As of July 4, French police had detained some 2,000 people in response to the riots that swept through the country. Yet the White House made no statement comparable to that issued on Monday urging Jerusalem “to protect and respect the right of peaceful assembly” after a handful of arrests in protests there. Elliott Abrams notes that this was but one of several declarations from U.S. officials about the turmoil in Israel surrounding judicial reform:

Unlike in France, the protests [in Israel] are non-violent, no one has been killed, and there are many fewer arrests—dozens, not hundreds or thousands.

Why does the administration feel quite free to interfere with the internal politics of one democratic ally and not another? Here are two related reasons: in the case of France, critics of Macron have not sought such U.S. interference and pressure. In the case of Israel, opponents of Prime Minister Netanyahu have traveled to the United States and made almost daily appeals for this pressure. Second, there is no domestic pressure in the United States for criticisms of Macron while there is one for criticisms of Netanyahu. Many American Jewish groups and leaders have expressed their own opposition and invited—or demanded—U.S. pressure on Israel’s government.

The double standard in Biden administration treatment of the unrest in France and in Israel is evident. It is also quite problematic, because it creates a precedent that those who are today urging interference in Israeli domestic disputes may tomorrow regret. Unlike Israel’s policies regarding Iran, Egypt, Jordan, or the Palestinians, the role of its judiciary is about as “internal” an internal matter as can be imagined. Israelis are struggling—democratically and peacefully—over those domestic issues. They should be able to do so without U.S. interference—and without unfair and baseless suggestions that Israeli authorities are not protecting the right to demonstrate.

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.