Times of Israel frets over Trump abandonment with Houthis

09 May, 2025

Reposted with intro by Anna Keller, editor

The following article was written for the excellent finance and critical thinking blog Naked Capitalism by its editor Yves Smith. I'm reposting it with her permission for discussion at the Kentucky Party's 2025 Statewide Convention, May 31 in Berea from 9:30 AM to 4 PM at First Christian Church.

The 2026 election cycle has already begun in Kentucky, most dramatically with former KY Attorney General Daniel Cameron and current US House member for KY's 6th district Andy Barr announcing they will run in Republican primaries for the US Senate seat Mitch McConnell has occupied for 40 years. Politics blogger Olivia Krauth has the story on who all has already filed with the FEC for next year's races.

Our understanding of what we can do politically on the campaign trail and in office next year depends on our understaning of the political situation and the possibilities it presents. The Kentucky Party is an anti-war, anti-corruption, pro-Kentucky party. Possible realignments in the Trump administration's policy with respect to Israel present political possibilities, cracks we can widen, even if the realignments are temporary and based only on Trump's personal aversion to being bullied.

Karma Arriving? Times of Israel Frets Over Trump Abandonment With Houthis and Perhaps Even Iran

May 8, 2025 by Yves Smith

Israel has gone all in on its bet that its patron, the US, would be always and ever loyal to its interests. That in finance is called an undiversified bet and is considered to be particularly hazardous. Israel has further engaged in the finance equivalent of leveraging that wager by piling on: engaging in in-your-face genocide in Gaza, intensified ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, attacking civilians relentlessly in Lebanon (notably but far from exclusively Beirut), and overextending itself in Syria. Most YouTube geopolitical regulars depict US Middle East policy as totally captured by Israel; Larry Wilkerson has been a lone opponent, contending that the Israel’s conduct, no matter how appalling, serves and is driven by US interests.

If this new story in the Times of Israel is any guide, Israel assumptions that the Zionist state and US interests are joined at the hip just took a big hit, in the form of Trump negotiating with and concluding a deal with Ansar Allah of Yemen, aka the Houthis.

Not only was Israel not a party to the talks, but the (only vaguely described) pact covers only the US and Yemen. Yemen is to stop attacking US ships and the US will stop shelling Yemen. So Yemen is free to and no doubt will continue to attack any Israel-bound vessels. There remains the interesting question of whether the US will try to provoke Yemen by getting a US carrier to go to Israel.

But even more distressing to Israelis is that this pact was agreed after the successful Houthi attack on Ben Gurion Airport. This is a serious psychological as well as practical blow. Apparently, a single missile got though Israel’s much-touted air defenses, including recently-supplied THAAD systems.¹ So unlike the staged Iran retaliation in April, where Iran got through not just Israel and US but also supplementary French and UK air defenses via among other things a drone swarm which overwhelmed the air defenses, this attack demonstrated conclusively how vulnerable Israel proper is to the stereotyped sandal-wearing Houthis. Even if the damage can be repaired quickly, the airport was out of service and foreign carriers cancelled flights. It’s not clear how quickly they can be persuaded to restore full schedules.

Despite the spectacle of Gaza violence and now starvation having the effect of making distress in Israel look like whinging by pampered sadists, there is more and more evidence that the country is coming apart. Alastair Crooke pointed out right after October 7 that it did profound damage to core premise of the state of Israel, that it was a safe haven for Jews. The justification for the savage and disproportionate violence against Palestinians over decades was to maintain that status. The brutal lashing out after October 7 looks like a further manifestation of displacement activity, even before getting to the fact that eschatological crazies now dominate the government.

Despite Netanyahu’s deeply offensive braying, Israel has not fared well since October 7. Hamas has not been defeated and the hostages have not been returned. Israel has launched yet another reservist-call up, when no-show levels have already been high. Larry Wilkerson claims that the losses to the IDF are much larger than reported. Not only is the death count high, but the level of severely (including permanently) injured is unsustainable for a small country. Wilkerson points out that the number of wounded is the key figure to watch, since in theaters like Lebanon and Gaza, the injured can be transported quickly to first-class hospitals, improving survival rates.

And in addition to the practically and psychologically destabilizing failure to subdue Gaza quickly, Israel’s other warmaking has produced other Pyrrhic victories. Israel barely was able to enter Lebanon and suffered horrific losses, hence it resorting to pummeling Beirut to bring Hezbollah to heel.² And that mission still failed. The objective was to enable the Israel settlers in the North to return to their homes. Many have still not done so, believing the border area to be unsafe.

The spectacular pushing-over of an unexpectedly weak Assad regime in Syria has made Israel the dog that caught the car. It’s overextended and the much much better armed and resourced Turkiye is starting to take action against Israel's adventurism. And the Houthis didn’t just keep shelling but also seemed to be getting better over time.

