Israel retaliates against the Houthis - with Ronen Bergman
A lot has happened over this past weekend, again.
President Biden has dropped out of the presidential race, endorsing Vice-President Kamala Harris, who has been systematically locking up endorsements from most of her possible opponents. The ascendancy of V.P. Harris occurs at the exact time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Washington in advance of his address before Congress on Wednesday. We will discuss all of these issues in our next episode later this week.
Also this weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to bring Israel back to the negotiating table this week for a hostages-for-ceasefire deal in Gaza, ahead of his departure to the U.S. This comes despite a letter from eight Likud MKs objecting to the possible deal.
Finally, and the topic of our conversation today - on Saturday at 3:30 AM Israel time, a drone packed with explosives flew into a building in Tel Aviv, a few blocks away from the American consulate, and caused a large explosion that claimed the life of an Israeli citizen. This drone flew more than 2000 km (about 1200 miles) all the way from Yemen, and was one of four drones sent by the Houthis. The other three were shot down by U.S. forces in the Red Sea.
Later on Saturday, Israel retaliated by attacking the Houthi-controlled port of Hodeidah, in Yemen. The targets of the attack were oil installations and refineries, the Ras Katib power plant, the HQ of the Yemen Economic Corporation, as well as the national security and military police buildings in the north of Hodeidah. The attack caused a complete power outage in all the neighborhoods in Hodeida district and disruptions in the communication network. This port was the main import access point for weapons into Yemen for the Houthis.
While this low intensity war with the Houthis has been ongoing since October 7th, we have not focused much of our attention to this third Iranian tentacle. Who are the Houthis? How did Iran turn this rebel group into its proxy? And what could we expect from this third front?
To make sense of all of this, we have Ronen Bergman of Yediot Ahranot and the New York Times Magazine. Ronen is a pulitzer-prize winning journalist.
Full Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
RB: Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, was smart enough to use these years when all the world was focused on fighting ISIS, and his forces were aligned with the world in fighting ISIS to massively equip militias all over the Middle East, when his vision was to have a series of military forces, or quasi military forces, militias, terrorist groups all over the Middle East, all dependent on Iran and all of them working coherently with Iran regional policies against traditional Iranian foes like Saudi Arabia, that the Houthis attacked, like the Emirates, the Houthis attacked, and of course, The major regional enemy, Israel.
DS: It's 11:30 PM on Sunday, July 21st here in New York City. It's 6:30 AM in Israel on Monday, July 22nd in Israel, as Israelis start their day. A lot has happened over this past weekend, again, which seems to be a regular occurrence these days whenever we record over a weekend. President Biden has dropped out of the presidential race endorsing his Vice President Kamala Harris, who has been systematically locking up endorsements from most, and by the time you hear this, perhaps all of her possible opponents. The ascendancy of Vice President Harris occurs at the exact time as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrives in Washington early this week for meetings with President Biden, and I assume Vice President Harris as well, and of course, there will be Prime Minister Netanyahu's address before a joint session of Congress on Wednesday and some other developments that will be occurring while Netanyahu is in town. We will discuss all of those issues in our next episode later this week. Also this weekend, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to bring Israel back to the negotiating table this week for a hostages for ceasefire deal in Gaza. He made this decision ahead of his departure to the United States. This comes despite a letter that was sent to the prime minister from eight members of Knesset from his Likud party from within his own government, who have said they will not support the deal as they currently understand it. Finally, and the topic of our conversation today, on Saturday of this weekend at 3:30 in the morning Israel time, a drone packed with explosives flew into a building in Tel Aviv, a few