Concerns over Hudaydah imports deserve attention. I've been calling for KSA to allow fuel into Hudaydah for months. That said, 1) the solution is not as simple as 'lifting the blockade' and 2) most messaging around this on social media is unabashedly pro-Houthi, wittingly or not https://twitter.com/Ndawsari/status/1380670667297853443

1) What many activists call the Yemen blockade is part of a UN-sanctioned Verification and Inspection Mechanism (UNVIM) intended to prevent weapons shipments to the Houthis. It is currently enforced by KSA and, crucially, the Yemeni government, which has to approve all ships

I've seen some debate by ppl whose opinion I respect, but imo it's undoubtable the Saudi-led coalition has used the UNVIM to 'blockade' the Houthis, refusing permission to allow fuel ships into Hudaydah after the group broke a deal over import revenues last May

Imo, the international community needs to pressure the coalition to allow more fuel ships in under the UNVIM. They have generally been letting food ships in, and let several fuel ships in provisionally over the past year

The thing is, a lot of Yemeni analysts are scared that if we completely lift the UNVIM (i.e. 'the blockade'), rather than just pressuring KSA to allow more ships under it, we'll run into the same problem it was originally trying to solve - Iran sending the Houthis lots of weapons

It was more open to debate a few years back, but it's fairly well-established now that Iran is sending the Houthis significant amounts of weapons thru smuggling routes, although these are still peanuts compared to what they could send in a cargo ship if the UNVIM were lifted

The concern is that if you lift the UNVIM without a very firm political settlement, not just a ceasefire commitment, you're basically just going to pour fuel on the fire by giving the Houthis access to much more and much better weaponry to try to win the war

2) The reason why most messaging around 'lifting the blockade' is unabashedly pro-Houthi is because it completely ignores all these intricacies. It portrays the UNVIM as a purely Saudi effort to starve Yemenis, ignores the Yemeni government's existence...

and ignores the very real fear that we're going to see a conflagration of the Yemen war if you completely lift the UNVIM, a key Houthi demand. Yes, we should be pressuring KSA to allow more ships, but keep the UNVIM in place.

Of course, this doesn't fit the manichaean worldview of a lot of political messaging in the Middle East, and the Yemen blockade narrative is pretty firmly ensconced in progressive circles, so I don't know what to do except try to explain it to people who'll listen

*on the Middle East, not in. Most Yemenis I talk to about this recognize the complexities of their own country, even if they strongly disagree over what path it should take.