That’s the fear since Yemen-based Houthi Rebels have attacked Israel. But can we really call that “spreading the war”? Not really, since both wars started essentially independently and the conflict in Israel /Palestine predates the Yemen war.
So why do people say that the war is spreading?
Because the Houthi Rebels are outsiders in Palestine, so people see that as “spreading”. When I think of a war as “spreading”, I think of one actor taking the same war to another region or others in another region becoming inspired by a war and taking up arms. We often call this spreading of wars the Domino Principle, as one after another, governments fall. These are essentially independent conflicts although they have some commonality.
There are plenty of articles on this site that discuss the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. It’s mainly about the taking of Palestine to establish the state of Israel, the lack of a Palestinian homeland, and oppression of the Palestinians on the part of Israel. There is a religious element to the war.
Read this short article to understand the proxy war in Yemen
We can see the common link. Other Islamic groups – Hezbollah, Houthi Rebels – with ties to Iran support Hamas. As discussed here, that was the objective behind the Hamas attack.
2 Conflicts With Commonalities
The two conflicts surely have common roots. All conflict in the Middle East involves Islamic factionalism to some extent and the greatest conflicts – like the Palestinian-Israeli situation – are rooted in outside agitators, colonizers seeking dominance and control over the oil, and drawing new borders. In that sense, these two are part of the same on-going conflict – dominance and control over the region, although the war in Palestine-Israel involves the establishment of the Jewish homeland and denial of a Palestinian homeland.
In summary, despite the Houthi Rebels launching and attack on Israel from Yemen, we can’t truly say that the Israeli-Palestinian War has spread to Yemen. There already was a war in Yemen, though a war with some common roots.
