As the world watches in horror the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, there is only one group truly fighting back — the Houthis.

Whether through their ballistic missile attacks on Israel’s airport or their blockade of shipping in the Red Sea, the Yemeni rebels are distinguishing themselves in their opposition to the American-backed Jewish terror.

The Houthis — who refer to themselves as Ansar Allah (supporters or partisans of God) — are a quasi-state actor at the head of a political coalition and paramilitary social movement in Yemen, inspired by Islamist and anti-colonialist ideology [1].

The group’s genesis can be traced back to 2002 when Husayn al-Houthi rallied all Muslims to denounce the United States and Israel following the invasion of Afghanistan a year earlier [1]. Al-Houthi believed that the US-led invasion was the beginning of a new chapter of American colonial control over the region which would ultimately benefit Israel [1]. In order to counter this, al-Houthi campaigned to raise awareness of US plans and mobilise Muslims and their nations against them [1]. He enjoined Muslims to adopt the slogan:

“God is Great. Death to America. Death to Israel. Cursed be the Jews. Victory be to Islam.”

Al-Houthi recorded sermons at his home near the Yemeni city of Sa’ada and distributed them on cassette tapes around the north of the country [1]. The sermons stressed the threat of America, the degenerated state of Muslims generally and the importance of Koranic teachings to everyday life [1]. Al-Houthi’s teachings, called the Malazim, are collated in a 2,129-page document which has become a credal text for the movement, akin to the writings of Lenin and Mao [2]. The Malazim are now taught as a core Houthi text in various religious institutions [2]. The most frequent words appearing in his texts are Allah, Koran, Jews, Umma, Israel and USA [3].

Al-Houthi’s slogan, called the sarkha (shout), soon took hold and could be heard chanted in mosques and at tribal gatherings, mostly by young men [1].

The Yemeni state began arresting al-Houthi’s supporters, an act which only served to convince him of the effectiveness of the slogan [1]. In 2004, Yemen’s then President Ali Abdullah Saleh ordered al-Houthi arrested. He resisted and after his pleas for a meeting with Saleh were rejected, the 45-year-old was killed and decapitated after he and his supporters engaged government troops.

Al-Houthi’s death was the spark that ignited northern Yemen, where the population was suffering under dire economic conditions [1]. To head off a potential insurgency, Saleh targeted Al-Houthi’s father Badr al-Din al-Houthi, his younger brother Abdulmalik al-Houthi and their loyal followers [1]. There followed five major military confrontations between the rebels and government forces from 2005 to 2010 which the Houthis survived to emerge as a formidable military force. If Husayn al-Houthi is the inspiration behind the movement, Abdulmalik is considered to be the founder [1].

The Houthis’ path to dominance in Yemen began during the Arab uprisings of 2010-11. Prior to this, Yemen had been ruled by an uneasy tripartite coalition of President Saleh, Vice President Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, who commanded the northwestern military district and the 1st Armoured Division, and Abdullah al-Ahmar, a prominent sheikh whose sons Husayn and Hamid assumed his position following his death in 2007 [1]. In 2011 the three power centres clashed and President Saleh was deposed and replaced by Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

Hadi’s grip on power was precarious due to unpopular austerity measures implemented in the face of Yemen’s ongoing economic woes [1]. Yemen is the poorest Arab nation, suffering decades of chronic political and economic instability fuelled by tribal, sectarian and religious strife as well as foreign interference [2].

The Houthis saw their chance and in 2014 took control of the capital Sanaa after a series of political manoeuvres and military confrontations.

Today the Houthis remain the de facto government of Yemen, controlling the northern region of the country. They govern 70-80% of the country’s population and run state institutions such as courts and schools.

Since taking power, the Houthis have been subjected to a decade of military interventions. Considered a proxy of Iran, the Houthis have withstood both US-backed Saudi air and ground campaigns as well as naval blockades. It is estimated that military intervention in Yemen has led to the deaths of 377,000 people, 15,000 of those civilians. It is alleged that nearly 9,000 of those civilian deaths resulted from 7,000 separate airstrikes.

According to the Yemen Data Project, the coalition carried out 25,054 airstrikes in Yemen up to March 2022 with 28% of those targeting civilians in residential areas, weddings, schools, universities, hospitals and marketplaces.