blocks away from the American consulate, which caused a large explosion that claimed the life, tragically, of an Israeli citizen. This drone flew more than 2,000 kilometers, which is about 1,200 miles, all the way from Yemen, and was one of four drones sent by the Houthis. The other three were shot down by U.S. forces in the Red Sea. Later, on Saturday, again, all this weekend, Israel retaliated by attacking the Houthi controlled port of Hodeidah in Yemen. The targets of the attack were oil installations and refineries, the Ras Khatib power plant, the headquarters of the Yemen Economic Corporation, as well as the national security and military police buildings in the north of Hodeidah. The attack caused a complete power outage in all the neighborhoods in the Hodeidah district and disruptions in the communications network, according to public reports. Now, this port that Israel hit was the main import access point for weapons into Yemen for the Houthis. This was an area controlled by the Houthis. While this low intensity war with the Houthis has been going on since October 7th, we have not focused much of our attention on this now third Iranian tentacle. Who are the Houthis? How did Iran turn this rebel group into its proxy 2,000 kilometers away? And what can we expect from this third front? To help us make sense of all this and understand what's going on, we are pleased to welcome back Ronen Bergman of Yediot Aharonot and the New York Times Magazine to the podcast. Ronen, as our listeners know, is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist based in Israel. But before we get to the conversation with Ronen, one housekeeping note. Since October 7th, we have been frequently asked for ways by you the listeners to ask us questions, send comments, send episode ideas for topics we can get into on the podcast. Listeners have also been asking us for transcripts of our podcast episodes, that that would be a helpful resource for those who want to go deeper on issues and follow some of the source material. And many of you have also asked if there's a way to subscribe to updates about the podcast. Well, we're in the process of building out all of that, including building a website, Ark Media, which will be our new home base, where you'll be able to do all these things to visit the website. Go to arkmedia.org. That's A R K, as in Noah's Ark, media. org. We will link to Ark Media in the show notes. By visiting the website, you can get in touch with the Call Me Back team and share your thoughts, questions, suggestions. You can access full transcripts to each episode, including links to external resources that will hopefully help expand your understanding of the topics covered in each conversation. And you'll be able to sign up for our regular updates on new episodes and live events. So thank you for your long standing support of Call Me Back and we hope you will find arkmedia.org a valuable resource. And now onto today's episode; Ronen Bergman on Israel responds to the Houthis. This is Call Me Back. Joining us is Ronen Bergman, who I'm pleased to welcome back to this podcast. As our listeners know, Ronen is with Yedioth Ahronoth and the New York Times. Ronen, thanks for being here.
RB: Thanks for inviting me again. It's becoming a habit.
DS: Becoming a habit. Ronen, on Saturday, so, this weekend, a drone packed with explosives traveled from Yemen to Tel Aviv, a few blocks away, actually, from the American consulate in Tel Aviv. It caused a large explosion that tragically claimed the life of an Israeli citizen. This was not the first time the Houthis have launched some kind of projectile to Israel since October 7th. We'll talk a little more about that. And then on Saturday, Israel attacked a Houthi controlled port in Yemen, targeting a massive fuel depot and other facilities that are dual use, civilian and Houthi/military use based, and they aimed at preventing the Houthis from importing Iranian weapons from what we understand that was what that port was partially used for. This could be a turning point in what has generally been a low intensity, very low intensity war between at least the Houthis in Israel. It's not to say the damage the Houthis have been doing elsewhere in the region, and it has many serious implications moving forward, potentially opening another front in this war. So, Ronen, let's start with the actual initial strike, and then obviously Israel's response. What does it take to succeed in a mission like that? Both for the Houthis to launch an operation over a distance like that, and for Israel to respond as such?
