分类： politics

Positioned directly across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait from Yemen, Eritrea—an East African nation with 700 miles of strategic Red Sea coastline—has publicly stated that the years-long conflict in Yemen can never be resolved through military means, and that no foreign power will ever succeed in bringing the Yemeni people under control.

In an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye conducted from Eritrea’s capital Asmara, Eritrean Foreign Minister Osman Saleh emphasized that Yemen must be given an opportunity to build lasting peace, noting that military action will not deliver the stability the region desperately needs.

Saleh’s comments come amid a dramatic shift in regional power dynamics: a rapid, sweeping Houthi offensive along Yemen’s Red Sea coast has left the group in full control of all Yemeni coastal territory opposite Eritrea and Djibouti, including a number of strategically vital islands in the strait. This territorial gain has upended long-standing calculations around Red Sea navigation and regional security.

One of the most pressing open questions for global trade and regional governance centers on how freedom of navigation through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—one of the world’s most critical maritime chokepoints, connecting the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean via the Red Sea—will be managed moving forward. Saleh noted that all coastal states bordering the waterway should have a voice in determining its future governance, but that the current fragmented political landscape in Yemen creates a major barrier to collective action. Today, Yemen lacks a single cohesive, unified central government that can exercise full control over its territory, a reality Saleh made clear complicates every decision related to the strait. “Yemen is non-existent. The official government has no control. There is no ‘Yemen’,” he told MEE in the interview.

The Bab el-Mandeb Strait has been a major global shipping and trade route for millennia, and it remains one of the most heavily used maritime corridors for global commerce today. With that strategic importance comes intense global interest, and Eritrea — which sits just 20 nautical miles from Yemen at the strait’s narrowest point alongside Djibouti — recognizes its unique responsibility, Saleh said. “Eritrea is in a very strategic position. We have a responsibility to safeguard the Red Sea to be a safe passage for all,” he stated.

Regional diplomats have outlined two core strategic implications of the Houthi advance: First, control of the strait gives Iran greater diplomatic and military leverage over the United States and Gulf Arab states. Second, the territorial gain puts commercial transiting vessels within range of basic Houthi artillery, putting the group in a position to demand tolls for passage through the waterway. Prior to the offensive, MEE reporting indicates the Houthis already demanded fees from Saudi Arabia for transit.

With the Houthis now controlling the Arabian Peninsula side of the strait, Eritrea’s Red Sea coastline has grown even more critical to global shipping networks. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), coastal nations can claim up to 12 nautical miles of territorial water, and while international law enshrines the right of free transit through international straits, some legal experts note that littoral states retain the right to charge legitimate fees for services like pilotage, infrastructure maintenance, and environmental protection.

When asked whether Eritrea planned to follow recent discussions of transit tolls in other strategic waterways like the Strait of Hormuz, Saleh pushed back on assumptions. “This is a new idea, a new concept. Because Iran raised it [in the Strait of Hormuz] doesn’t mean Eritrea will ask,” he said. That said, Saleh reaffirmed the need for collective dialogue between all coastal states to formalize rules that protect free passage for all vessels. “[But] there should be a discussion among littoral states and a decision how to ensure free passage. If Yemen is non-existent, we can’t speak with it now about these issues,” he added.

Another senior Eritrean official, who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity, echoed the foreign ministry’s stance on Yemen and expanded on Eritrea’s view of broader regional tensions. The official noted that Eritrea understands the security of the Red Sea is inherently tied to the ongoing escalating confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran. “The Bab el-Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz are together,” the official said, framing the two strategic chokepoints as interconnected nodes in a single regional security architecture. Echoing Saleh’s comments on foreign intervention, the official added that no external power—whether from inside the Middle East or beyond—will ever be able to subdue the Yemeni people through military force.

