Every Houthi strike on Israel merits an Israeli strike on Iran

Terrorism is a tactic behind which is a simple cost-benefit analysis: Terrorism works when the costs of an operation are less than the price terror sponsors must pay.

By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum

On May 4, 2025, a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthis struck Ben Gurion International Airport, Israel’s main civilian airport.

That the Houthis targeted a civilian airport should not surprise; after all, they have targeted more than 1,000 civilian targets in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, including civilian airports in both countries.

While Yemenis have never suffered a shortage of weaponry, the Houthis receive the ballistic missiles they fire at Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates from one source: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

They receive them in one of two ways: either through the Red Sea port of Hudaydah that the Houthis control under the fig leaf of the United Nations and neutral operation or smuggled via the Sultanate of Oman, a country that, like Qatar, cloaks itself in the role of mediator but actively seeks to privilege terrorists over the internationally-recognized government.

Israel previously targeted the Port of Hudaydah, though it and the international community remain weak on Oman.

While the Trump administration is reticent about stationing U.S. forces abroad, others—perhaps the United Kingdom—might station forces at Mazyunah, an industrial zone that straddles the Omani-Yemeni border and that serves as a staging point for weapons smuggling from Oman into Yemen.

Such forces should include both drone operators and interdiction teams that can surveil smuggling routes into Yemen and remove them rapidly.

Oman’s willingness to allow itself to be the seat of negotiations on a host of international issues should not allow it to receive a “get out of jail free” card on either unilateral sanctions or on Financial Action Task Force terror financing listing.

Rather, if Muscat’s double-dealing continues, then the Trump administration should consider relocating negotiations from Oman to countries like Armenia that, like Oman and Qatar, enjoy cordial relations with Iran but do not sympathize with them and sit more in the pro-Western camp.

Still, while Oman might be a problem, it is merely the mirror to the Houthis’ smoke behind which Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operates.

With Iran having voided last year the red line that long contained hostilities between the Islamic Republic and the Jewish state, it is essential that Israel respond in kind against not only the Houthis, but those who supply them and pay their salaries.

Terrorism is a tactic behind which is a simple cost-benefit analysis: Terrorism works when the costs of an operation are less than the price terror sponsors must pay.

Targeting Ben Gurion International Airport terrorizes Israel and threatens to extract great costs upon its economy as tourists and air travel grind to a halt or, at least, the insurance that airlines must pay becomes too great to bear.

Accordingly, Israel should respond against Iran’s major airports. Imam Khomeini International Airport—its control tower, runways, and terminals—should be knocked offline, the latter struck hours later to minimize civilian casualties, since stopping airport operations will lead passengers to go home.

In addition, Israel should shut down Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran’s older airport in its urban center.

Today, Mehrabad is used mostly for domestic flights and as a military logistics hub.

Karaj is to Tehran what Baltimore is to Washington, D.C. Karaj International Airport is operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is a major logistic hub for its air freight and weapons transfers.

Simply put, Israel should strike Karaj’s airport in a way that it ceases to exist.

Israeli forces should then strike seven other airports: Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city; Bandar Abbas, its major port city; and Tabriz, Isfahan, and Shiraz, each major interior city.

In addition, Israeli forces should take out the airport at Chabahar, Iran’s major port city on the Indian Ocean, as well as on Kish Island, a visa-free zone and resort area owned and operated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, through which much smuggling occurs.

The Revolutionary Guards kidnapped former FBI analyst Robert Levinson while he visited Kish, and so it holds symbolic importance as well.

Only when Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates understand that they must respond tenfold to Iran on every strike the Houthis direct their way, will officials in Tehran conclude that the cost-benefit calculations of supporting Houthi terror no longer tilts their way.

Ballistic missilesHouthisIran