RB: The Houthis sent a drone, or the one that hit, of Iranian design. This is part of Iranian strategy. So the capabilities are known. The ability of Iranian drone to fly thousands of kilometers and explode or commit a suicide, if I could use this term on a drone, on a target that was designated to the drone before leaving base. And for that sake, if you target, if someone targets civilian population, then it doesn't need to be accurate to the centimeter. If indeed, as some officials speculate, it was the American consulate, which is, you know, by far the most known American facility in Israel, a symbol for the profound relations between the two nations, then it needs better accuracy and facts remain, it missed, it didn't land there. But this was an attack that is not hard to be executed by the Houthis, they have done many of those against U.A.E. And Saudi Arabia. And so far, I would say both Israel, the U.S. and others, they did not come up with the perfect solution. And hence the ability of one drone to penetrate the highly capable air defense of Israel and explode in air between two buildings. I have a friend who has an office in the building that was hit. And he said, it's so everybody is so lucky that it happened a few minutes after 3 a.m. Because usually this in a regular day, this building is totally crowded. And he showed me, he sent me some pictures of his office. It's totally ruined. And it's just one of many. So of course, the results are tragic. One person was was killed, but it could have been much, much worse. And this is the imbalance between a terror organization and the country. Because the attack that Israel executed was much harder. Israel wanted to hit a specific target, very defined based on intelligence. They decided to hit that target because they figured that the air defense of the Houthis is very, very soft and weak, and they can make a symbolic act that everybody can see. Everybody saw the pictures of the huge flames from those oil depot and the F-15 had to fly and refuel. So there were a few Boeing 707 that were turned into refueling tanks. The response was swift and fast. And this was an important point from Israeli point of view to act as soon as possible and even to do that in broad daylight. The people who were spending time on the beach in Eilat, they knew that something is going on, and they figured if they saw this, you know, fleet of aircraft flying on very low altitude above them, fighting jets, and then massive Boeing 707, the flying tankers, and then some command and control and intelligence planes, everybody understood what is going on, and it was two and a half hours for this fleet to get to the target very far away. By the way, the distance is longer than if those jets needs to fly to Tehran, and then they attacked the target one minute past 6:00 PM Israel time.
DS: Should Israel, though, be concerned on the initial strike from the Houthis that it did penetrate Israeli defense? My understanding, no sirens went off in Tel Aviv. There was no warning. Given the length of time, you're talking about hours and hours and hours for the initial drone to travel, Israel should have had plenty of warning. What happened there?
RB: There was some kind of a human error that did not interpret the signs of something on the blips of the radar as the threat. And you know, it's a proof that even the best aerial defense cannot be perfect. And we saw this with the massive Iranian attack. You know, there was all the air defenses alert, the American Air Force and all the others. And still it cannot be 100% protection. And this is why only defense is not enough. This is what Israel was trying to say here.
DS: Right. And how coordinated was Israel's response with the United States?
RB: So a spokesperson for the National Security Council said it was not coordinated, but that the U S. was informed. You know, you'll be a better judge about the differences in English, but it was not with participation of U.S. or any other country. But Israel let everybody in the region and the U.S. Central Command know that this is coming. In that case, there's a full consensus between Israel, regional friendly countries and the US about the identity of the Houthis and the need to deal them with strength. And so the only thing was to coordinate and make sure that there's no friendly fire and everybody aware that this is coming.
DS: So now, Ronen, let's talk about the Houthis. We know a lot about two of Iran's tentacles, Hamas and Hezbollah, but since October 7th, the Houthis have been a greater focus, at least for Israel. What can you tell us about the Houthis, just before Iran sort of hijacked their cause? RB: So Dan, without getting into too much into the weeds of the very complicated history of the torn Yemen, a country with ongoing civil war in some parts with the intervention of many other countries, the Brits, the Saudis, and a history of instability. I would say that the Houthis were not an immediate candidate to be allied with Iran like Hamas or Hezbollah. Hezbollah are Shiites like their brothers. Hamas or Sunni, but they are jihadist. So you see the connection. The Houthis are part of the fragmentized country and Iran was there to grasp the opportunity to understand that here is a group that maybe is not as religious or is not fully coherent with their school of thought on clerical state, but they need help and they would be thankful to anyone who is willing to give that and maybe also take a more religious point of view. But the main point was that Iran, maybe reading Trotsky, who said that a revolution that does not export itself is doomed to collapse to the inside. Iran was looking for regional allies. And then the Arab Spring or the Islamic Winter, whatever you call it, then it came.
DS: This is in like 2011, 2012. That period.
