 Sima, can you hear me? Yes. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Okay, awesome. Okay. Okay, so my name is Medea Benjamin with Code Pink, and we are so pleased to be joined today by Sima Alhamdani. She is a Yemeni American researcher, analyst, writer, consultant with the Atlantic Council, and we're here to talk about the update on the war in Yemen. So thank you so much, Sima, for being with us. Thank you for offering me this platform to share more about Yemen's war. So first let's start off on why the American people know so little about what's going on in Yemen. Why is the media so terrible on covering this issue? Is it because reporters have such a hard time getting in there? And if so, aren't there Yemenis inside who can be getting out the word? What is going on? So multiple things are happening at the same time as one would expect during wartime. So on the ground the situation is frazzled, it's escalating, it's very live, things happen sporadically, and it's really hard to get reports that are accurate. So both sides of the conflict have been known to fabricate some some information. So it's really hard to kind of authenticate what's going on in the ground, especially because no third party agents are present on the ground to document what exactly is happening. For example, what I mean by that is yesterday there was an airstrike on the port of Hadeida and a fish market and the people who are responsible to document that attack are the same people who are accused of conducting the attack. And so it's really hard to kind of get accurate news, which is one thing. And then on another level, it doesn't seem that America is really concerned with Yemen because there's so many conflicts in the Middle East and they're trying to lump Yemen's conflict in the middle just because Yemen is so far away. Americans don't know enough about what's going on in Yemen. And also it's not in the interest of the current administration to kind of highlight what's going on in Yemen since they are allies of the Saudi and United Arab Emirates Coalition who are parties to this conflict. So all of those issues together mean that there is this war going on that the U.S. is so involved in and that we can't get any traction in terms of getting people to care about it. You know, it's interesting, Sama, when people learned about the immigration issues on our borders in Texas and the children being torn away from their families, how the outpouring of the American people really led to a change in policy. And yet, the few times when we've seen some of the pictures coming out of Yemen, I haven't seared in my mind one that I saw yesterday of this mother over her little baby and the sticks of the legs. And I couldn't get it out of my mind all night long. I feel sick from seeing that picture. And knowing that is just one of so many babies that are literally wasting away. Are Americans not seeing those photos? Or if they are seeing those photos, why don't they care about it enough to rise up and say we have to stop this? So on the issue of separating families, I think our audience need to know that Yemen is one of the countries that's currently on the temporary protected status list. So they are part of the TPS countries, but they are also ironic. Wait, wait, wait. That is a TPS country. So the homeland security in the U.S. is granting 10 countries temporary protected status to its citizens because of the political situation or humanitarian disaster in their country. Now, what's interesting in Yemen's case is that it is one of those countries that is on the list and they've extended their ability to some Yemeni citizens around a thousand individuals in the entire United States to stay in the United States, but they're not extending it past 18 months. And at the same time, they are banning Yemenis from coming into the U.S. Now, what's interesting about this is that the American administration has shown support to the Saudi led coalition and has supported the Saudi led coalition and the Emirates with multi-million dollar deals of weapons. So the weapons that are used in this conflict are manufactured in several countries, but the U.S. being one of the main countries that's supporting this conflict. Now, the U.S. does not want the Yemen issue to be in the news because it would contradict their position on protection of human life and the issue of protecting civilians because what's happening in Yemen is atrocious. Now, you talked about children in Yemen. We know statistically that about 130 children die a day in Yemen. And this is just an estimate because we haven't had the chance since the war started to go in and actually get accurate numbers of those deaths. So it is a very terrible humanitarian crisis. I think Yemen's war is constantly hijacked by the narrative of the Saudi Iranian proxy war. And I think that's unfortunate because right now, for example, just as of yesterday, even though there were airstrikes that were taking place in Yemen, there is a ceasefire on both ends that was announced on August 1st that's supposed to stay in place for two weeks. Now, with the ceasefire in place, obviously both sides of the conflict are violating the articles of the ceasefire, but at the same time, it's important for the U.S. to kind of, you know, if you're not going to be able to make a decision about what's happening in Yemen accurately, at least promote and