Many of its best and brightest have left, some contend as many as a million. Even if the number it much smaller, Israel depends on a small number of highly educated and/or trained professionals. A serious hollowing out of that cadre leads to administrative malfunction and seize-ups. Tourism has collapsed. Israel's society is more and more divided, to the degree that the mainstream press is reporting more and more signs of an impending civil was (see here and here as examples). So the last thing that Israel can absorb well now is further destabilization via a US reduction in support.

Now, in Trumpland, it is never clear how long any arrangement will hold. Trump may have decided to cut his losses after his much ballyhooed bombing campaign in Yemen did not cow them, and even worse, the US suffered the embarrassments and costs of losing not just so-called Reaper drones but then two fighter jets.³ But if the US thought that the Yemenis leaving US ships alone would restore normalcy in the Red Sea, they are set to learn otherwise soon. It seems highly unlikely that shipping insurers will resume giving coverage while Yemen still has open season on Israel-bound or connected ships. So even if the Houthis hew to the deal’s terms, will the Don declare them in breach because US commercial carriers are still not traversing the Red Sea?⁴

One other point regarding the Times of Israel story, to which we turn now. It claims that the Houthis agree to the Trump demand to end attacks on US ships as a result of Iran pressure. We have said that Trump’s real desire out of the Iran talks was not just to score some sort of colorable win on the nuclear enrichment front, but more important, to deliver a victory of some sort with respect to Yemen.

Note also, contrary to my assumptions about the timeline, that Israel made its devastating attack on Yemen’s Saana airport before Trump made his surprise announcement. Clearly that attack had US intelligence support even though we apparently did not provide new/additional materiel. I had mistakenly assumed this was an Israeli show of force, not just retaliation for the Ben Gurion attack, but also to demonstrate that Israel could pound Yemen all on its own.

From the Times of Israel: Trump ditched Israel with surprise Houthi truce. That doesn’t bode well on Iran:

The Israeli Air Force…flattened the airport in Sanaa, a day after Israeli jets pounded the port city of Hodeida.

Then, US President Donald Trump dropped his own bombshell.

Without coordinating with Israel or other allies, he announced during a White House meeting that the Houthis had agreed to stop attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea, and said that the US would halt its attacks on the Iran-backed group.

The Houthis, meanwhile, declared they would keep hitting Israel. As if to emphasize the point, a drone believed to have been launched from Yemen flew toward Israel early Wednesday before being intercepted by the IAF.

If the agreement holds — and that is an extremely uncertain proposition — Israel, it seems, is on its own in the fight against the Houthis….

Worryingly, Trump didn’t even mention the Houthis’ attacks on Israel…

It is unclear what exactly was achieved by Trump’s two-month bombing campaign, which cost over $1 billion….

If the Houthis do continue firing at Israeli-linked civilian ships and at the country itself, Israel is unlikely to be capable of forcing them to stop through airstrikes.

It’s not even clear that hundreds of US strikes are what caused the Houthis to agree to a ceasefire with Washington.

Two Iranian officials told The New York Times that it was Iran that persuaded the Houthis to stop their attacks on US assets, as Tehran engages in nuclear talks with the US.

And the punch line:

It appears Israel may run out of meaningful targets before the Houthis run out of missiles…

Still, the most important element in the conflict with the Houthis is the implications for Israel’s confrontation with Iran….

With Israel on the sidelines, the president could suddenly announce a deal with Iran that leaves its nuclear program intact. Israel would find itself isolated, and unlike in the Houthi case, it would be inconceivable that it would attack Iran after an agreement with Trump.

My guess is this surprise development is a very rare case of Trump’s personal pathology having an upside. Trump cannot stand to be dominated. Yet that has not only been Netanyahu’s posture versus the US but openly that of many Israeli officials. Larry Wilkerson and others have reported their shock and anger at how Israel's intelligence officials and IDF members waltz into high-level meetings, not even having been made to go through normal security checks, much the less get clearances. Trump would find the persistent muscling and presumption to be intolerable and would feel compelled to restore the US status as firmly in charge of matters Israel.

Now having said all of that, notice this key sentence in the Times of Israel account: “…it would be inconceivable that it would attack Iran after an agreement with Trump.”

If Netanyahu and his clique believe that an attack on Iran would force America to saddle up, that means Israel would need to do so before Iran negotiations are completed, since the risk to Israel of an agreement are real.

And a strike does not need to be successful to have the desired effect. The loss of an Israeli aircraft would do, particularly if then followed by a false flag attack within Israel. Mind you, that would not be credible to anyone with an operating brain cell who has observed Iran’s considerable restraint in the fact of Israel’s provocations, but that isn’t the target audience for this sort of stunt.

So while the Trump action looks like a remarkably positive development, it’s still way too early to declare a win for peace. Israel hardliners and Netanyahu must be beside themselves, and Israel has already amply demonstrated its capacity to operate well outside any notion of norms and decency.

Hey, The Kentuckian is an independent publication. It doesn't represent the opinion of the Kentucky Party or any of its committees.