A growing political firestorm has erupted in the United Kingdom over the primary sponsorship of the British Museum’s newly opened Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, after revelations that the Belarus-born billionaire backing the show with an estimated £5 million donation has ties to an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Opposition figures are now demanding the newly seated Labour government make good on its recent pledges to crack down on activity enabling illegal settlements by launching a formal probe into the sponsorship.

Zack Polanski, leader of the UK Green Party, was the first to publicly call for the investigation, following reporting by independent outlet Middle East Eye that exposed Igor Tulchinsky’s November 2025 unveiling of a therapeutic yurt at a new community resilience center in Efrat. The settlement, which is home to roughly 12,000 Israeli settlers, was constructed on land seized from four Palestinian villages and is currently subject to UK sanctions over its illegal status under international law.

Tulchinsky was named as the primary funder of the yurt project, which serves the Gush Etzion bloc of illegal Israeli settlements located 12 kilometers southeast of Jerusalem. He opened the facility alongside Efrat mayor Dovi Shefler, and publicly dedicated the space to “Israel’s brave warriors and their families,” according to on-the-ground reports.

This is not the first controversy over billionaire access and donations tied to pro-Israel causes at the British Museum in recent weeks. Just last month, The Guardian revealed the museum granted a private pre-opening view of the Bayeux Tapestry to Peter Thiel, the U.S. billionaire founder of Palantir, a defense technology firm that supplies cutting-edge artificial intelligence and data analysis tools to the Israeli military.

Polanski framed the call for investigation as a test of the Labour government’s commitment to its new policy on Israeli settlements. “If the Labour government wants to get beyond symbolism and new rhetoric, it must investigate whether this is a breach of the sanctions it announced this week,” he told Middle East Eye. He added that the revelation of Tulchinsky’s sponsorship follows close on the heels of the Thiel controversy, noting “we now learn of the sponsorship of another billionaire who’s been involved in supporting what the Labour government has itself now finally described as ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.”

Just days before the exhibition opened to the public on Thursday, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband made a landmark policy announcement: his government formally recognizes the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory as illegal, and confirms that ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is underway in the occupied West Bank. Miliband announced sweeping new sanctions on all Israeli settlements, alongside a full ban on arms licenses and any exports that “materially contribute to the occupation.” He explicitly warned that any individual or entity funding or facilitating illegal settlements would face the full consequences of UK sanctions, stating “settlements are illegal. They should not be promoted in our country.”

Tulchinsky was not shy about his ties to Israel and support for its military, even before the revelations of his settlement project. In a March 2025 interview with the *Jerusalem Post*, he confirmed he has provided financial support to the Israeli military since the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks and the outbreak of the Gaza war, and noted he makes regular visits to the country. More recently, Middle East Eye revealed this week that Tulchinsky runs an Israel-based defense technology venture capital fund headed by a recently retired Israeli army commander who has championed the use of remote-controlled combat vehicles in Gaza. One international rights group has labeled these vehicles a “direct tool for committing genocide,” linking them to the destruction of entire residential neighborhoods and irreplaceable cultural heritage sites in Gaza and Lebanon.

Tulchinsky attended the exhibition’s official opening reception last week alongside high-profile UK and French figures, including King Charles III, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer (corrected per original context: Andy Burnham as referenced in original) and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy. A portrait of Tulchinsky painted by prominent artist Jonathan Yeo is set to hang in the British Museum for the full run of the exhibition, with Yeo describing Tulchinsky as an extraordinary person and brilliant mind who was a privilege to paint.

Neither Downing Street, the Foreign Office, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the British Museum, nor Tulchinsky’s investment firm WorldQuant have issued formal responses to repeated requests for comment on the controversy. The DCMS noted that while the British Museum receives public funding through the department, it operates independently of government, and all sponsorship decisions are the responsibility of its board of trustees. The Efrat Development Foundation has confirmed Tulchinsky is a donor to the community center project, but said he contributed through an unnamed third-party organization and declined to share further details about the scope or nature of his support.

