Netanyahu
has shown his willingness to use Iran’s fabled presence as a
pretext for military action anywhere in the region, particularly when
the true motives for military escalation would prove more difficult
to justify.
On
Wednesday, during a speech at a naval parade in Haifa, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to deploy the Israeli military
to Yemen if the country’s resistance movement blocks the Bab
al-Mandab Strait on Yemen’s western coast. The strait, the
geostrategic position of which was arguably the reason for the Saudi
Arabian-led coalition war against Yemen in the first place, connects
the Red Sea to the Arabian Sea and has the potential to be used as a
“chokepoint” on global oil trade. According to the U.S. Energy
Information Administration, an average of 4.8 million barrels of oil
pass through the strait every day.
Israel’s
concern comes a week after Saudi Arabia temporarily suspended oil
shipments through the strait after Yemen resistance fighters attacked
two Saudi vessels in the waterway. The Saudis have asserted that the
vessel were oil tankers while Yemen’s government has claimed that
they were Saudi warships. Some analysts warned at the time that the
temporary suspension, and the associated rise in oil prices, could
provoke an escalation of the conflict by spurring increased
involvement from foreign powers seeking to assist the Saudi-led
coalition in the three-year-long conflict.
Netanyahu
— falsely claiming that the Houthi rebels, who comprise a major
part of the Yemeni resistance movement Ansarullah, are working at
Iran’s behest — stated that: “If Iran will try to block the
straits of Bab al-Mandab, I am certain that it will find itself
confronting an international coalition that will be determined to
prevent this, and this coalition will also include all of Israel’s
military branches.”
Netanyahu’s
comments were echoed by Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman,
who, speaking at the same event, claimed to have “recently heard
of threats to harm Israeli ships in the Red Sea,” though he
gave no further details.
Full
report:
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