Operation “Dawn of Yemen”

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 20 October 2026

Early in September the Houthis launched a rapid and unexpected offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast. They captured the strategically important port of Mocha and pushed south towards the Bab al-Mandeb strait, gaining roughly 150km of coastline and threatening the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

The offensive turned Bab al-Mandeb into a second maritime pressure point in Iran’s conflict with the United States. Before it, American naval and military resources could concentrate on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s principal economic lever. The Houthi advance put the Red Sea route into play as well, giving Iran potential leverage over both of the region’s main oil-shipping corridors.

Oil prices are determined at the margin, so even when actual lost production is relatively small, the mere threat of disruption can produce a large price increase. That is exactly what happened in September.  Brent crude, the principal international benchmark price for crude oil, had averaged about $89 per barrel for most of 2026.  After the seizure of Mocha, despite there not yet being an equivalent actual loss of global oil production, it went above $110.  It now sits just below $110..

         ​   The Houthi assault was too vitally significant to go unanswered.  On October 4, the internationally recognized Yemeni government, backed by Saudi Arabia, launched a major counter-offensive.  With substantial Saudi air and naval support, government forces attacked the areas recently gained by the Houthis.​  

In its public statements the Yemeni government has emphasized that its long-term aim is national reunification. 

​Accordingly when Rashad al-Alimi, president of Yemen’s​ Presidential Leadership Council (PLC)​ ​announced the ​operation on October 5, ​he described it as an effort to restore state institutions, retake Sana’a, and defeat the Houthi movement. ​ Probably more in hope than expectation, he dubbed it "Operation Dawn of Yemen".

​         Reuters suggests that Saudi Arabia’s more immediate strategic requirement is to recover the Bab al-Mandeb area and remove the leverage the Houthis acquired in September.

         Former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Michael Ratney, put that narrower objective succinctly: “Ideally, it would be a fairly limited operation to retake coastal areas and get back to normal maritime traffic.”

The coalition’s military effort is considerable.  Its spokesman, Major General Turki al-Maliki, said that 100 fighter aircraft participated in the opening phase, and that 324 “high-value targets” had been destroyed. The coalition also announced round-the-clock support for Yemeni ground forces and air cover over Bab al-Mandeb, while naval operations have extended north to Hodeidah governorate. The coalition says it struck weapons depots and facilities storing explosive-laden boats and naval mines, and thwarted a planned attack on southern Red Sea waterways.   

          Who are these Houthis, who call their movement Ansar Allah and are perhaps the most blatantly antisemitic of all jihadist groups?  They brandish a flag inscribed with the words: “A curse on the Jews”, in addition to such slogans as “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”

They emerged in the late 1980s from within Yemen’s Zaydi ​Shiite communities in the northern Saada region. The current conflicted state stems back to the sadly misnamed “Arab spring” uprisings of 2011. Inside Yemen they resulted in mass protests against the long dictatorial rule of its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. 

​Saleh was forced to step down in favor of his vice-president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.  In 2015 Hadi tried to sponsor a revised constitution for Yemen that envisaged a federal system split between northerners and southerners. The Iran-backed Houthi rebels rejected it.

Although the Houthis are fundamentalist Shi​ites, Yemen’s ex-president Saleh, a Sunni Muslim, decided to collaborate with them in a bid to return to power.

It was through Saleh that the Houthis were able to gain control of most of the Yemeni military, including its air force. As a result, and supported with military hardware from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, they overran large tracts of the country, and in September 2014 captured Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa.

Subsequently they expanded their control across much of north-western Yemen.

            Saudi Arabia, alarmed at the prospect of Iran gaining a foothold on the Arabian peninsula, formed a coalition to support Hadi’s government, and intervened in March 2015 to beat back the Houthis. The internal struggle for power has continued ever since, and despite years of coalition air operations and ground fighting, the Houthis have retained their north-western power base.

A UN-brokered truce in April 2022 substantially reduced fighting.  Although it formally expired in October that year, the UN acknowledges that relative restraint ha​d continued until the present escalation.           

The Houthis’ conflict with Saudi Arabia has been both religious and political.  Zaydis opposed the spread of Saudis’ Sunni Wahhabi influence on religious grounds.  ​It was the Saudis’ political and military influence in Yemen ​that ​the Houthis resisted​.

