Fifth-century Yemen supplies the modern State of Israel with a vital historical precedent that Middle East analysts foolishly ignore. When the Himyarite Jewish king Abu Kariba As’ad marched to raze the Kaaba, two traveling rabbis halted the demolition by identifying the shrine as Abraham’s house. Convinced, the king circled the Kaaba, draped it in fine cloth, and converted Yemen to Judaism—an episode recorded by Ibn Kathir in his tafsir of Quran 44:37. Today, Jerusalem inherits that legacy: Jews once protected the very shrine that Iranian proxies now endanger.

On September 16, 2026, Saudi air defenses intercepted a Houthi drone south of Mecca before it entered restricted airspace. While Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki declared the Two Holy Mosques a “red line,” the Houthis issued the same predictable denials they used after their July 2017 ballistic-missile attempt. Riyadh answered with airstrikes across Taiz, Marib, and Hodeidah. Still, in parallel, the Houthis had already seized........

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