Major shipping companies are stopping transits through the Red Sea due to attacks from Yemen’s Houthis that have come in response to the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
The Economist reported that Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) have all paused or suspended services in the Red Sea. The Hong Kong-based container shipping line OOCL has announced it was suspending all shipments to and from Israel.
The suspension of shipping in the area risks a major impact on the global economy. By avoiding the Suez Canal, vessels bound for the Mediterranean Sea will add thousands of nautical miles to their voyages by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope on the southern tip of Africa.
The Houthis, formally known as Ansar Allah, have declared all commercial vessels that are heading to or from Israel will be targeted. Houthi officials have said the only way to “restore calm” to the region is for a lasting ceasefire to be reached in Gaza.
Attacks continued over the weekend, with US Central Command saying US and British warships downed 15 drones earlier Saturday morning that were fired from Houthi-controlled Yemen. The Houthis govern most of the territory that used to be the country of North Yemen before Yemen unified in 1990. The area is where 70-80% of Yemen’s population lives.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is headed to the region this week and is expected to announce the formation of a new international naval operation to respond to the Houthi attacks, known as Operation Prosperity Guardian. Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Ansar Allah’s political bureau, responded to the news and said the US would be forming the “filthiest coalition in history.”
“How will the countries that rushed to form an international coalition against Yemen to protect the perpetrators of Israeli genocide be perceived?” al-Bukhaiti said, according to Al Mayadeen.
The US is warning it could take military action against the Houthis and has threatened to kill a Yemen peace deal reached between Saudi Arabia and Ansar Allah. The US has backed a Saudi-led coalition in a brutal war against the Houthis since 2015, which has killed at least 377,000 people.
A ceasefire in Yemen has held relatively well since April 2022, but it could fall apart if the US bombs the country or redesignates the Houthis as a “foreign terrorist organization,” which would make the implementation of the peace deal impossible.
I certainly hope that peace will last and for a good long time….
No, don’t think so. It’s not the nature of the human beast. History is just a saga of war with very short outbreaks of peace.
The Yemen-Israel war is about the only thing that can save Gaza from the Holocaust unleashed by USA-Israel (planned since 2017). This is a very decisive blow to the busiest shipping lane on Earth.
Last week I was reminded of a conflict resolution course by Gernika Gogoratuz (“Remembering Guernica”) association, which I did decades ago. And I recall that something important was that it was taught that conflict avoidance at any costs was not a good idea. Peace can only be based on Justice.
The Houthis are the local Proxy for Iran.
Iran achieves 3 goals with this move.
Attacking Israel financially, embarrassing their Saudi enemy and harming Egypt and Jordan economies.
Israel will not retaliate until they finish with Gaza (and because this have relatively little impact on them). Saudi is desperate to finalize the peace treaty with the Houthis and will remain quiet. Jordan and Egypt are US client states with total dependence on US arms and financial aid. They are powerless to react out of fear for internal instability (The Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and the Palestinian majority in Jordan).
The US, for now, choose not to react at least until Gaza is over and EU and other states will join.
Once this happen. The Houthis will either stop or end up like the Somali pirates of the early 2000s. (probably the former since to Iran, the Houthis are less expandable than Hamas)
Iran will not suffer (official) retaliation.
Qatar will keep printing money..
Well.. I’ve been stand corrected in less than 12 hours.
Looks like the US will be heading an international task force that will try to deal with the Houthis. Could Iran have miscalculated?
Channeling Everett Dirksen, A ship here, a ship there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real WWIII. From his most sarcastic quote ever, “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
I love the names these clowns in D.C. come up with. ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’. Whatever name they come up, expect the opposite to be the case. ‘Patriot Act’…nothing patriotic about it. The ‘Anti-Inflation Reduction Act’.. guarantees more inflation. So on and so on.
Manipulation of the words…!
Even ‘Solar Warden’. The USA’s fleet of ships isn’t warding anything away from the Sun !
Their PR stinks.
This might actually help end the war in Gaza. You can talk about international law and make appeals to humanity all you want and the billionaires will ignore you.
But once you start cutting into their profit margins, they sit up and pay attention because you’re finally speaking the only language they understand: raw, naked force.
It’s a tax on genocide and that’s one tax that I have a hard time arguing against.
It appears paying for the increased shipping insurance by shippers is more than the extra fuel cost to go around Africa… But the timing would be catastrophic for Israel…!
I’m surprised Maersk stopped shipping. Might have thought they thought lightning couldn’t strike twice, or that Tom Hanks would be up for a role in “Captain Phillips II”.
Yemem should be right up America’s alley. The US cannot compete with Russia in an industrial logistics land war in Europe, but they can beat the heck out of third world people who have no military industrial abilities.
The only question is how many civilians will be accidentally killed as the US plays wack-a-mole with a few aboriginal tribes people.