​From 2022 Riyadh cut back substantially on its own military activity, attempt​ing a policy of support for the PLC by way of diplomacy​. Even so, it continued to fund and arm anti-Houthi forces.  ​​In the past year it ​has increasingly reasserted direct military involvement, ​culminating in its current support for ​the offensive against the Houthis.

Although the ground fighting is being conducted primarily by Saudi-backed Yemeni forces rather than Saudi troops, the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), has been a significant driver of the counter-offensive.

Following the Houthi advance toward Mocha and Bab al-Mandab in September, he personally pressed US President Donald Trump to strike them. Trump declined direct US participation, but Washington subsequently provided intelligence and targeting support.

MBS's likely strategic objectives are to restore the Red Sea security buffer by pushing the Houthis away from Bab al-Mandab and the Saudi-facing Red Sea coast.  He is probably not at one with the ​PLC ​in see​ing the conflict as another attempt to win the Yemeni civil war.

The rapid Houthi gains were a serious setback to the Saudi-backed Yemeni order. Reversing them, even partially, demonstrates that Saudi Arabia can still defend the security of its southern frontier.  

MBS's immediate strategic calculation is probably to deny the Houthis​ —​ and by extension Iran​ —​ a durable position at Bab al-Mandab, protect Saudi maritime and energy interests, restore Saudi leverage, and enter any eventual negotiation from a position​ of strength, backed now by the offer of Egyptian support.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Saudi Arabia’s offensive against the Houthis aims to secure Bab el-Mandeb", 20 October 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-912142

 

Britain’s breach with Israel

Published in the new issue of the Jerusalem Report, dated 26 October 2026

            On October 1 the UK’s Daily Telegraph quoted a senior Israeli official accusing the British government of being “hell-bent on destroying a relationship that has saved countless British lives.”

Strong language.  What sequence of events could have led him to this conclusion?

Early in September Israeli intelligence warned MI5, Britain’s secret service, that an Iranian-backed attack was imminent on an air base in England used by the US Air Force.  The very next day Ed Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, announced plans to ban the import of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

   In the early hours of September 27, armed police intercepted three suspicious vans near RAF Fairford in England.  Fairford is an airbase used by the US Air Force.  Five British men in their twenties were arrested.  The men were later released on bail while the investigation continued.  Former counter-terrorism police officers have since speculated that the incident was a “hostile reconnaissance operation”, intended as a “dry-run” for a more sinister attack.

Britain’s prime minister, Andy Burnham, said there were “strong indications” that Iran had played a part in the suspected plot, and on October 1 police arrested a 27-year-old British-Iranian on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. He too was later released on bail, and the investigation continues.

That same day, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was interviewed on Fox News.

“Do you want to hear how absurd things are there?” he said, referring to Britain. “And how far the anti-Israeli propaganda has gone?  We gave the Brits the intel, that there was going to be an attack, and it’s an Iranian-sponsored attack, and pretty much the next day they slap sanctions on us. It’s wild, the caving in. The collapse before the Islamist-Marxist alliance is very dangerous for the future of the West.”

            Netanyahu is, of course, in the run-up to a vital general election.  His political future is at stake.  He needs to project as strong and positive an image as possible.  Opposing Britain’s tougher pro-Palestinian approach gives him that opportunity.

The political situation in the UK is similarly abnormal.  Andy Burnham has been the UK’s prime minister only since July.  He was shoe-horned into office following the resignation of Sir Keir Starmer, so he has no direct mandate from the electorate.  As a new broom, he needed to gain the strong support of the Labour majority in the House of Commons.  One certain way was to announce an even more stringent pro-Palestinian policy than his hapless predecessor, who had gone so far as to recognize the non-existent state of Palestine.

            So it was that on September 8 Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, came to the Commons to announce a “reset in our relations with Israel“, including a sweeping new sanctions regime targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

This new deterioration in UK-Israeli relations stems back to October 7, 2023.          

When details of Hamas’s attack on Israel first emerged, Starmer, then leader of the opposition Labour party, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with then-UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, then-US president Joe Biden, and most Western political leaders, in proclaiming Israel’s right to defend itself. 

Unfortunately for Starmer, his moral stance was not acceptable to two entities he faced on his own political terrain.  One was the powerful hard-left element within his party; the other the strong Muslim presence in some Labour-held constituencies.

Britain’s general election in July 2024 resulted in a massive win for the Labour party.  Starmer came to power with a huge majority.  But the activities of a brand new organization calling itself The Muslim Vote cost the Labour party five seats, slashed Labour majorities in a fair number of other constituencies, and placed a caucus of rabidly anti-Israel MPs in the House of Commons.  

