Iran-backed Houthis expressed a racist contempt for the Arabs of the UAE, whom he described scornfully as “Bedouins” — primitive desert Arabs, uneducated and semi-literate, incapable of creating the modern Emirati state Writes Hugh Fitzgerald
A recent statement by the Health Minister of the Iran-backed Houthis expressed a racist contempt for the Arabs of the UAE, whom he described scornfully as “Bedouins” — primitive desert Arabs, uneducated and semi-literate, incapable of creating the modern Emirati state. How then did the Emirates come to be so advanced? According to the Houthi Health Minister, the UAE is a “Jewish settlement” run behind the scenes by clever Jews who have invested in the country in order to control it, and to commit the UAE, through its joining the Abraham Accords, to the normalization of ties with the Jewish state. A report on his speech is here: “‘UAE a Jewish Settlement Controlled by Jews,’ Says Houthi Health Minister,” JNS.org, February 1, 2022:
The Houthi health minister, Taha Al-Motawakel, preached a sermon that drips with contempt for the Bedouin, the nomadic Arab tribes who have historically inhabited the desert regions in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. The Arabian Peninsula is the historic and original homeland of the Bedouin Arabs. Al-Motawakel paints them as primitives who don’t have the brains to build a major economic center. Imagine the reaction if any Western official were to refer to the Bedouin, or any other group of Arabs, Africans, or Asians, in such a way, with a similar display of contempt. Such official would be pilloried as a “racist” and likely be pressure to resign. One wonders how the Bedouin, the Arabs of the desert, will react when they learn of Taha al-Motawakel’s remark. They are in some areas a real force to be reckoned with, as in Jordan, where they form the backbone of the Jordanian army, and help King Abdullah hold the majority Palestinian population — that often opposes the King — in check. There are about 20 million Bedouin spread across the Middle East and North Africa. The Saudis and Emiratis have a clear interest in spreading this Houthi’s contemptuous remarks among the Bedouin population.
Motawakel said that “UAE affairs are managed by Jews who invested in the country rather than Israel to protect it from conflict with the Arabs.” Of course. Cherchez le juif. In this Houthi official’s view, the Jews, so much cleverer than the lowly Bedouins, are – according to his antisemitic trope – the real puppet-masters of the globe, with their control of finance and the media. And that means they are the ones who must be managing the UAE behind the scenes. All those Israelis who’ve been investing in the UAE have done so not for economic reasons, according to Motawakel, but as a way to “buy peace” with the UAE, to take it out of the camp of conflict.
When the UAE chose to join the Abraham Accords, and to normalize ties with Israel, it had – without any Jews behind the scenes manipulating it – already decided to take itself out of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and to pursue ties with Israel in furtherance of its own self-interest. Motawakel refuses to concede agency to the Arabs of the UAE, who for him are only primitive Bedouins. But there’s an awkward question of chronology. Israeli Jews started visiting the UAE, and making deals with UAE businessmen, only in 2020, after the Emirates joined the Abraham Accords. What, then, explains the explosion of the UAE economy, the building of such modern cities as Abu Dhabi, and one of the world’s busiest and most advanced transportation hub in Dubai? This all took place before a single Jew set foot in the UAE. Perhaps those Emiratis whom Motawakel dismisses as “primitive Bedouin” are not so primitive after all?
“Do the Bedouins have the brains to build such towers and companies and have all those billionaires, oil drilling, transportation and tourism? This is not something that was pulled off by those Bedouins. It was the Jews who established the UAE,” he said.
So apparently the Jews have been in the UAE since its beginnings in 1971: “It was the Jews who established the UAE.” But if those diabolically clever Jews were responsible for establishing the UAE, why did they have to wait fifty years before the UAE agreed to normalize ties with Israel? What explains that half-century of enmity between Israel and the UAE, a state – Motawakel assures us – that was founded and controlled by Jews? Something doesn’t make sense.
He also claimed that the United States and Israel are behind the attacks against the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.
Has he forgotten that the attacks against the Houthis in Yemen are carried out by Saudi Arabia, which explains why the Houthis have been firing rockets and using military drones to attack Saudi airbases and oil installations? The Saudi hatred of the Iran-backed Houthis is deep; Riyadh needs no encouragement from either the U.S. or Israel to keep up its attacks on the Houthis in Yemen. But Motawakel’s charge is made to make it seem as though there is a gang-up by Infidels, the Greater and the Lesser Satan, against the Houthis, rather than what it is, a fight led by fellow Muslim Arabs – the Saudis and Emiratis — who are determined to prevent an ally of Iran, and hence Iran itself, from establishing a base right on Saudi Arabia’s southern border.
Motawakel also threatened Israel with drones and missiles.
“Israel knows that [our] drones that flew 2,000 kilometers from Yemen [to Saudi Arabia] can fly to Tel Aviv and other plundered areas in Israel. … That is, in Palestine. … So the Jews know how dangerous the Yemenis are, with their [drone] planes and ballistic missiles,” he said.
Israel has taken no part in the Yemen Civil War, though it undoubtedly wants the internationally-recognized national government, backed by the Saudis and the Emiratis, to defeat the Houthis. And it certainly is not frightened by the prospect of an attack from Yemen. It won’t deign to reply to Motawakel’s threat, for there is no need to turn it on its head: “The Houthis know perfectly well how dangerous the Israelis are, with their [drone] planes and ballistic missiles.” It is worth noting that since 2015, when the Houthis first rose in revolt, there have been no attacks by Houthis on Israeli targets. They know that an Israeli response would be swift, and devastating.
Even the appeasement-minded Americans now admit that Iran is getting ever closer to manufacturing a bomb. On January 26, Antony Blinken said at a virtual conference that “[Iran] is getting to the point where its breakout time, the time it would take to produce fissile material for a bomb, is getting down to a matter of a few weeks.”
If Israel finds that it must attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, which becomes ever more likely, given the Bidenite efforts at appeasement, Iran will order its proxies and allies – the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Gaza – to attack simultaneously the Jewish state. If Israel can knock out ahead of time one of those proxies, that will be one less front to worry about. The Houthis are the most likely to be eliminated first; but Israel needs an excuse to hit them. Perhaps the Houthis will over-reach, and send a drone or two into Israel. That’s all the excuse, the casus belli, that Israel will need.
The Houthis have miscalculated before. The UAE has for the past two years been pulling most of its forces from Yemen, but in January, the Houthis attacked the UAE three times. This was foolish. Far from hastening the UAE’s withdrawal from Yemen, now the Emiratis are likely to halt their withdrawal and may even return some of the military forces they had previously removed. They must be particularly enraged at being described so contemptuously as “primitive Bedouin,” and their country called a “Jewish settlement.” The Houthis have now made enemies of the 20 million Bedouin they have insulted, and at the same time have managed to further strengthen the very alliance — that between Israel and the UAE — that they and their backer Iran wish to destroy.