push for peace. And I think that's where the role of the average citizen comes into play. You know, this is ultimately Americans can speak to their senators and congressmen about what's happening in Yemen and the role that they want their country to have in that, you know, being in the U.S., it feels like such a remote place so far away. We don't know enough about the Yemeni people, but I think ultimately everything that's happening in Yemen now is going to come to the surface. Well, let's see. Let's step back a little and give people a little more information about what's going on there. Could you, for those who are new to this issue, I know it's a complicated situation, but could you simplify when you say the two sides, who the two sides are? So it is really difficult to simplify because now we're talking about a war that's taken place for three years and it started originally as a local conflict where the Houthis took over the capital Sana'a and then they signed a treaty with the government of Yemen, a partnership treaty where they were going to rule the country together. Of course, the Houthi militia group is backed by Iran and this militia is generally really misunderstood in American media because some people assume that the Houthis are Iranian, which isn't true. They're not like Hezbollah or like other groups. However, nonetheless, what happened is it was kind of a local conflict and then mushrooms into a regional conflict when the Yemeni president resigned and then he escaped to the south port city of Aden. From there he flew to Saudi Arabia and then regional involvement began and it began with Saudi Arabia involving the United Arab Emirates and Qatar at the time as well as many other Arab countries in a conflict against the Houthis. Now what's interesting is at the beginning of this war the Houthis were partnered with former president Ali Abdullah Saleh who since, you know, since about a few months ago he was killed by the Houthis who are his partners. Now, if I try to explain this where it's going to get really complicated. Maybe we shouldn't get too complicated. On the surface you have the Houthi rebels on the ground who are backed by Iran and then on the other side you have the Yemeni government that is backed by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Now, when you say it like this it seems like there are two clear sides with a bad and a good side but unfortunately in Yemen's war we always say that there are no heroes. There are only criminals. Those two sides are fighting for control of Yemen. Yet at the same time both sides are committing violations against civilians. They are destroying their livelihoods and Yemenis seem to be trapped between them. Now if you look at Yemen as a map on a map what we see is that the Houthi rebels have controlled the same more or less portion of Yemen for the past three years. They have some advancements and then they shrink. And then the Arab coalition that is supporting the government is controlling the majority of the other land. Now the threat is and here's what's really terrifying is most civilians would like the Yemeni government to return to Yemen and to operate but the problem is the Yemeni government has failed to return back to Yemen meaning they struggle to take control of the portions that have been free from Houthi control and they really struggle to provide services to the Yemeni people. And so it seems that the lands that are not under Houthi control are a little out of the government's control and that they are a bit chaotic which is terrifying because if you look at Yemen it's a country with about 29 million people. The majority of them are not involved in this conflict yet they're all suffering the consequences of it. And one of these consequences has become cholera which is a disease that has been eradicated a long time ago. There's an easy cure to it. It's just the tab that you put in water. It's great medicine that can easily clear water. So cholera is a product of contaminated water. And in Yemen's war the situation is so bad that people are dying from such diseases. And while these two parties fight over power what's happening is that these 29 million people who are not white, who are not wealthy, who are not privileged are dying. And we can see them die because we can't relate to them. They're not important enough. They don't have a voice like the rest of us do. So you said that these two sides are fighting and there's outside support for each of them. But I think it is important to recognize that the majority of the damage that is being done, especially to the infrastructure, is being done by the bombings. And those who are doing the bombings are the Saudis. Isn't that the case? And can you get more specific about the U.S. role in that? So you have a situation where you have an enemy on the ground. Those who go from house to house kind of trying to conduct military searches, trying to station themselves on the ground. And this is why it's really risky in this conflict. The Houthi rebel group was able to kind of operate on the ground. They don't really have the air capacity to launch a military effort the way that the Arab coalition is able to. And so you have them entrenched in the middle of heavily populated areas. And so when the Arab coalition and the government retaliate, they tend to hit civilian areas. And they're not very careful about