On Tuesday, the Knesset revoked a 2005 law forbidding Jews from living in a narrow slice of territory in the northern West Bank. The original law, most of which remains in effect, legitimized Israel’s disengagement from the Gaza Strip as well as the forcible removal of four Israeli villages in Samaria. In response, a State Department spokesman condemned the legislation as inconsistent with prior understandings between the two countries. Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador, went further still, calling it “an egregious violation of a commitment to the United States.” Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu has clarified that his government has “no intention of building new communities in these areas”—a decision that is ultimately the prerogative of the cabinet rather than the parliament.

Whatever the prudence of the Knesset’s decision, Alan Baker and Lenny Ben-David explain that the complaints of Kurtzer and others are misplaced:

The new legislation would enable the return of the residents to their homes and properties after the implementation of requisite legal and security arrangements and the resolution of land ownership claims by Palestinians. The sites of [two of the evacuated towns], Ganim and Kadim, are reported to be now part of Jenin’s municipal boundaries in Area A [of the West Bank], effectively putting them off-limits to Israelis.

U.S. spokespersons and the former ambassador Kurtzer . . . appear to interpret this new legislation in an overly broad manner that does not necessarily reflect the actual substance of, or reasoning for, the legislation. They wrongly claim that the new legislation would facilitate “creating new settlements, building or legalizing outposts, or allowing the building of any kind on private Palestinian land or deep in the West Bank adjacent to Palestinian communities.” As such, they claim that the legislation contradicts previous undertakings by the Israeli government to the United States “to evacuate these settlements and outposts in the northern West Bank in order to stabilize the situation and reduce frictions.”

In fact, the 2004 unilateral and independent Israeli plan to evacuate those villages, even after implementation, failed in its stated purpose to secure and encourage a reduction in Palestinian hostility and violence, nor did it stabilize the political and economic situation as hoped.

Moreover, write Baker and Ben-David, the commitments cited by the Kurtzer and the State Department were made in a 2004 exchange of letters between then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-President George W. Bush. As President Obama explicitly rejected these understandings in 2011, Israel can in no way be expected to abide by them.

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.