Traditionally, general elections in Britain turn on domestic issues.  This time though, for one bloc of ethnic minority voters a foreign war taking place 3000 miles away was more important than all the usual domestic concerns.  Any support for Israel, justified or not, is anathema to pro-Palestinian activists.   The Muslim Vote was an alliance of 23 such organisations.  Its purpose was to unseat those MPs deemed insufficiently hostile to Israel, particularly Labour party members.  

They succeeded beyond their expectations.  Once voted into parliament, the five candidates who beat their Labour opponents formed themselves into a new pro-Palestinian bloc – the Independent Alliance – headed by Jeremy Corbyn, one-time leader of the Labour party.   

Their success shook Starmer, despite his huge majority.  When in November 2024 the International Criminal Court (ICC), alleging war crimes and crimes against humanity, issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and cabinet minister Yoav Gallant, Starmer declared that the UK “respects the independence of the ICC”, and indicated that Israel’s prime minister would face arrest if he entered Britain.

A new political factor came into play in September 2025 when Zack Polanski, a charismatic young politician, won the leadership of the Green Party. 

        He rapidly repositioned the party as a much more assertive, left-wing national force. In a February by-election the Greens took a parliamentary seat from Labour, and in May won the mayoralty of the London borough of Hackney.

These successes precipitated the eventual removal of Keir Starmer as prime minister. Polanski then decided to contest Starmer’s vacated parliamentary seat, but in the by-election on October 8 he was beaten by the Labour party candidate. 

His defeat has been ascribed in no small measure to the furore created within the party and the media by the motion debated at the Green party conference on October 4 that defined Zionism as racism, advocating a single Palestinian state.  It passed, with 55.7% of those voting in favour, and is now party policy. 

Israel’s instant response was to ban Polanski from entering the country.

Although Burnham has called the Green party motion "completely wrong", his government gains domestic credit by maintaining an uncompromising stand over settlements.  Meanwhile Netanyahu gains domestic credit by depicting Britain as an unreliable ally.

An uneasy compromise has been reached over the closure – or rather the renaming – of Britain’s consulate in east Jerusalem, but the danger is that the spat could evolve into a mutually reinforcing cycle.  

The forthcoming Israeli elections may lead to a resolution.

Published by the Jerusalem Post online titled "Israel's intel protects Britain; Britain's politics punish Israel", 13 October 2026:

https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-911506

Published by Eurasia Review, 14 October 2026:

https://www.eurasiareview.com/14102026-britains-breach-with-israel-oped/

A terror-free Turkey?

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 13 October 2026

On August 10, 2026, the Turkish parliament passed, by 467 votes in the 600-seat legislature, a law putting into effect what Ankara calls the “Terror-Free Turkey” process – a euphemism for the disbandment and disarmament of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is designated a terrorist organization not only by the Turkish government, but by the US and the EU.

The overwhelming majority by which the law passed was made possible because it was supported not only by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK party and its political allies, but also, perhaps surprisingly, by that long-time thorn in Erdogan’s flesh, the pro-Kurdish DEM Party.  That unusual accord between long-time political opponents sealed a compromise that had been decades in the making:  the dissolution of the PKK in exchange for unprecedented leniency for its former members.

The new law provides a mechanism for suspending certain prosecutions relating to PKK offences, and for deferring the execution of some prison sentences. Most important, it establishes a framework intended to facilitate the reintegration of eligible former PKK members into civilian life.  The Associated Press reported that the measure could potentially affect approximately 4,000 PKK members not directly involved in violent crimes.  

The new law becomes operative only after Turkish security authorities have determined that the PKK and affiliated structures have indeed ended their armed existence and surrendered the weapons and ammunition under their control.  This must then be confirmed by the National Security Council and published in the Official Gazette.

These requirements are not as oppressive as may first appear.  The ground has been well prepared, and the PKK is ready and willing to comply.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of some 30-40 million people.  They inhabit a contiguous mountainous area divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria.  Most live in Turkey, where they constitute roughly one-fifth of the population.

          For decades Erdogan, together with many in the Turkish establishment, believed that granting their Kurdish citizens political autonomy could weaken the unity of the state.  Some feared it would be a first step toward an independent sovereign Kurdish state, particularly after the constitutional recognition of the autonomous Kurdistan administration in northern Iraq in 2005.

