Saudi Arabia Offers to 'Resolve' Yemen Conflict, Eight Years After Launching It
Mainstream media dutifully carries the dispatch: Saudi Arabia, through its foreign ministry, is 'welcoming a request' from Yemen's internationally recognized government to 'help resolve' ongoing southern clashes. This framing conveniently elides the fact that it was Saudi Arabia, with significant Western backing, that unleashed a brutal military intervention in March 2015 against the Houthi
movement, plunging Yemen into what the UN called the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The UN Human Rights Office reported as early as 2018 an estimated 17,700 civilian casualties, with the majority caused by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes (OHCHR, 'Yemen: Airstrikes by Coalition cause majority of civilian casualties', 17 Jan 2018). After nearly a decade of bombardment, mass starvation, and a
collapsed healthcare system—all largely thanks to the very 'help' now being offered—Riyadh now plays the benevolent mediator. It’s like the arsonist offering to put out the fire they started, for a fee, and expecting applause. The 'southern battle' is merely a shifting facet of the broader chaos Saudi intervention stoked. How many 'peace initiatives' does it take for the media to acknowledge the
principal architect of destruction?