their targets. They're not very careful with their targeting. And because of the weapons that they are using, the destruction is very strong and severe and vast. And a lot of times it's traumatizing because it's bombs falling from the sky. So on one end you have the Houthis that are backed by the Iranian pretty much military. What's interesting about that role is that we're not sure to this day the Iranian support is far less than it is today. So this war that is meant to kind of control and weaken the Houthi militia and their Iranian support has in fact strengthened it and almost welcomed further involvement from Iran and Yemen as the war continues. Now it's scary for Saudi Arabia because Yemen is their neighboring country. Yet at the same time their reaction seems to be extremely different. Their reaction seems to be extremely disproportionate and extremely severe and harsh. And after three years of war, after three years of bombing, they continue to bomb assuming that they will be able to end this war militarily in that matter, in that manner. But it doesn't seem that their bombs are curbing the influence of the Houthi militia. They are just terrorizing the Yemeni population. They are destroying Yemen's infrastructure and they're leaving Yemen to rebels. You know, what is left when a country is bombed through the air and then you have not just the Houthis in Yemen now you have other militias on the ground that are trying to take control of every area that's free or if I am a sheikh or for example, if I am a war lord and there is a portion of Yemen that I can take control of, I will take control of it. And that's the dynamic and the impact that is happening in Yemen today. What about, can I ask about the role of Al Qaeda and ISIS hasn't this war created more chaos and opened the space for them to grow inside Yemen? So what's interesting is Al Qaeda has had a presence in Yemen for a while and ISIS tried to appear as a contender to Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula at the start of the war and they conducted a few operations but it seems that the ISIS war was directly between the Houthi rebels and ISIS in which they kind of launch attacks against each other. They then kind of disappeared for a while and then reappeared and now ISIS and Al Qaeda are said to have conflict amongst themselves about who's going to take control of Yemen. Now what's interesting is that the U.S. while supporting the Houthi militia who at times has been accused of fighting alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS against the Houthi militia, the U.S. is still conducting drone strikes in Yemen overnight in random locations in which they have their own intelligence and so at times you see this war within a war kind of thing where you have a war against the Houthi rebels but then at the same time sometimes those who are fighting are also being targeted by the U.S. and so then you have Yemenis who are against the Houthi rebels kind of confused by that because the U.S. is supplying weapons to destroy the Houthi militia yet at times it is attacking those troops and those people who are fighting the Houthis because according to their intelligence they might have some ties to Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula and so it is a real mess and it's not clear where the U.S. clearly stands on this because one we know that the U.S. definitely wants to defeat terrorism in the Middle East and definitely Al Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen. On the other hand we also know that they want to sell weapons for multi-million dollar deals to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. We also know that Trump's administration is very much against Iran and the Iranian nuclear deal and they'd like to negate it. Now what's interesting is in the past few days Trump seems to have kind of slightly changed his message towards Iran and is looking forward to having a talk with them. But the reality is no matter what happens between the U.S. and Iran, the reality is Yemen's war has started and to stop it Iran is important to kind of bring people to the table but they're not as important as the Saudi-led coalition. The Saudi-led coalition is not fighting via proxy. They're fighting directly and their presence and their role in my opinion is far greater than that of Iran. So let me put in a plug here, sorry to say since you brought up that the U.S. is arming not the Saudis and the Emirates but is also involved in its own drone strikes ones who are gaining are the weapons manufacturers and for those people watching this who want to see another way they can get involved please go to the codepink.org website or divest from the war machine.org and look into our divest from war campaign because in the larger perspective the only way we're going to stop these wars is to cut the influence of the military industrial complex that continues to profit from these wars. But getting back to the specifics of Yemen Sema, you mentioned the issue of Hodeidah and the port there. Could you talk about the importance of that port and go a little bit more into detail about what is happening there and if you think the ceasefire will hold? Yeah, so the port of Hodeidah is one of many ports that Yemen has but it is the port that supplies the majority of Yemen's humanitarian aid to the territory of Yemen that is under Hodeidah