RB: Yeah. Yes, even a little earlier. But it's a long series of earthquakes throughout the Middle East that shattered the history of the region that toppled some regimes and destabilized others. And the Iranians, one specific Iranian, were smart to see that this is an opportunity, and then fast enough to get in, choose a side, and start pouring military, financial, training, help, in order to be put on the ground, and be spread all over the region with massive, massive influence in the days and years and decades to come.
DS: And again, not to get bogged down in the history of the Houthis, but they have also been adversaries of Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, the UAE, and so in that sense, Israel shares with many of those Gulf countries, the same enmity it has with Iran, it also now has with the Houthis. The Houthis have been targeting these Gulf countries and these Gulf countries have been very involved in a very complicated way, again, probably the subject of an entire separate episode in Yemen and in the civil war. Okay. So now Ronen, tell me more about the Iranian strategy here. So Iran developed this tentacle strategy or this octopus strategy. How did Iran come to identify the Houthis as an opportunity? You're saying they basically said they're a disgruntled, disorganized force, militia that could be used to, you know, make mischief not only in their own country, not only against their own government, but regionally.
RB: The history of those years can be told through the history of one Iranian unit. It's called the Al-Quds Force. That's the secret or was the secret foreign intelligence and operation arm of Iran. And it's commander through decades, Qasem Suleimani, and I'm saying it was secret because until the Arab Spring, Qasem Suleimani was a ghost. He was rarely seen in public and everything he did was done in top top secrecy. So even if everybody knew that they are supporting Hezbollah and Hamas for many, many year,. Iran never admit that and try to conceal it. But then came the Arab Spring and as a result, the rise of ISIS, of Daesh, and everything just caught, was caught in flames. And Soleimani decided this, this is his time to get out of the shadows, become a military force that is publicly active all over the Middle East. Because suddenly he realized that not just in his eyes and not just in the eyes of his allies, but also in the eyes of the world, he is at the side of the good guys, because everybody are fighting ISIS and he is fighting and his militias, his proxies are fighting ISIS more than anyone else. And so in the eyes of the world, when you have a Satan, you know, ISIS and everything they did and the executions and the beheading and you have fierce fighters like Hezbollah or other proxies that are fighting it, then people started to think maybe, you know, maybe Iran should be repositioned. Now, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force, was smart enough to use these years when all the world was focused on fighting ISIS, and his forces were aligned with the world in fighting ISIS, to massively equip militias all over the Middle East, when his vision was to have a series of military forces of quasi military forces, militias, terrorist groups all over the Middle East, all dependent on Iran and all of them working coherently with Iran regional policies against traditional Iranian foes like Saudi Arabia, that the Houthis attacked, like the Emirates, the Houthis attacked, and of course, the major regional enemy, Israel. And, what happened when all the dust off fighting ISIS settled with the destruction off Isis, a Western success. What happened was that Israel found itself with a risk of Iran opening war against it from six or seven different fronts from Lebanon, from Syria, from Iraq. And with the military gear that Iran equipped the Houthis, Israel is surrounded. Soleimani was killed, but when he died, the empire that he built was by far greater and bigger than him.
DS: Okay, so then what does Israel now make of this strategy? Because this is a different world, you know, from, okay, Israel's obviously known for some time that Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran. They obviously know Hamas has been a proxy for Iran. The Houthis now, a couple thousand kilometers away. I mean, that is a new post October 7th world. There's something like 200 attacks that the Houthis have launched since October 7th. Most of them have been, I don't want to say low impact, but they've, they haven't hit the central part of the country. They've been in and around the Eilat area. Here now they've hit Tel Aviv. What is Israel's counter strategy to this Iranian tentacle strategy where it has these proxies now, not only on Israel's borders, but it has tentacles throughout the region that can do real harm to Israel.