The al-Houthi family descends from Hashemite clans that migrated to Yemen in the 10th century [1]. The Hashemites are a prestigious Arab clan descended from Hashim ibn Abd Manaf, the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad.

The Houthis’ sense of historical victimhood and righteous rebellion stems from the founding of the Zaydi imamate in Yemen and its eventual toppling by the republican revolution of 1962. In the early 9th century A.D., the sayyid scholar Ali al-Hadi was invited to northern Yemen to mediate between rival tribes [1]. Al-Hadi was a Zaydi imam, a branch of Shia Islam named after Zayd ibn Ali. Sayyid is an honorific title for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad through his grandsons.

The leadership of al-Hadi helped to establish an imamate which would last over a thousand years [1]. The imamate collapsed in 1962, but the sayyids’ social influence persisted. Post-1962 republican narratives demonised the imamate, portraying sayyids as oppressive rulers and non-sayyids as liberated serfs, excluding Zaydis and Hashemites from the republican project [1].

By the 1980s, a Zaydi-Hashemite counternarrative emerged, fostering a sense of victimisation [1]. The Houthi movement later capitalised on this historical resentment, empowering young Zaydis who felt that their damaged pride had been restored after the Houthis took Sanaa [1].

Husayn al-Houthi was involved in the Zaydi revival until his departure in the late 1990s to Sudan where he acquired a master’s degree in Koranic exegesis [1]. While in Sudan, al-Houthi was exposed to both the Islamist regime of Omar al-Bashir and the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood [2].

Both the legitimacy of Hashimism in Yemen’s northern regions and the spiritual influence of Zaydism were essential components in the creation of a strong front against the existing Yemeni power structure.

It is argued that the doctrines of the Houthis are a departure from Zaydi tradition as well as Islamic theology and law [2]. Instead the movement offers:

“a highly politicized, revolutionary, and intentionally simplistic, even primitivist, interpretation of the religion’s teachings and their implementation in practice” (Haykel [2], p. 17).

Al-Houthi’s lectures consistently stress his frustrations with the political situation in Yemen as well as the Arab world more broadly [2]. He laments the state of the global Muslim community (the Umma) in the context of the modern, increasingly liberal, world [2]. He felt that the Zaydis were particularly marginalised and oppressed in Yemen, but also backward — a source of personal anguish [2].

Al-Houthi was elected to the Yemeni parliament in 1993 with the Zaydi political party Hizb al-Haqq [2]. The party, formed in the aftermath of Yemeni unification in 1990, sought to represent Zaydis in a new atmosphere of political freedom [2]. This new status quo was destroyed by the civil war in 1994, after which the country collapsed into authoritarianism and political violence under President Saleh. This period also saw the rise of Islamism in the guise of Salafism and the Muslim Brotherhood [2]. These events led to al-Houthi’s demoralisation and disengagement with electoral politics [2].

The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre would be a major catalyst for al-Houthi’s opposition to the Saleh regime [2]. It was following this event that al-Houthi’s slogan was first heard. Following the attacks, the Saleh regime allied itself with America in the so-called War on Terror and received training and weapons in return [2].

The Shia-Sunni division in Islam is at the heart of al-Houthi’s critique. According to him, the Zaydis had suffered at the hands of increasing Salafi Sunni Muslim influence in the country, the result of Saudi support [2]. According to him:

“The aim of the Salafization policy in Yemen was to produce across the country a homogenized and hadith-oriented Sunni form of Islam, one that would be politically quietist and obedient to the authority of the state. A second goal of this policy was to produce co-opted Salafi religious leaders who would replace the traditional religious elites, and especially those from the various families claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad (sayyids)” (Haykel [2], p. 19).

The doctrine of Houthism is essentially replacing the more traditional Islamic teachings and al-Houthi himself being mythologised. Referred to as “martyr leader”, “the Koran’s companion” and even “the Koran’s martyr”, his followers hope to establish him alongside other revolutionary figures such as Ho Chi Minh or Ayatollah Khomeini [2]. Al-Houthi himself was a keen admirer of Ayatollah Khomeini, particularly his ideas relating to Islam’s revolutionary revival and his vilification of America and the West more broadly [2].