These fears were compounded during the Syrian civil war, starting in 2011.  Kurdish forces established autonomous institutions in northern Syria, creating the possibility of a Kurdish-controlled zone along much of Turkey’s southern border.  Links between the Kurdish forces in Syria and the PKK were perceived by Erdogan as a security threat.

He had already authorized military operations against PKK bases in northern Iraq.  Turkish aircraft struck them in late 2007, and this was followed by a major ground offensive in February 2008.  Subsequent PKK attacks on the Turkish military in 2011 led Erdogan to repeat air strikes against them, alongside intensified fighting in southeastern Turkey.

The current Terror-Free Turkey initiative is not the first time that Erdogan has attempted to hold out an olive branch to the PKK.  In late 2012, when still prime minister, his government began a serious negotiation process with Abdullah Ocalan, the founder of the PKK, imprisoned on Imralı island since 1999.

The initiative produced a positive result in March 2013, when Ocalan issued a message calling for a ceasefire and the withdrawal of PKK fighters from Turkey.  Armed resistance ceased for a time, but the ceasefire did not hold.

A historic moment came on February 28, 2015.  At a joint press conference involving government representatives and leaders of the HDP (the Peoples’ Democratic Party), a message from Ocalan was read out calling on the PKK to take the “strategic and historical decision” to end the armed struggle.

It looked like a genuine call to transition from armed conflict to politics.  Yet once again the ceasefire unraveled. During 2015 a series of incidents led Erdogan to resume airstrikes against PKK positions in northern Iraq.

The resulting fighting was extremely destructive.  Almost 3,000 people were killed between July 2015 and July 2017.  Overall Reuters estimates that since 1984 the conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, including combatants and civilians.

This second attempt at resolving the PKK issue is quite different, triggered by a quite unexpected event.

In October 2024 Devlet Bahceli, leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Erdogan's principal parliamentary ally, unexpectedly suggested that Ocalan be brought from prison to address parliament and call upon the PKK to dissolve itself.

The initiative was all the more startling because Bahceli had historically taken one of the hardest nationalist positions against the Kurdish political movement.  Erdogan described the development as a potentially “historic window of opportunity.”

A dramatic address by Ocalan to the Turkish parliament – akin, perhaps to that by Anwar Sadat to Israel’s Knesset in 1977 – never took place.  But there were a series of meetings between DEM politicians and Ocalan at Imrali prison, and in February 2025 Ocalan issued a crucial statement.

He called upon the PKK to abandon the armed struggle and lay down its arms, to dissolve itself and pursue the Kurdish question through democratic politics.

The important difference from 2015 is that the current process does not seek yet another ceasefire, but explicitly envisages the end of the PKK as an organization – an outcome announced in May 2025, when the PKK said its 12th Congress had decided to dissolve the organization and end its armed struggle.

In July 2025, Ocalan appeared in a rare video and said the armed struggle was over.  He called for a transition toward democratic politics and asking the Turkish parliament to establish a mechanism to oversee disarmament and the broader peace process.

The result is Turkey's August 2026 law – a legal mechanism for implementing the PKK's decision to dissolve and disarm.  But its principal provisions are conditional on verified PKK disarmament, and that step has not yet been taken. The process is at its most delicate point. 

Currently the debate is focused heavily on where and how PKK weapons are to be surrendered and who verifies the operation. Reports indicate that Turkish intelligence and security officials have been dealing with counterparts in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq and Syria over precisely these practical questions.

A terror-free Turkey is in the balance.

 

 

 

 

Gaza’s comeback kid

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 6 October 2026 

   On July 9, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced that parliamentary elections would be held on November 28 in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.  In my original text I wrote: "If they indeed take place, they will be the first for 20 years."  Well, of course, Abbas has now postponed them to the latter end of 2027.

The last, in 2006, were won by Hamas​.  They were followed by a violent power struggle with Fatah, culminating in Hamas​ gaining control of Gaza in 2007.  ​Ever since, the continuing popularity of Hamas with the Palestinian people has inhibited Abbas, fearful of losing power, from holding elections.  Perhaps it is the Trump peace plan for Gaza, currently being implemented by the Board of Peace and committed to disempowering Hamas, that has encouraged Abbas to try to regain some democratic credibility ​by approving new elections.

In any event, the announcement has brought Mohammed Dahlan once again to the forefront of the Palestinian political arena.

