[IsraelTimes] Luai Ahmed fled Yemen for Sweden after rebels rose to power, becoming an activist against Islamic fundamentalism; after Oct. 7, he joined the social media fray against antisemitism
Sweden-based Yemeni activist Luai Ahmed, 31, has become something of a celebrity in Israel. As he sits down for this interview in a Tel Aviv café, a woman at a nearby table gestures to attract his attention, pointing at her phone screen and exclaiming: “I was just looking at one of your videos!”
An obligatory selfie follows.
Ahmed’s fame stems from his prolific social media activity in support of the Jewish state after the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. He has gained over 190,000 followers on Twitter, and many of his videos have gone viral.
An October 2024 clip, in which he debated American college students on the war in Gaza while dressed in traditional Yemeni garb, garnered two million views on Twitter.
Ahmed fled Yemen in 2014, shortly after the Iran-backed Houthi rebels – an extremist ethno-religious group from northern Yemen, affiliated with Shiite Islam – hijacked the pro-democracy Arab Spring revolution that had erupted in the country in 2011, toppled the government, and took over the capital, Sanaa.
Today, the Houthis rule over northwestern Yemen, controlling approximately one-third of the country’s territory and two-thirds of its population of 34 million. Designated as a terrorist group by many in the West, they have condemned Yemen to international isolation, as the country is blacklisted from trading with much of the outside world and from receiving humanitarian aid.
Already one of the poorest and least developed countries before the 2014 coup, Yemen appears to be sinking into a never-ending downward spiral.
Indifferent to the plight of civilians under their control, the rebels have for months been firing missiles and drones at Israel, claiming it as a campaign in support of Gaza during the ongoing war there against the Hamas terror group. They have recently stepped up the bombardment, launching five early-morning attacks on central Israel in eight days. On Thursday, the IDF launched a series of airstrikes in Yemen, targeting infrastructure used by the Houthis, including Sanaa International Airport, after several previous attacks on the country.
After fleeing Sanaa in 2014, Ahmed, who is openly gay, received refugee status in Sweden and later acquired Swedish citizenship. His family still lives between Yemen and Egypt, and his mother, Amal Basha, is one of the most prominent women’s rights advocates in Yemen.
In Sweden, he began working as a journalist for a local publication, writing about Islamic extremism, LGBTQ rights, and the challenges of integrating Muslim migrants into Swedish society.
Following the October 7 onslaught, Ahmed was appalled at the celebratory messages among friends and family for the massacre that led to the deaths of some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of 251 people. He decided to start producing short clips denouncing Islamist violence and antisemitism.
His content caught the attention of pro-Israel advocacy organizations. One such group, Sharaka, a nonprofit promoting people-to-people contact between Israel and the Arab world, invited him to Israel, where he has since become a regular visitor.
He recently began collaborating with Builders of the Middle East, a nonprofit social media initiative that promotes tolerance and dialogue in the region.
In his frequent interactions with Israelis, Ahmed has come to appreciate the Middle Eastern immediacy and warmth with which people approach him.
“Coming from Scandinavia, where the culture is so cold and people are a bit like mummies, Israel feels very familiar to me. I trigger my Jewish friends when I tell them, ‘you guys are basically Arabs, with another religion.’ I say it in many of my videos: Arabs and Jews are cousins, or even brothers and sisters,” he said.
In an interview with The Times of Israel on Wednesday, Ahmed discussed his life in Yemen prior to the Houthis’ takeover, the recent escalation with Israel, and his efforts to explain the Jewish state to the world. The interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
The Times of Israel: Early this morning, you and millions of others in central Israel were awakened by sirens triggered by a ballistic missile fired by the Houthis – the second night in a row and the fourth in less than a week. Forgive the facile sarcasm, but as a Yemeni in Tel Aviv, did you feel like you were receiving a souvenir from home?
Luai Ahmed: [laughs] My Israeli friends are always making fun of me. They tell me, “You Yemenis woke us up again.”
I feel the Houthis have become a bit of a joke in Israel, and for a long time, people underestimated them. But to Yemenis, it’s no laughing matter.
