Yemeni Cities Revolt Against Israeli-Arab Normalization
SANAA (Dispatches) -- Tens of thousands of people on Sunday took to the streets across Yemen to condemn attempts by some Arab rulers to normalize relations with the occupying regime of Israel.
The rallies took place in this Yemeni capital as well as in the western provinces of Saada, Hudeydah, Taizz, and Al-Jawf, Yemen’s Al-Masirah television network reported.
The demonstrators took aim at a U.S. conference held in the Polish capital of Warsaw last week, during which Arab leaders met with Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s office leaked a video of a closed-door meeting in which Persian Gulf Arab officials were seen playing down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, defending Israel’s "right to defend itself,” and describing Iran as a "threat” to regional peace.
The Yemeni demonstrators chanted slogans against the Zionist regime and slammed Arab leaders as "traitors”.
They called the normalization attempt an act of treason against the Palestinian cause and vowed to stand by the Palestinian nation in its fight against the Israeli occupation.
The protests came after a call by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s popular Houthi movement.
Calling for the rallies, al-Houthi had called the Warsaw conference "just a manifest of many steps taken against our Islamic nation,” referring to the international Muslim community.
"The traitors and their masters wanted our dear people to be puppets for Israel and the United States,” he said.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday dismissed the conference as "weak and stale,” and warned that Arab leaders moving toward normalization with the occupying regime of Israel were only "a tool” in Israel’s hands.
Nasrallah said the Warsaw summit brought out into the open Israel’s relations with the Persian Gulf states.
"We knew about normalization between Israel and Oman and the United Arab Emirates, but at the summit we also clearly saw normalization with the Saudis,” he said.
The Hezbollah chief attacked Yemen’s Saudi-backed self-proclaimed foreign minister for sitting beside Netanyahu at the summit, saying it "revealed that… the Yemen war is an Israeli-American war carried out by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
Saudi Arabia has been leading a devastating war on Yemen for years, in which as many as 56,000 people are believed to have been killed.
"Those who attack the people in Yemen, who control Bahrain that acts against Iran, who sit beside Israel at the Warsaw conference and normalize relations with Israel — they are all tools in the hands of this (Israeli and American) plan,” Nasrallah said.
The rallies took place in this Yemeni capital as well as in the western provinces of Saada, Hudeydah, Taizz, and Al-Jawf, Yemen’s Al-Masirah television network reported.
The demonstrators took aim at a U.S. conference held in the Polish capital of Warsaw last week, during which Arab leaders met with Zionist PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu’s office leaked a video of a closed-door meeting in which Persian Gulf Arab officials were seen playing down the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, defending Israel’s "right to defend itself,” and describing Iran as a "threat” to regional peace.
The Yemeni demonstrators chanted slogans against the Zionist regime and slammed Arab leaders as "traitors”.
They called the normalization attempt an act of treason against the Palestinian cause and vowed to stand by the Palestinian nation in its fight against the Israeli occupation.
The protests came after a call by Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of Yemen’s popular Houthi movement.
Calling for the rallies, al-Houthi had called the Warsaw conference "just a manifest of many steps taken against our Islamic nation,” referring to the international Muslim community.
"The traitors and their masters wanted our dear people to be puppets for Israel and the United States,” he said.
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday dismissed the conference as "weak and stale,” and warned that Arab leaders moving toward normalization with the occupying regime of Israel were only "a tool” in Israel’s hands.
Nasrallah said the Warsaw summit brought out into the open Israel’s relations with the Persian Gulf states.
"We knew about normalization between Israel and Oman and the United Arab Emirates, but at the summit we also clearly saw normalization with the Saudis,” he said.
The Hezbollah chief attacked Yemen’s Saudi-backed self-proclaimed foreign minister for sitting beside Netanyahu at the summit, saying it "revealed that… the Yemen war is an Israeli-American war carried out by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.”
Saudi Arabia has been leading a devastating war on Yemen for years, in which as many as 56,000 people are believed to have been killed.
"Those who attack the people in Yemen, who control Bahrain that acts against Iran, who sit beside Israel at the Warsaw conference and normalize relations with Israel — they are all tools in the hands of this (Israeli and American) plan,” Nasrallah said.