Yvonne Ridley
The Zionist state is on the verge of economic collapse and many of its citizens are leaving, but shush, don’t tell anyone. In fact, no one is talking about this, certainly not in Tel Aviv or Israel’s friends in the Western media, in case it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There are too many lies and secrets propping up Israel and its supporters.
According to i24 NEWS, at least 117,000 Israelis have quit the Zionist state for good since the outbreak of the war on 7 October, 2023. This is three times higher than data from previous years but even that estimate is supposed to be conservative; there are strong rumours that it is closer to one million, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research.
Also unprecedented is the “massive displacement” within Israel, of around 200,000 citizens who’ve fled their homes bordering Gaza and southern Lebanon. Again, both the Israeli government and the UN have been remarkably silent on the issue.
While the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has certainly had an impact on companies around the world which are believed to support the rogue state, around 60,000 small businesses within Israel have collapsed since Hamas launched Operation Al Aqsa Flood on 7 October.
Moreover, the tourism industry has imploded and Israelis, especially those serving in the military or athletes representing their country in international sporting events, are finding out that they are not welcome in many places overseas; some are being arrested for their roles in the genocide in Gaza.
But perhaps the most effective campaign waged against Israel, other than from Hamas, is coming from Yemen’s Houthis. The movement’s support for Palestine has already crippled much of Israel’s Red Sea cargo traffic. US President Donald Trump’s anger towards the Houthis probably has more to do with that than their ties to Iran and fears that they will serve — or already serve — as an Iranian proxy force.
Until recently the actions of the Houthis against Israel were largely dismissed and downplayed by the US and Israel as a minor irritant, but the impact that their support in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza has had on international shipping using the Red Sea maritime route — in other words, global trade — America has started blitzing Houthi strongholds in Yemen.
In short, the US is acting as an Israeli proxy.
The Israeli port of Eilat declared that it was bankrupt last July — as revealed by MEMO — after eight months of the complete paralysis of its commercial activity. Cargo ships, oil tankers and container vessels carrying goods, machinery, crude oil, fuel, wheat, food and cars have given the port a wide berth because of incoming missile and other airborne attacks by the Houthis.
While the international community and Israel have sought to downplay the effectiveness of the Houthi campaign, the movement has managed to asphyxiate the Zionist state’s economy.
This explains why Trump ordered the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman to launch multiple air attacks across Yemen last Saturday and Sunday in the largest US military operation since he returned to the White House in January. Posting on his Truth Social platform, an incandescent Trump warned Yemen’s Houthi group: “HELL WILL RAIN DOWN UPON YOU LIKE NOTHING YOU HAVE EVER SEEN BEFORE!”
Yes, Trump uses full sentences of capital letters, just like a spoilt child throwing a tantrum.
It may be an inconvenient truth, but it seems that the plight of the Israeli hostages can take a back seat when it comes to money and business, as both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lash out at their adversaries. The families of the Israeli hostages (and we mustn’t forget that there are more than 10,000 Palestinian hostages being held in Israeli prisons, thousands of them with neither charge nor trial) are sensing this and have demonstrated loudly in recent days.
It has also emerged that the UK is playing a “quiet” backdoor role in Yemen, according to the news outlet Declassified. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has involved Britain’s armed forces in Trump’s bombing campaign, with a Royal Air Force (RAF) Voyager aerial refuelling tanker carrying out two flights from RAF Akrotiri, an air base in the “Sovereign British Base Area” in Cyprus, into the Red Sea to support the USS Harry S. Truman.
Although the RAF did not announce its involvement, publicly available flight tracking data shows that on Saturday, 15 March, an RAF Voyager departed Akrotiri at 17:49 UTC and headed south into the Red Sea. The refuelling tanker reached the area off the Saudi Arabian coast just south of Jeddah, where US naval vessels were stationed, at around 19:20. The aircraft, capable of carrying more than a hundred tonnes of fuel, spent more than two hours in the vicinity of the USS Harry S. Truman.
The first strikes in Yemen were recorded around 17:15 UTC and lasted for more than five hours. A defence source confirmed to Declassified that, “The UK provided routine allied air-to-air refuelling support to aid the self-defence of a US aircraft carrier in the region from which the strikes were launched.”
At least 27 civilians were reported killed and 22 wounded in the first night of American air strikes across seven of Yemen’s governorates. The Houthi’s Al-Masirah TV channel aired footage of distressed and severely burnt children receiving medical care, apparent victims of US strikes in the governorate of Sa’ada.
It’s interesting that the term “self-defence” was used again.
Colonial states throw their aggressive weight around all over the world, but when they are challenged, suddenly they are acting in “self-defence”. Israel claims to be acting in “self-defence” even as it commits genocide in the occupied Palestinian territories. Occupation is, by definition, an act of aggression; legitimate Palestinian resistance to occupation is genuine self-defence, but is denounced by the rogue state and its supporters as “terrorism”.
Too many powerful people in powerful places are committing terrible atrocities and war crimes while claiming to act in the name of democracy. Trump, Starmer and Netanyahu represent a triumvirate of evil which is beginning to define the 21st century just as the Holocaust stained the 20th century. You don’t have to wear jackboots to behave like fascists.
French information minister André Malraux could have been thinking of this trio when he said: “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” The lies and cover-ups, secret wars and wicked deeds of these three colonial monsters will never be forgiven or forgotten.
Source: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250322-trump-starmer-and-netanyahu-are-a-triumvirate-of-evil/
