The Houthi advance in Yemen may revive Israel-Saudi relations

As the Houthis push toward the Bab al-Mandab Strait and continue to take ground from Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces, the question of Saudi-Israeli cooperation against the Iranian-backed group is back on the table.

Riyadh and Jerusalem have quietly worked together before, and the Houthis' latest advance may give them good reason to do so again.

In a special interview, Ali al-Bukhaiti, a former Houthi spokesman, told me he knows of no publicly announced coordination between Riyadh and Jerusalem. But he doesn't see a problem with it.

"In my personal view, cooperation is not something wrong when it comes to defeating the Houthis," he said. "Just as Saudi Arabia cooperates with the United States and European countries. If it is possible for them to cooperate with the Israelis on this issue, personally, I don't see anything wrong with that."

Why the urgency? According to al-Bukhaiti, this is no longer just a Yemeni war. "I believe that the Battle of Bab al-Mandab is the first battle in which the Iranians and Hezbollah personnel are directly participating," he said. Not as fighters, but "in a management capacity. Intelligence management. Intercepting the communications of the other side. As well as coordinating between the fronts and information warfare."

For Tehran, the timing makes sense. Hezbollah is weakened, Assad is gone, and the Iraqi militias are weak. "Therefore, its winning card is the Houthi group," al-Bukhaiti said, "because of its proximity to the region's most important strait."

For more than two decades, the Houthis have built their entire identity around one slogan: "Death to America, Death to Israel." Yet now that they finally stand at the gates of one of the world's most important shipping lanes, with real leverage over American and Israeli interests, they are rushing to reassure both.

According to al-Bukhaiti, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said the Bab al-Mandab blockade targets only Saudi ships. American and Israeli vessels will be left alone.

"The Houthis' slogan for 20 years or more has been, 'Death to America, death to Israel.' But when they reached the Bab al-Mandab Strait, they said, 'We have nothing to do with either America or Israel. Our problem is with Saudi Arabia and the Muslims,'" he said.

So much for the resistance. The group that claimed to fight for Gaza and against "global arrogance" has, when it truly mattered, chosen to aim its guns at fellow Arabs and Muslims instead.

On the Saudi-backed side, one absence stands out. "The absence of the Southern Transitional Council has nothing to do with the defeat. There may be a connection to the absence of the UAE," al-Bukhaiti said. Abu Dhabi built the forces of Tariq Saleh along the coast and backed them with continuous air cover and naval vessels near al-Mokha. Without the Emiratis, that front didn't hold.

So the Houthis have spared Israel, turned their guns on Riyadh, and let Tehran run the show. If al-Bukhaiti is right, Saudi Arabia and Israel may have more in common in Yemen than either is ready to admit.