The motto of the Houthi rebels in Yemen, who last night launched three attack drones at Israel, includes both “death to Israel” and “curse the Jews,” providing some clarity about their intentions. These can also be seen in their treatment of Levi Marhabi, who is likely Yemen’s last Jew, and whom the Houthis have imprisoned since 2018. Before telling his story, Thasanya Jayasumana provides some historical background on the local Jewish community, which predates the destruction of the Second Temple and the rise of Islam. Once, Jayasumana writes, Muslim rulers guaranteed Yemenite Jewish protections. (Free registration required.)

[T]his security came with stringent social rules aimed at ensuring their visible separation from the Muslim populace. Among the many conditions, Jews were required to walk on the left side of Muslims, forbidden from constructing homes taller than those of their Muslim neighbors, and barred from riding camels or horses. Instead, they were limited to mules and donkeys, which they initially rode sidesaddle. Over time, even this modest privilege was rescinded, relegating them to making their journeys on foot.

Despite these restrictions, the Jewish community in Yemen managed to attain economic prosperity, thriving as merchants, artisans, and peddlers. . . . Starting in 1881 and continuing until 1914, a significant exodus unfolded as around 10 percent of Yemen’s Jewish population migrated to the then-Ottoman territory of Palestine.

The situation took a dire turn in 2007 when the Houthis issued direct threats against the Jewish community. . . . Marhabi is kept in inhumane prison conditions, where his health continues to deteriorate. He allegedly suffers from kidney and lung issues and has lost all his teeth from repeated torture. Other accounts indicate that he may also be partially paralyzed. Houthi officials have reportedly deprived him of food, and subjected him to physical beatings, electrical shocks, and lengthy interrogations.

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”