RB: So we're talking about a decade and things changed. Israel saw many of those developments, but you know, Israel every day throughout its history, its leaders, directors of the Mossad, the chief of staff, every day they have something very urgent to deal with. The one thing that kept the leaders of Israel from the prime minister to the leaders of the Mossad and the military was Iran, but the nuclear project. And most of the efforts against Iran were directed in order to understand how close is Iran to manufacturing a nuclear bomb? What exactly are they trying to do? What exactly they're trying to hide, alert the world and even from a certain point, take active, they call it kinetic measures to destroy it. While this was happening and with relative success to Israel with at least delaying, not stopping, but delaying the Iranian nuclear project. Iran was arming militias all over the Middle East and Israel was watching and did very little and though in the assessment of Israeli intelligence for the last maybe five years, you could find repeating sentences that the next war will be multi front, that it will be a war with Hezbollah, with Hamas, with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, possibly with the Houthis. But in real terms, trying to initiate steps against those proxies that also spread in Iraq and in Syria, very little was done. I think that Israel also trusted the US and said, look, this is too far away. It's too spread out. We cannot deal with everything and it's for the US or other countries or regional allies to deal with. But in fact, very, very little was done. And there was a watershed moment in 2018. When the Houthis in Iran attacked Aramco, the Saudi oil company. Now, that attack changed a lot. But, too late and not enough. It changed a lot because the world, meaning the Israel and the U.S. and the Emiratis and the Saudis, were surprised from the guts, the boldness, the way that the Supreme Leader decided to act and order an attack from Iran and from the Houthis on Aramco that passed and penetrate Saudi air defense and caused significant damage. And the fact that the U.S. did not respond was just another layer on what was seen as an Iranian success. And this was maybe a sort of a rehearsal to what we see today.
DS: Why now though? What has been the status quo with the Houthis since October 7th? There've been attacks from the Houthis since October 7th, which was an escalation, the 200 plus attacks I'm talking, I referenced earlier. And then this seems like an escalation above that, given exactly where they hit in Israel. So why this escalation from the Houthis?
RB: So Iran tried to encourage the Houthis to act against Israel even before October 7th. That resulted in some attacks on commercial ships going in the Strait of Hormuz. and in other parts of the Gulf. But then, after October 7, the Houthis, supported and pushed by Iran, wanted to show that they are part of what they call a Jabal Muqama, the resistant front. Israeli intelligence calls it the radical front. So the alliance between Iran and all of its proxies. And they said, as long as the war going on in Gaza, and of course, this is the war where Israel will be the guilty party. As long as this is going on, we will support our brothers, the Palestinians, with attacking Israel. But as it happens, sometimes those proxies have their own will. It's not as if there's someone in Iran who picks up the phone and tells the leaders of the Houthis, Now you start bombing. And then if for whatever reason they wanted to stop, they called them again and said, Now you stop. It's not an off and on. And the Houthis, they took it one step further than the Iranian wanted. And so when the U.S. reacted fiercely against Iranian targets in the Middle East and the Iranians wanted to cool down, at least against what happens against American targets, the Houthis refused and they had to send the commander of the Quds Force from Iran to Yemen to order them with threats that they need to stand down, at least when it comes to American targets. But all of that still left them with a big desire to attack Israel. And until yesterday, they paid no price. You know, they attacked and attacked. They didn't cause a lot of damage, but Israel did not react.
DS: Okay, so let's talk about the response. Israel obviously launched an operation, 2,000 kilometers, 12,000 miles from Israel, as you said, at least as far, if not farther than Israel launching an operation against Iran. So it's no small feat. What is the significance of that signal to Iran and Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies in the region?
RB: So behind the scenes, when they started to attack, Israel had very little information, intelligence about the Houthis. I know that there is a legend that the Israeli intelligence know everything about everything all the time. But as you found out in October 7, it's not necessarily true. And they are focusing on immediate threats. The Houthis were not seen as the immediate threat. So there was very little collected about them. And so when they started to attack the director of military intelligence, major general Aharon Haliva, ordered to open a new unit inside 8200.
DS: 8200 is one of the elite units, the sort of like the equivalent of Israel's NSA. It's national security agency, the military intelligence unit focused on technology and technology and technology capabilities.