The sponsorship controversy adds to a series of ongoing challenges facing the British Museum, which has already faced calls from cross-party MPs for an investigation into the alleged removal of references to Palestine from several of its public galleries. Kim Johnson, a Labour MP and leading parliamentary campaigner for stronger UK action on Israeli violations of international law, warned that a clear pattern of problematic decision-making is emerging at the institution. “First, Palestine is scrubbed from displays following political pressure. Now we learn the British Museum has accepted significant funding from someone reported to have funded a settlement project in the illegally occupied West Bank,” Johnson said. “The British Museum should be preserving history, not allowing political interests or money to shape whose history is told – or whose actions are legitimised. Is this really who our national cultural institutions should be taking money from?”

In response to earlier claims about removed references to Palestine, the British Museum released a statement denying any intentional removal, noting that it continues to use the term Palestine across a range of historic and contemporary gallery displays. To date, no further response has been issued to address the latest calls for an investigation into Tulchinsky’s sponsorship.

As Houthi forces in Yemen make rapid territorial gains across the Red Sea coast and step up attacks on Saudi Arabian infrastructure, Pakistan has clarified that it is not currently considering a military response under its newly signed trilateral joint defence agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. The confirmation came Thursday from Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Sajjad Haider Khan, during his weekly press briefing for reporters.

The landmark trilateral defence accord, which was signed just one month prior to this announcement, includes a mutual defence clause that frames any armed aggression against one of the three signatory nations as an attack against all three. Khan emphasized that while no military mobilization or intervention is under active discussion at this stage, Pakistan stands ready to uphold its commitments under the agreement if changing circumstances demand action in the future.

“There is no such thing under discussion right now,” Khan stated, addressing press questions that arose in the wake of recent Houthi strikes on Saudi urban centers and critical energy infrastructure. He added that Pakistan would move forward with any required action only when “the time comes.”

The broader regional context has shifted dramatically in recent months, as the long-dormant Yemeni civil war between Houthi fighters and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government reignited over the summer. Houthi forces have since advanced at a striking pace along the country’s Red Sea coastline, securing key strategic positions that put them in control of access to the critical Bab el-Mandeb shipping choke point, a major global trade route connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea.

According to maritime security experts, this territorial advance has not only strengthened Houthi military standing but also boosted Iran’s geopolitical leverage in its ongoing standoff with the United States. “The Houthis have pulled off a military victory that puts them one step closer to being in full control of the Bab el-Mandeb,” explained Corey Ranslem, chief executive officer of maritime security firm Dryad Global, in an interview with Middle East Eye. Ranslem added that controlling the Bab el-Mandeb would be far easier for the Houthis than Iran’s efforts to exert influence over the Strait of Hormuz, noting that the U.S. maintains far fewer direct military assets in the Bab el-Mandeb region to counter Houthi control.

In just the latest round of territorial gains, Houthi forces defeated Saudi-aligned Yemeni government forces on Thursday to seize the historic, strategically vital Red Sea port city of Mocha following days of intense fighting across the Tihama coastal plain. Arab media outlets have reported additional Houthi advances across the region in the hours after the capture of Mocha. Just days before this seizure, Houthi media released images purporting to show the wreckage of a Saudi military reconnaissance drone that was shot down over northwestern Yemen’s Hajjah province, underscoring the escalating intensity of clashes.

Pakistan has already publicly condemned the recent Houthi attacks on Saudi territory, and has called on Iran to rein in its Yemeni allies. At the same time, Islamabad has maintained a role as a diplomatic mediator between the United States and Iran, as rising regional tensions continue to disrupt global energy supplies. Khan also confirmed Thursday that Pakistan has no current plans to expand the so-called Mecca alliance, the regional bloc of mostly Sunni Muslim nations led by Saudi Arabia, amid ongoing regional volatility.

