I began today’s newsletter by introducing Sarah Rindner’s article on life in Israel while the country is under siege, which contains a moving description of the recitation of Psalms. I’ll end too with the Psalms, and with what’s likely one of the best-known verses of the best-known psalm (23:4): “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” This stich was a clue in an episode of Jeopardy! last summer, and not a single contestant could identify which biblical book it came from. Meir Soloveichik comments:

The tragic irony is that the entire story of Western culture is, in a sense, indebted to the Psalms; even if one does not believe in the theology expressed in the biblical book, one cannot understand the history of literature without it. The greatest of English writing—from Shakespeare to the modern novel—provides a window into the interiority of the human psyche. But this was not learned from the works of Homer, or Ovid, or Sophocles. Only in the Bible, and especially in the Psalms, could ancient literature provide such a window on man’s ability and need to look within. It is difficult to believe that the humanist literature of the West would have been possible without David’s inspiration and example. . . .

[T]here are still many millions of Americans who find daily inspiration in the Bible. Students such as my own at Yeshiva University study the sacred scriptures as well as the great Western texts, and a silver lining of societal scriptural ignorance may be that the men and women I teach have an intellectual advantage as contestants on game shows. But still, as I watched that clip, I felt nothing but foreboding; for I realized what that moment on that game show meant, warning us that civilization itself is in jeopardy.

Here at Mosaic, we’ve published quite a lot about many Arab states, but one that’s barely received mention is Oman, located at the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. The sultanate has stayed out of the recent conflicts of the Midde East, and is known to have sub-rosa relations with Israel; high-ranking Israeli officials have visited the country clandestinely, or at least with little fanfare. For precisely this reason, Oman has held itself out as an intermediary and host for negotiations. The then-secret talks that proceeded the Obama administration’s fateful nuclear negotiations with Iran took place in Oman. Ari Heistein explains the similar, and troubling, role Muscat is playing with regard to the Houthis in neighboring Yemen:

For more than three decades, Oman has served in the role of mediator for the resolution of disputes in Yemen. . . . Oman allows for a Houthi office in the capital, Muscat, reportedly numbering around 100 personnel, to operate from its territory for the purported function of diplomatic engagement. It is worth asking why the Houthis require such a large delegation for such limited engagement and whether there is any real value to engaging with the Houthis.

Thus far, efforts to negotiate with the Houthis have yielded very limited outcomes, primarily resulting in concessions from the Saudi-led coalition and partial de-escalation when it has served the terror group’s interests. Rarely, if ever, have the Houthis fully abided by their commitments after signing off on international agreements. Presumably, such meager results could have been achieved through other constellations that are less beneficial to the recently redesignated foreign terrorist organization.

In contrast, the malign and destabilizing Houthi activities in Oman are significant. They include: shipment of Iranian and Chinese weapons components [and] military-grade communications equipment via Oman to the Houthis; the smuggling of senior officials in and out of Houthi-controlled areas via Oman; and financial activities conducted by Houthi shell corporations to consolidate the regime’s control over Yemen’s economy and subsidize the regime.

With this in mind, there is good reason to suspect that the Houthi presence in Oman does more harm than good.