillover may affect each of us, and everyone should be mentally prepared for this.
The interviewee, Jin Canrong, is a professor at the School of International Relations of Renmin University of Chinese, this article **January 28, Zhejiang**, welcome to pay attention to the Chongyang Sina Weibo of the National People's Congress: @人大重阳, WeChat***rdcy2013).