control. So it is essential in terms of humanitarian supply. It's a lifeline and the area of Hodeidah has been considered a red line by the Obama administration. In the past few months it's been the site of conflict, direct conflict where the Hodes and the Yemeni government supported by the Saudi-led Arab coalition are engaging in direct warfare. Now what that has done is a lot of the civilians that live in Hodeidah had to flee their homes and about 74,000 families not people, families have fled Hodeidah and a lot of them are going to other cities seeking refuge a lot of them are also going to other parts of Yemen that are the sites of airstrikes and on-ground war. They are living in schools they are a lot of them are attempting to return to their homes and so some of them when they announced the ceasefire the head of households the men have kind of tried to return there but it's really it's an unstable place to be. It is already one of the most devastated sites in Yemen meaning that it is one of the poorest areas of Yemen and right now there's a surge in the outbreak of cholera in specific locations in Hodeidah so this port is where the majority of the north of Yemen gets its supplies and it's now you know the supplies the humanitarian aid is continuously stopped from entering to the port of Hodeidah whenever war flares up or whenever a conflict just kind of starts it's kind of a touch and go situation and what the UN Martin Griffiths is trying to do is to use the port of Hodeidah which is like the worst imaginable scenario for a humanitarian crisis. He's trying to use this particular situation to convince all sides to come to the table and just yesterday he announced that in September he will be inviting all sides to Geneva to kind of put together a document that will end this conflict and will allow the continuation of aid into the rest of the city. Now he's not the first UN envoy to come work in Yemen he's actually the third UN envoy since the wars began and generally I'm slightly more optimistic about his role than other UN envoys primarily because he is from the UK and because he has kind of like an outsider perspective and is using his position to kind of bring everyone to the table but what's alarming is that we've seen in the past that all parties claim that they want peace but when it really comes down to it they don't trust each other they want absolute victories and they feel like if they sit at the peace table they're about to get stabbed in the back and it's also at this point about public image how do they come out of this war? Do they look like victors after three years of war or do they look like losers who signed a treaty on the peace table? And to the average civilian who's dying on the ground in Yemen none of that matters but ultimately in the bigger scope of things in the geopolitics of the region it's important how this conflict is going to look like at the end. So let's get back to the issues of what we could do here in the US there have been some attempts in Congress particularly in the Senate can you talk a little bit about that and what people could do if they're interested in getting involved in pushing their elected officials on this issue? So in the past we've seen the issue of Yemen pick up I think mostly because Americans are starting to know more about it and congressmen and senators are starting to know the role of the US and they're starting to protest what the US is doing there and one of the things that they try to do is invoke a law that was actually put in place during the Vietnam War where they would kind of Hello? I'm not sure if you can all hear me I think we lost some she was in the middle of talking about what was happening in congress and it is important to keep the focus on pushing our congresspeople we came close with a vote in the Senate to try to stop the US weapons sales to Saudi Arabia where 44 senators voted in favor of stopping that but we need 51, we need a majority so there will be other times to do that but we need to be pushing our congresspeople to say we don't want to be involved in the war crimes of the Saudis and the Emiratis in Yemen and so you can call your congressperson or senator and not reference it to any particular bill but say that you don't want the US to be supporting any military involvement in Yemen and we don't want the US to be involved in selling weapons to Saudi Arabia the other thing that I wanted some to comment on is that she has a really exquisite photo exhibit that she did that shows both the beauty and the tragedy of Yemen and it's on matted very large photos that has been shown in the Senate atrium and it's going to be shown on the house side as well but it's easy to travel and people could get this exhibit to put up in their schools and their universities and their libraries and their places of worship and so if you are interested in doing that you could write to us info at codepink.org about how to get that exhibit traveling around the country how to get it into your neighborhood and I have a feeling that we will not be able to get her back on again so I want to thank Samah for her time and her incredible knowledge and work on this issue and sharing that with us today and thank all of you who tuned in we will have another update in two weeks on the situation in Yemen and we hope to have Samah back with us. Thank you so much for joining us today.