The success of al-Houthi’s doctrine is due to its core message being both radical and simple, exemplified in the Houthi shout [2]. The Koran features heavily in al-Houthi’s writings which helps to give them broader appeal among Muslims who, despite endemic sectarianism, generally converge on its centrality [2].

Al-Houthi’s main argument is that Muslims have deviated from the Koran’s main teachings and need to realign their relationship to it [2]. He lays the blame for this at the feet of Islamic theology and jurisprudential theory which have polluted understanding of the Koran’s core messages [2]. As a result, Muslims have slid into disagreement and discord. Al-Houthi argues strongly that the Koran itself contains all that is required — vision, methodology and aims — for building individuals and the society of which they are part [2]. His approach, called the Koranic Way, involves:

“a radical break with the religious tradition and as well as a reordering of religious authority around a new interpretive methodology” (Haykel [2], p. 24)

Since taking power in Yemen, the Houthis have implemented strict dress codes for both men and women and enforced sex segregation at universities [4]. They have also banned mannequins in clothing stores and ordered the Rainbow restaurant in Sanaa to close because of its name’s unwelcome connotation with America’s LGBT movement [4].

These actions are part of a drive to re-educate society via “exemplary sanctions” and the proscribing of anything they consider to be associated with “Western decadence” and “Jewish amorality” [4]. This moral order stands in opposition to liberal egalitarian principles of human rights and women’s liberation [4].

In 2021, the Houthis’ Islamic scholar Muhammad Al-Mu’ayyad argued in a Friday prayer that:

“Haven’t we seen what the Jews have done to women all over the world? Haven’t these women become immodest and morally depraved? Haven’t women in many countries in the world abandoned all morals and principles and begun traveling unaccompanied? Haven’t we seen a rise in the number of fatherless children? In many Western countries, the percentage has risen to 20%. Haven’t the Jews been working on destroying the family and breaking social ties? For that purpose, they have exploited women and turned them into means of corruption…” (in Strzelecka [4], p. 102).

A secondary but prominent theme in al-Houthi’s doctrine is Jewish power. He stresses the idea in all his proclamations that Jews are a cursed people — a message consonant with the Koran [3]. In one text he says “Jews are the enemies of believers” and also that “Jews and Christians are evil” [3]. Jews are also held responsible for the dire economic situation of Muslims as “millions of dollars go into the pockets of our enemies from the Jews and the Christians” [3]. Other passages are more conciliatory towards Christians who “have become victims of the malice of Jews” [3].

The later writings of his brother Abdulmalik are less strident towards Jews and on occasions he criticises Muslims for their loyalty to and dependence on them [3]. He believes it is Shia Muslims, not Sunnis, who provide the only real opposition, arguing it is the Shia “who stand in the face of [America and Israel], and in the face of the Jews” [3].

Abdulmalik also critiques the way Jews remain aloof from the people they live amongst, arguing that “The Jew continues to live generation after generation in the Arab region and he feels that he is not from this Umma” [3].

To Westerners, the Islamic doctrines of the Houthis are an alien creed. However, many of the core principles will resonate with Europeans who are witnessing the degradation of their people, culture and religion while contending with foreign occupation in the form of the Jewish-led American empire. Although Islam has no place in the West, Europeans have a history of honouring the warriors of other nations for their bravery in battle. There can be no doubt that the Houthis’ fight against Jewish genocide is one which can be understood and respected.

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[1] Hamidaddin, A. (2022). Introduction. In A. Hamidaddin (Ed.), The Houthi movement: ideology, ambition, and security in the Arab gulf (pp. 1-13). London: I.B. Tauris.

[2] Haykel, B. (2022). The Houthi movemnent’s religious and political ideology and its relationship to Zaydism in Yemen. In A. Hamidaddin (Ed.), The Houthi movement: ideology, ambition, and security in the Arab gulf (pp. 17-35). London: I.B. Tauris.

[3] Almahfali, M. (2022). Transformation of dominant political themes from the founder to the current leader of the Houthi movement. In A. Hamidaddin (Ed.), The Houthi movement: ideology, ambition, and security in the Arab gulf (pp. 37-55). London: I.B. Tauris.

[4] Strzelecka, E.K. (2022). Women under the Houthi regime: gender, nationalism, and Islam. In A. Hamidaddin (Ed.), The Houthi movement: ideology, ambition, and security in the Arab gulf (pp. 93-111). London: I.B. Tauris.