One might expect that an unpopular leader facing an upcoming election and narrowing diplomatic horizons would bend over backwards to stay in the good graces of an American president who has already remitted $90 million in aid money and promised to be more favorable than his predecessor. But such laws of political gravity don’t seem to apply to the Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas, as Ruthie Blum explains:

In mid-February, Secretary of State Antony Blinken personally phoned Abbas, undoubtedly to discuss all the goodies that the PA could anticipate from President Biden and company, and perhaps to wish him well in the upcoming elections. But rather than bask in the attention that he was receiving from America’s top diplomat, Abbas refused to take the call.

Yes, the head of the tiny terrorism-supporting entity was deeply offended that someone of Blinken’s “inferior” stature was on the line. Abbas, after all, had demanded that Biden himself initiate the conversation, “president to president.”

Instead of warning Abbas not to overestimate his standing in the world relative to that of the secretary of state, Blinken accepted the snub. . . . Ramallah and Washington are now discussing the option of Blinken’s holding the chat with the PA prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh or the senior PA official Hussein al-Sheikh.

Abbas’s gall is not new and has served the PA ruler well with the international community, which has elevated him to ill-deserved heights. This is due to an unfounded, knee-jerk opposition to Israel, not to the way in which he rules his own people, who view him with disdain and outrage.

Last Tuesday, the Houthis—the faction now ruling much of Yemen—said that they intend to renew attacks on international shipping through the Red and Arabian Seas. They had for the most part paused their attacks following the January 19 Israel-Hamas cease-fire, but their presence has continued to scare away maritime traffic near the Yemeni coast, with terrible consequences for the global economy.

The U.S. responded on Saturday by initiating strikes on Houthi missile depots, command-and-control centers, and propaganda outlets, and has promised that the attacks will continue for days, if not weeks. The Houthis responded by launching drones, and possibly missiles, at American naval ships, apparently without result. Another missile fired from Yemen struck the Sinai, but was likely aimed at Israel. As Ari Heistein has written in Mosaic, it may take a sustained and concerted effort to stop the Houthis, who have high tolerance for casualties—but this is a start. Ron Ben-Yishai provides some context:

The goal is to punish the Houthis for directly targeting Western naval vessels in the Red Sea while also exerting indirect pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program. . . . While the Biden administration did conduct airstrikes against the Houthis, it refrained from a proactive military campaign, fearing a wider regional war. However, following the collapse of Iran’s axis—including Hizballah’s heavy losses in Lebanon and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria—the Trump administration appears unafraid of such an escalation.

Iran, the thinking goes, will also get the message that the U.S. isn’t afraid to use force, or risk the consequences of retaliation—and will keep this in mind as it considers negotiations over its nuclear program. Tamir Hayman adds:

The Houthis are the last proxy of the Shiite axis that have neither reassessed their actions nor restrained their weapons. Throughout the campaign against the Yemenite terrorist organization, the U.S.-led coalition has made operational mistakes: Houthi regime infrastructure was not targeted; the organization’s leaders were not eliminated; no sustained operational continuity was maintained—only actions to remove immediate threats; no ground operations took place, not even special-forces missions; and Iran has not paid a price for its proxy’s actions.

But if this does not stop the Houthis, it will project weakness—not just toward Hamas but primarily toward Iran—and Trump’s power diplomacy will be seen as hollow. The true test is one of output, not input. The only question that matters is not how many strikes the U.S. carries out, but whether the Red Sea reopens to all vessels. We will wait and see—for now, things look brighter than they did before.