In a political upset that underscores shifting currents within the U.S. Democratic Party, 27-year-old progressive state representative David Morales has defeated the incumbent Democratic mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, to win the party’s nomination for November’s general mayoral election. The victory, secured in the nation’s smallest U.S. state, puts Morales on track to become the youngest mayor in Providence’s recorded history, given Rhode Island’s long-standing status as a reliably deep-blue state where Democratic nominees almost always win general election contests. What makes Morales’s triumph even more striking is the lopsized resource gap he overcame: the first-time candidate’s total campaign budget amounted to less than a quarter of the spending by his rival, former city official Brett Smiley.

A self-identified Democratic Socialist who counts Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as a key endorser, Morales’s path into politics was directly shaped by Sanders’ transformative 2016 presidential campaign, which pushed progressive economic and social policy into the mainstream of U.S. Democratic discourse. Inspired by that movement, Morales won a seat in the Rhode Island state legislature at just 22 years old, and built his 2025 primary campaign on the grassroots model that has brought other young progressives to power across the country. Like New York City progressive mayor Zohran Mamdani, Morales leaned heavily on viral social media content to connect directly with Providence residents, centering his platform on pocketbook affordability issues that resonate with working-class households while maintaining a tightly focused, consistent message that resonated with primary voters.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict emerged as a defining flashpoint of the race, reflecting broader trends across U.S. Democratic primaries over the past two years. Morales, a longstanding public critic of Israeli policy and vocal supporter of Palestinian rights, openly challenged Smiley over his advisory role with the Combat Antisemitism Movement, a group known for its unwavering pro-Israel stance. Shifting attitudes within the Democratic base have seen support for Israeli policy among younger voters, particularly those under 25, plummet following the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war, a trend that worked heavily in Morales’s favor.

Advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which has thrown its organizational weight behind pro-Palestinian progressive candidates across the country, celebrated Morales’s win as part of a growing wave of electoral success for candidates prioritizing Palestinian rights. “David has been in the streets with the Palestinian rights movement for years… He has consistently called for an end to U.S. support for apartheid and genocide,” the group said in a post-primary statement. JVP also highlighted that Morales has publicly backed a first-of-its-kind city ballot initiative that would reallocate an estimated $2.5 million in city funds currently invested in Israel and other nations accused of committing genocide. If approved by voters, the measure would mark the first legally binding divestment vote of its kind in U.S. history, a proposal that drew criticism from Jewish Insider, which claimed the legislation carried antisemitic subtext.

Morales’s victory aligns with a surge in voter enthusiasm for progressive candidates that has been seen across other key primary states including Michigan and New York, where early voting numbers hit record highs this cycle. Overall early in-person voting in Rhode Island hit 37,444 ballots by the close of business before primary day, more than double the 16,900 early ballots cast in the 2022 cycle and three times the 12,100 early votes recorded ahead of the 2024 primary. According to 2020 U.S. Census data, Providence is home to just under 200,000 residents, making the turnout jump all the more notable.

JVP emphasized that Morales’s win is not an isolated incident, noting that he is the 16th candidate the group has endorsed this election cycle to win the Democratic nomination. “Our Palestine champions have been winning up and down the ballot – from city government, to state legislature, to the House of Representatives, to the Senate,” the group said.

National progressive leaders quickly hailed the outcome, echoing Morales’s message of rejecting establishment politics. “From coast to coast, Americans are clear: No more status quo politics. We want real change,” Sanders wrote on the social platform X, echoing his own longstanding call for systemic change within the Democratic Party and U.S. politics more broadly. Mamdani, whose campaign strategy Morales emulated, echoed that sentiment, noting “What is the Democratic Party if not its voters?”

The November 3 general election will see Morales face Republican challenger David Talan. With Rhode Island’s deep Democratic lean, Morales is widely expected to secure the mayoralty, capping a rapid political rise that began less than five years after he first won state office. The contest is one of thousands of local and congressional races up for grabs in this year’s midterm elections, which have been framed as a national referendum on the policies and direction of the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) officially designated former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani as an anti-Muslim extremist, a move that follows a series of virulently bigoted comments he made during a recent primetime television interview on Newsmax.

