Hamas emboldens other jihadists

The attacks on a US warship and commercial vessels in the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandab Strait by Hamas-allied Houthi jihadists, backed by Iran, confirm the escalating threat to global security from the Gaza war. The guided-missile destroyer USS Carney was responding to distress calls from three commercial ships in a vital oil-supply waterway when it came under drone and missile assault by the Yemen-based Houthis in the name of “halting the aggression” against “our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip”. The Houthis act on the orders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The attacks had only a minor impact on the vessels. But they were a reminder of the Biden administration’s error when it took the Houthis off the US’s list of proscribed terrorist groups in 2021. Doing so was part of the administration’s ill-judged courtship of Iran’s ayatollahs aimed at reviving Barack Obama’s nuclear deal.

Fallout from the Gaza conflict is spreading. In Denmark, the army has been deployed to protect Jewish and Israeli sites as Justice Minister Peter Hummelgaard announced “the conflict in the Middle East has led to an absolutely unacceptable increase in anti-Semitism and insecurity … the terrorist threat hanging over Denmark is serious”. The mounting threat also was seen in Paris on Saturday when a Franco-Iranian man known to authorities as a radical Islamist, Armand Rajabpour-Miyandoab, stabbed a German-Filipino tourist to death at the Eiffel Tower and attacked two others with a hammer, shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“God is greatest”) as he fled. The terrorist had sworn allegiance to Islamic State online. He was stopped by two taser shots and taken into custody.

As well as unleashing new waves of anti-Semitism, the October 7 atrocities by Hamas have emboldened other jihadists. In their own security interests, free nations need to help Israel achieve its goal of bringing an end to the war in Gaza by destroying Hamas as soon as possible.