Chaos erupted in the British House of Commons on Wednesday after the speaker of the house, Lindsay Hoyle, violated time-honored procedural rules by allowing debate on a proposed amendment to a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The details of the breach of protocol are not nearly so important as the reason Hoyle cited for caving into pressure, namely, that he is “very, very concerned about the safety” of his fellow MPs. This comes only a few weeks after another parliamentarian announced his retirement following threats to his life over his support for Israel. Stephen Pollard comments:

In other words, according to Sir Lindsay, his reason for selecting the Labor amendment was fear of the mob—that if Labor MPs weren’t given the opportunity to vote for their own ceasefire amendment, . . . he feared for their safety. And so he caved in to mob rule.

Dismayed as Pollard is, he’s unsurprised:

Every week . . . mobs of hundreds of thousands take to our streets with genocidal screams of “From the river to the sea,” chanting support of the Houthis, parading posters that could have come straight from Nazi Germany, and demanding jihad and global intifada. . . . And what do the authorities do? They stand and watch as these hate marches take over London—and other cities—and turn them into no-go areas for Jews. The marches—despite their repeated, clear, and proud intent—are given the go-ahead by a police force which has lost the will and the ability to keep the streets free from hate.

Why do the police appease rather than arrest the hate marchers? In part because they know the chances of the Crown Prosecution Service following through and charging anyone are close to zero.

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.