by Shortly after Yemen’s Houthi militia hijacked a commercial ship in the Red Sea, taking it and its 25-member crew hostage, the armed group used the ship to record a music video.
In the clever production, called “Axis of Jihad,” a drone camera pans around the massive ship. Then a famous Houthi poet appears on deck, accompanied by what appears to be a cardboard cutout of Qassim Suleimani, the Iranian commander killed in 2020, and begins to sing.
“Death to America and hostile Zion,” shouts poet Issa al-Laith, backed by a relentless rhythm. “By God we will not be defeated!”
The Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia that controls northwestern Yemen, have long been skilled producers of propaganda, creating catchy poetry, television shows and music videos to spread their messages. But they have never had an audience as big as they do now, as the war in the Gaza Strip thrusts them into the center of a global reckoning battle and attracts new fans around the world.
In recent months, the Houthis have risen to global prominence by firing missiles toward Israel and attacking ships in the Red Sea, causing limited damage but disrupting the flow of global trade. The United States and its allies have targeted the group with repeated airstrikes this month, further raising its profile, but attacks on shipping have continued.
The Houthis have declared that their goal is a direct battle with the United States, and in recent demonstrations, their supporters have chanted a phrase of a famous Houthi poem: “We don’t care, we don’t care: that it is a great World War.”
Houthi leaders have presented their campaign as a fair battle to force Israel to end the war in Gaza, where the Israeli army has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians since the Hamas attacks on October 7, according to health authorities in Gaza. Loop.
Now the Houthis, tapping into widespread anger over Israel’s conduct in the war, are talking not only to their fellow Arabs but also to South Asians, Europeans and Americans, many of whom know little about the group of former rebels and their bloody and repressive history. in Yemen.
“Victory in the battle of conscience is more important than victory in the military battle,” a senior Houthi politician, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, wrote on X on Tuesday, promoting a YouTube video of an interview he had done with a writer. US.
At X, al-Bukhaiti has been posting almost exclusively in English in recent days, criticizing Western imperialism and “Ruling Zionist Cabal” while pleading with his American followers to read the work of left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky.
“I will spread my message to the people of the Western countries now and I hope that the free peoples of the world will spread it again on a larger scale,” he wrote.
Many people with large followings on social media have been eager to share pro-Houthi messages in English, praising the group for challenging Israel and its main ally, the United States.
“This is what they’ve been working on for years,” said Hannah Porter, an independent Yemen researcher who has studied Houthi propaganda. “They are very open about the fact that so-called soft war, that is, psychological warfare, is as important, if not more important, than war.”
The group, which calls itself “Ansar Allah,” or helpers of God, began as a movement, led by members of the Houthi tribe, that focused on the religious and cultural revival of the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam. Its early communication strategies were decidedly low-tech, including paper brochures and summer camps for children, Porter said.
But in the early 2000s, a charismatic leader, Hussein al-Houthi, spearheaded the group’s transformation into a rebel force fighting Yemen’s autocratic U.S.-backed government.
It was during years of war against the government that Houthi propaganda developed, Porter said. The Houthis described themselves as an anti-imperialist force, fighting corruption and foreign influence, and adopted a slogan, shouted at rallies, that includes the phrase “Death to America, death to Israel, curse on the Jews.” ”. In 2012, they expanded their storytelling reach by founding Al-Masirah, an Arabic-language television channel based in Beirut.
In 2014, the Houthis formed an alliance of opportunity with Yemen’s recently deposed president (the same one they had fought for years) and stormed the capital, Sanaa, overthrowing the government. Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, led an Arab military coalition in a years-long bombing campaign in Yemen in an attempt to defeat the Houthis, and hundreds of thousands of Yemenis died from fighting, famine and disease. .
However, the Houthis not only survived that war against the Saudis, who had American military aid and weapons, but they also prospered and created an impoverished quasi-state that they rule with a Iron fist. They now present themselves as the legitimate government of Yemen, ignoring the internationally recognized government that operates largely in exile.
“They have managed to hijack that image and say, ‘It’s just us in Yemen, we represent the Yemenis,’” said Hisham Al-Omeisy, a Yemeni political analyst who was imprisoned by the Houthis in 2017. Part of that is because the Houthis are trained. propaganda, he said, “but it’s also because the Yemeni government is really weak.”
Al-Omeisy, who lived in Sana when the Houthis took power, recalled that people left the city but returned soon after because economic and security conditions were even worse in government-controlled areas.
Since the war in Gaza began, Houthi leaders have presented themselves as brave underdogs: the only Arab group willing to stand up to Israel and the imperial power of the United States. In doing so, they have tapped into the sense of helplessness felt by many Arabs who are desperate to stop the killing in Gaza.
Powerful Arab states like Saudi Arabia have focused on diplomacy to try to end the war, avoiding the more forceful measures they once used to pressure Israel and its Western allies, such as the 1973 oil embargo.
In that context, the Houthis have “presented themselves as real, credible and highly moral heroes, so to speak, not only of the Arabs, but of humanity in general,” Al-Omeisy said.
And across the Middle East, where grief for the Palestinians and anger against Israel runs deep, the Houthis’ popularity has soared.
“At least they are making an effort at a time when other countries like Egypt and the Emirates did nothing for Palestine,” said Baha’eddine Jomli, a 35-year-old Tunisian.
In Bahrain, a Gulf kingdom that helped the U.S.-led coalition attack the Houthis, the Yemeni group has attracted the admiration of many citizens who are frustrated with their government’s stance.
Ahmed Elmorshedy, a 30-year-old software engineer in Egypt, said that while he does not support Houthi ideology and is “very suspicious of their motives,” he finds it difficult to condemn the militia’s attacks in the Red Sea.
“They appear to be a desperate attempt to put pressure on the international community, particularly the United States, urging intervention to stop the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” he said.
A Houthi spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. But last month, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, a senior member of the group, dismissed the idea that he was seeking popularity.
“We are not in elections,” he wrote in a post on X. “Our position is one of duty.”
Nadwa Al-Dawsari, a non-resident Yemeni scholar at the Middle East Institute, said Houthi narratives often target potential Western leftist sympathizers, tapping into anger over Gaza and “fear of the United States becoming involved in another war.” .
At home, the Houthis tolerate little dissent and resort to some of the same authoritarian techniques deployed by U.S.-allied Arab rulers whom they despise. They have closed radio stations and detained journalists, activists and members of religious minorities — in one case he sentenced four journalists to death before freeing them in a prisoner exchange.
And even as they criticize Israel for severely limiting the flow of food and water to more than two million Gazans, the Houthis have blocked water access to civilians in Taiz, one of Yemen’s largest cities, Human noted. Rights Watch in a recent report.
The militia’s narrative success has been surreal for Yemenis who suffered under Houthi rule, Al-Omeisy said. In 2017, after publicly criticizing the Houthis, they arrested him, held him for months, and accused him of being a spy. He recalled a small, dark prison cell that made him feel like he was being “buried alive.”
“I’m actually one of the lucky ones,” he said. “A lot of people didn’t make it out of there.”
Now based in the United States, he is stunned when unknown Egyptians, Palestinians or Americans attack him online for criticizing the Houthis.
“I wonder: What the hell? Do you even understand who the Houthis are?” he said.
The report was contributed by Saeed Al-Batati, Nazeeha Saeed, Nada Rashwan and Ahmed Ellali.