During that interview, Giuliani, who served as a senior advisor to former U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term in office, called for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to be barred from attending the upcoming 25th anniversary 9/11 memorial service this Friday. “It offends me that he’s coming,” Giuliani told the outlet.

The former mayor went even further, pushing unfounded conspiracy theories about global Muslim communities, claiming that Muslims are actively seeking to seize control of regions across the United States and Western Europe. He doubled down on his racist rhetoric by perpetuating harmful religious stereotypes, arguing “They (Muslims) want to dominate us. That’s what they’re taught the day they begin their extremist religious education. Mamdani is a clear supporter of that. All of the Muslims he supports are murderers.”

In an official statement announcing the designation, Corey Saylor, CAIR’s director of research and advocacy, noted that Giuliani has targeted American Muslim communities for decades solely on the basis of their faith. “Mr Giuliani has a decades-long record of targeting our community simply because of our faith, and we are designating him an anti-Muslim extremist as a result of his hateful views,” Saylor said.

Giuliani’s comments are just the latest development in a growing public dispute over Mamdani’s attendance at the memorial, which already has more than 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for the mayor to be excluded. Two New York City Republican councilmembers – Vicky Paladino and Joann Ariola – have spearheaded the petition effort, and Paladino held a press conference on the steps of City Hall Tuesday to reiterate her demand that Mamdani stay away from the ceremony, claiming “he does not belong there.”

Paladino is no stranger to open Islamophobia: last year, she took to social media platform X to call for the mass expulsion of Muslims from Western countries, and in February of this year, she compared Mamdani’s tenure in office to an “Islamic conquest,” repeating the white nationalist “great replacement” conspiracy theory that claims non-white people are intentionally displacing white Westerners.

Afaf Nasher, executive director of CAIR’s New York chapter, pushed back against this coordinated political attack, noting that American Muslims should never be forced to prove their patriotism after politicians exploit the national trauma of 9/11 to target their community. “American Muslims should not have to defend our patriotism every time a deranged politician exploits that tragedy (9/11) to attack our community,” Nasher said.

Mamdani himself has declined to directly engage with Giuliani’s personal attacks, choosing instead to center his work in the lead-up to the 25th anniversary on honoring 9/11 victims and advancing long-overdue transparency around the aftermath of the attacks. When asked about Giuliani’s comments earlier this week, Mamdani said he wanted the week to focus on “the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11, and a focus also on the first responders who did everything they could.”

On Tuesday, Mamdani took a major step toward that transparency, releasing 170,000 pages of previously unreleased government records related to the 9/11 attacks through a public online portal. The release event was attended by first responders, 9/11 victim family members, and comedian and long-time 9/11 advocacy activist John Stewart, host of *The Daily Show*.

The newly released documents confirm long-held allegations that city leadership knew the air in Lower Manhattan was toxic in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, and that inspectors found dangerous asbestos contamination at nearly every test site in the area. To date, more than 140,000 people have enrolled in the World Trade Center health program for 9/11-related illnesses, with 49,000 diagnosed with certified 9/11-linked cancers. Data from the 9/11 Memorial shows that more people have now died from 9/11-related illnesses than were killed in the attacks themselves on September 11, 2001.

Mamdani placed direct blame for these avoidable deaths on the city leaders who were in power at the time of the attacks – a group that includes Giuliani. “People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and told them they were safe to breathe in toxic air. And then when they began to contend with the symptoms of the illnesses that followed, the government that had not hesitated to send them into harm’s way was nowhere to be found,” Mamdani said.

When asked after the release of the documents whether Giuliani should be barred from the memorial out of respect for the victims of 9/11-related illnesses, Mamdani reiterated that the day should be centered on victims, not political fights. He responded that this day was about the victims and the families, not about any politicians.

In addition to releasing the records, Mamdani signed two executive orders earlier this month related to the 9/11 anniversary: one formally codifying September 11 as an official city day of remembrance, and a second strengthening New York City’s operational and emergency preparedness protocols.