RB: Yeah. And I think that as you defined very well in Startup Nation, it's also sort of the mother or grandmother or one of the parents of Startup Nation, the best of the best. And so 8200 establishes a special unit that will be collecting intelligence only on the Houthis. It's a new area. It's a new region. It's a different language, a different dialect of Arabic. New phones to tap, new communication line to decrypt. It's complicated, but the fruits of ongoing efforts could be seen yesterday in the bombing. The ability to launch an attack, bypass any kind of air defense, even in daytime, be able to fuel in air attack a defined target, a target that is used by the Houthi militia for different purposes, and then fly back safely. It all starts first with intelligence. The intelligence was ready. This was what enabled the IDF and the Air Force to execute fast. It was in order to signal the Houthis and the other parts of the Muqama, of the resistant front, that they have crossed a threshold that Israel would not allow them, or is trying to show them that it would not allow. This is bombing in Tel Aviv. And now question, of course, will this deter or not. The fact that this was done on a target that is remote, more distant than Tehran by itself shows that even with the old fueling tanks, Israeli planes can reach Tehran and run a massive, massive bombing. This is an attack that has a symbolic value, or we will see if it's value was not the symbolic issue was not lower than the actual impact on Houthi capabilities.
DS: Although it did do real damage to the Houthis. It hit the port, which has, you know, it's where they import a lot of their weapons. It's where they have energy assets. It has civilian use. As I said earlier, it has military use. Like I said, the damage seemed considerable. So it is a message to the Houthis, but to your point, it sends a real message to Iran. Ronen, we're going to wrap there. Just one final question. What are the other actors in the region, like the Saudis and the Egyptians and the Emiratis see in Israel's response?
RB: Look, those actors. behave very differently behind closed doors when they speak off record or they speak with the Israelis or the Americans, then how they speak publicly. They secretly wish Israel to use strong arm against the Jabal Muqama and against Iran. Of course, an arm that would not cause significant civilian casualties because this could create instability in those countries. But I think that you want to find any real dilemmas, but only support in as many and as strong Israeli actions against those countries. But also after October 7th, Israel deterrence. has been damaged. Those countries are looking at Israel that has been suffering from ongoing low intensity war with Hezbollah and has not yet reacted with full force and only reacted first time against the Houthis now. They say maybe something has changed with the, they used to say, Ba'al HaBayit Ishtaga, the landlord has gone crazy. That was the, the mindset attributed to the Israelis. So, They say, well, maybe the landlord is not that crazy anymore. And they feel it's bad, bad for Israel, but also bad for them. But then now we are left with the main question, will the Houthis be deterred from launching another attack? Because they would be fearing another Israeli attack on them, or as they promised will just continue and the cost effective of attacks from their side is much cheaper than from the From the Israeli side. And we need to also remember that Israel already is fighting two fronts. This is a very difficult calculation from the, from the Israeli side. Also, what is the point of view of Iran in all of that? Because Iran, I'm not sure that they want to have a more flames in the Middle East because they might want to have the north of Israel, the south of Lebanon, relax. Sometimes I look at the situation from a regional position. If they support Hamas to sign a ceasefire that would lead Nasrallah to stop firing from the north. If, at the same time, there is like a massive fire and exchange of blows between Israel and the Houthis, that could risk the stability to know something that Iran is, at least for now, is trying to guard and protect Hezbollah from suffering the same kind of war as Hamas. So it's very complicated, many, many interests all together. But I just wanted everybody to understand the fact that Israel reacted and reacted fiercely, and from the operational point of view, succeeded, it doesn't mean that this is over, that the Houthi issue, the Houthi problem for Israel is finished. Maybe even the contrary of that.
DS: Okay. This is not the last time we'll be returning to this story. So Ronen, I appreciate your taking the time on short notice for calling me back and we will look forward to having you soon as this story and others develop.
RB: Thank you, Dan. Pleasure as always.
DS: That's our show for today. To keep up with Ronen Bergman, you can find him on X @ronenbergman or at Ynet. And you can also find his work at the New York times. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom, additional editing by Martin Huergo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.