By Al-Fassel | 2024-02-22

The Iran-backed Houthis have developed a robust propaganda operation over the years that has been in overdrive in recent months as the group attempts to spin its multifold failures in Yemen into a story of success.

The Houthis have invested heavily in their propaganda operation, modeled on and purportedly developed with technical support from Lebanese Hizbullah, gaining control of a large segment of Yemen's media market.

The group is now relying on its media network to claw back domestic and international support, which had dropped precipitously, by exploiting Arab sympathy with the Palestinian cause to carry out attacks in the Red Sea.

Like their backer, Iran, the Houthis are playing a blame game -- trying to suggest the West is responsible for the current round of violence -- even as they continue their threats and attacks on international commercial shipping.

Houthis' domestic failures

"The Houthis are not exactly popular among most Yemenis," NPR journalist Fatma Tanis said in a December 22 interview with Ahmed Nagi, senior Yemen analyst for Crisis Group.

The Yemen conflict -- triggered by the Houthis' coup of September 2014 -- has caused "immense suffering, killing hundreds of thousands," she said. "There's been hunger and disease."

"And while the Houthis are de facto governing parts of Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, they haven't been providing help or services to the people -- not even paying their salaries," she said.

Nagi said the current escalation in the Red Sea has provided a distraction from the dire situation inside Yemen.

The Houthis "now tell people that, look. We are at war, but this is a different war, and you should be silent. So we cannot provide you with anything," he told NPR.

Tanis noted that most of the Houthis' attacks on vessels in the Red Sea and surrounding waters have been thwarted.

But "the Houthi army has been publishing propaganda videos and songs, strengthening their position beyond Yemen into the region where sympathy for Palestinians is strong," she said.

Exploitation of Palestinian cause

There are multiple reasons, internal and external, for the Houthis' insistence on claiming their attacks are in solidarity with Gaza, Middle East Institute scholar Ibrahim Jalal said in a January 19 interview with France 24.

"First of all the Houthis have wanted to garner public support at a time when domestic support was declining," he said, pointing to public protests in Yemen against the Houthis and a teachers' strike over non-payment of salaries.

He accused the Houthis of "exploiting the Palestinian cause to try to play on the sentimentality surrounding millions of the Arabs in the region who do not understand the dynamics and the complexity."

Many in the region "do not actually know who the Houthis are and what do they do and what do they want," he said.

"The Houthis have learned smart techniques in propaganda and disinformation," he added, and have been using the Red Sea escalation to claim "they are in confrontation with the only superpower, the United States."

This serves their mobilization and recruitment objectives, even if it is temporary, he added, "because as soon as this ends, the public wants to focus on the immediate priorities of day to day life, be it governance, be it salaries, basic services, opportunities to grow professionally and personally."

Deep-rooted propaganda strategy

"The Houthis' propaganda strategy did not start from nothing," and contains hallmarks of Lebanese Hizbullah's own propaganda operation in its discourse and format, The New Arab said in an April 12, 2015, report.

"The Houthis have developed their own media strategy to disseminate their propaganda," it said. "They have produced news reports, images and videos, and leaked information to newspapers and social media forums."

The group began its "methodical media coverage" at the behest of its founder, Hussein Badr Eddin al-Houthi," the report said. "The purpose was to document and promote his religious and ideological platform, which was new to Yemen."

"Like Hizbullah's media operations, the Houthi media has a religious character, and focuses on issues including the overarching US-Israeli conspiracy and Arab 'collusion'," the report said.

"The Houthis also allude to conspiracies while absolving themselves of any blame," it added.

The way the group's leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi delivers his speeches is "inspired by the speeches and performances" of Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the report said.

"This is seen in the way he mimics Nasrallah's tone, mannerisms and discourse."

Formidable media arm

The Houthis have established a formidable media arm, reportedly with Hizbullah's technical support, which comprises radio and television stations as well as state-run media operations they seized in their 2014 coup.

The group also uses graffiti and banners to spread its messages.

"For years, Houthi-affiliated outlets have highlighted the important role of media in modern warfare," the Yemen Policy Center said in a December 2021 report.

To maintain a competitive edge in public messaging and media narratives, "the Houthis invest in a variety of news outlets and artistic productions, some of which promote disinformation about their adversaries and the ongoing conflict."

"Documentaries, articles, social media posts and cartoons released on pro-Houthi platforms ... highlight their preoccupation with guiding media narratives in territories under their control," it said.

"Houthi media productions are characterized by diverse, entertaining, and persuasive content," the report said, including women's programming, children's shows, short dramas and documentaries.

Zawamel (war poems) are often adapted into music videos, it said, suggesting that "perhaps the strategy is to provide audiences in Northern Yemen such a wide range of content that they need not look beyond Houthi media."

Playing the blame game

Though the Houthis have no real connection to Gaza, they claim to be defending it by attacking commercial vessels and laying naval mines in the Red Sea.

The group's indiscriminate attacks on commercial vessels have caused widespread disruption to international shipping operations and hurt the economies of Arab countries in the region.

And the group's sea mines have so far claimed the lives of more than 100 Yemeni fishermen, leaving their families hungry.

Ample evidence and reports show that the drones, missiles and sea mines the Houthis are using are provided by Iran, as are the necessary training and the transfer of technology for manufacturing and using weaponry.

"The Houthis have learned well from their masters," an Iran-based political science professor told Al-Fassel, on condition of anonymity.

"The Iranian regime provides its affiliated Houthi militia with arms, training and technology, and has supported and aided the group for years to execute the militias' destructive actions in the region," the professor said.

"The methods and terminology [the Houthis] use are entirely the same as the anti-West, particularly anti-US, verbiage that the Islamic Republic uses," he said.

"Blame is the name of their game -- both in the case of the Iranian regime and the Iran-sponsored Houthis."

"Blaming Israel and the West -- especially the United States and its sanctions on Iran -- for nearly every problem the Iranian public faces is Tehran's constant policy, and the Houthis have learned that well," said the professor.

"Yemenis are starving and facing environmental danger, but the Houthis have turned a blind eye to all this, doing exactly what the Islamic Republic has been doing to Iranians in the past 43 years," he added.

"Honing in on their propaganda skills, lying capabilities, and the advantage they take of blaming the imaginary but constant go-to Enemy, the Houthis have proven themselves to be Tehran's subservient students," he said.