Dahlan was born in Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza in 1961. He joined Fatah's youth movement as a teenager and was repeatedly imprisoned by Israel. Following the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, Abbas appointed him head of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force in Gaza. He became so powerful that the Strip was nicknamed "Dahlanistan". 

Their relationship subsequently collapsed amid growing fears within Abbas’s camp that Dahlan was being primed by the US to succeed him.  Dahlan was expelled from Fatah in 2011 amid allegations of corruption and involvement in a plot to assassinate Yasser Arafat, allegations he denied.  He went into exile in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where he became an adviser to Mohamed bin Zayed, now UAE president.

By removing Dahlan from Palestinian politics Abbas unintentionally converted him into a regional political operator who was no longer dependent upon the PA.  Over the subsequent decade Dahlan accumulated regional connections and became an important political operator for Abu Dhabi.  He also developed relationships in Egypt and elsewhere and maintained connections with Israeli security figures. 

While living in exile in the UAE, Dahlan founded a party called Democratic Reformist Current (DRC) inside Gaza.  The DRC ​worked hard to secure a joint alliance with both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)​, and on October 1 ​an electoral coalition was announced.  Palestinian sources say the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) could also join.

Dahlan is attempting a political re-entry via Gaza. He is not seeking to govern it personally. He seems to be trying to turn his UAE-backed Fatah dissident network into a bridge between Hamas, other Fatah breakaways, Egypt, the UAE and the US-led Gaza peace process.

He has proposed what amounts to a political formula for overcoming the Palestinian split. Rather than a contest for control of the PA, he advocates a “national partnership”. This would incorporate elections to determine political representation and office, alongside a new constitution or “national social contract” emphasizing popular legitimacy and the peaceful transfer of power.

His proposals are deliberately broad in scope. They give Hamas a say in Palestinian national decision-making; they offer a future Palestinian leadership a language of unity; and they give the UAE, Egypt and the US a Palestinian figure with Gaza roots who can speak to all the parties involved, including Israel and external sponsors.

Dahlan’s plan has not yet been endorsed by his electoral allies, but neither have they disavowed it.  His involvement places him at the center of the Palestinian political game.  He has brought himself closer than ever to a return to Palestinian political leadership.

Moreover, Dahlan seems to have taken on a mediating role – a position he could not aspire to ten years ago. He now appears to have channels of communication with Hamas and other Palestinian factions, as well as with the UAE, Egypt, Washington and parts of the Israeli security establishment. 

He will be aware that the Palestinian parliamentary elections could possibly bring to an end the transitional administrative arrangements in Gaza being overseen by the Board of Peace.

The Gaza peace plan, endorsed by the UN Security Council, envisages Gaza moving through a temporary international-backed arrangement. The Board of Peace was established to oversee that transition, while the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) was created as a Palestinian, technocratic and explicitly apolitical body to administer Gaza's civil affairs. It is intended to operate until the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program.

The ultimate objective is therefore not an international administration of Gaza, but the reconstitution of Palestinian government, with Gaza eventually reunited politically with the West Bank.  Nobody has yet formally declared that the November elections are the mechanism by which the Board of Peace will hand Gaza to its eventual government. But Dahlan’s recent contacts with Hamas and his involvement in discussions over Gaza's reconstruction appear to fit remarkably well into this political problem.

A possible scenario could see Palestinians participate in national elections and a substantially reformed Palestinian government emerging.  Gaza and the West Bank could be brought back under one Palestinian political authority.

          In short, the election could become the mechanism through which the old Palestinian political order is replaced without the Board of Peace itself choosing its successor.  An American- or Arab-appointed Palestinian government taking power in Gaza would be vulnerable to the accusation that it was simply an externally imposed administration.  An elected Palestinian legislature producing a new government would have a much stronger claim to legitimacy.

If Dahlan succeeds in bringing Hamas, his DRC, Fatah dissidents and other Palestinian currents into a workable political arrangement, he would  inevitably become central to Gaza’s political future. The wider issue is whether Dahlan can help construct a bridge between Hamas's exit from government, international reconstruction, Palestinian elections and a reformed Palestinian Authority.

If that bridge can be built, the Board of Peace would cease to be merely an international administration imposed upon a devastated territory.  It could become the temporary scaffolding allowing a new Palestinian political system to be constructed.  Far from simply rebuilding Gaza, Dahlan could therefore play a central role in providing the Strip with a truly viable and hopeful future.

Published in the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Post online titled: "Mohammed Dahlan: The man who could help reshape Gaza after Hamas", 6 October 2026:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-910525