They want to destroy Israel; that’s their main mission. Death and destruction are their motto.
Last week, I made a video addressing the Houthis directly, highlighting how they betrayed the Arab Spring of 2011 by turning it into an Islamic revolution that sank Yemen further into poverty and isolated it internationally. My message was: You’re attacking Israel now, but soon, Israel will retaliate, and you will cry about it. Look at Gaza right now. Do you want to turn Yemen into Gaza?
There are millions of Yemen children who are malnourished and living below the poverty line. People have no money, no food, no water, no gas. Instead of focusing on allocating resources to the most vulnerable, the Houthis hand them out to Hashemites, the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, and the rest is spent on throwing rockets at Israel to kill Jews. How is that going to help Yemen? But to them, it’s a religious war.
So where does their obsession with Israel come from? Is it simply religious fervor?
I always say that the religions of Yemen are Islam and Palestine. This predates the Houthi takeover. When I was growing up, the Palestinian flag was in every shop, every restaurant, everywhere. There were signs calling to save our Palestinian brothers and sisters, images of women in a hijab crying with their babies.
That’s the psychology of Yemenis. Their hate is not only driven by Islam.
Most people in Yemen don’t back the Houthis, because they took power by force and worsened the living conditions. However, after the war in Gaza broke out, the Houthis’ support base has expanded, because they attack Israel. People may still see them as a medieval terrorist organization that took over the country by a coup, but they are fighting the evil Jews, and they are the pride of Yemen.
I see three reasons for their obsession with Israel. Firstly, they have nothing else going for them; they have not built an infrastructure and are unable to develop the country in any way, shape or form. The only thing they have accomplished is this religious war, and they know that by fighting it, they earn the admiration of much of the Arab world, which is obsessed with Palestine.
Another reason is the sheer antisemitism in our society. I’ll give you two examples.
There was an ancient Jewish village near the city of Taiz, where my grandmother lived, that had been abandoned after the Jews left Yemen. We were not allowed to come near that village. People believed evil Jewish spirits were still haunting that area.
I remember that growing up in Sanaa, I would go to the mosque, and at the end of every prayer, we would recite a series of supplications to God that included, “May Allah destroy Israel, kill the Jews, make the Zionist orphans.” It was absolutely normal for us as children to repeat them.
The third reason is that the Houthis are simply insane. They are an extremist religious group willing to sacrifice all of Yemen for the Palestinians and for the destruction of Israel, even though they’ve never met a Palestinian and don’t know anything about Israel.
What was it like to grow up in Yemen as a gay man?
I knew about myself, but I hid it. I’ll sum up the cultural attitude toward gay people with an anecdote. When I was about 16, before the Houthis took power, I decided to ask a Yemeni what he thought of homosexuals. We were sitting on a bus, and he was holding a gun – all Yemenis have guns. I told him I had a gay friend and asked him what I should do with him. He handed me his weapon and said, “Take this gun and kill him.”
When I moved to Sweden, it was hard to explain to Swedish people these complexities. You can’t bring into your country someone from the Middle East and expect them to believe in gay rights and women’s rights. I’ve been writing a lot about these issues. I love Sweden, and I want to save it – to save Europe.
So how did your activism for Israel come about?
The first Israeli I ever met was in Sweden. One day, I was sitting in a room full of blonde people in a student dorm, and someone walked in, and he looked a bit like me. I went up to him and introduced myself, and he said he was Tal from Israel. My first immediate reaction was physical — I blacked out.
Tal said he could make Yemeni food and that he would make me jachnun [a traditional Yemeni pastry eaten by Yemenite Jews on Shabbat]. I was sure he hated me and was just being a manipulative Jew, who would try to earn my trust and then tell the Swedes behind my back that I’m a Muslim terrorist. But he didn’t. Long story short, six months later, he was my favorite person in the student dorm.
After October 7, I was so disillusioned by family and friends who hailed Hamas as freedom fighters that I took to uploading videos to my social media, asking: How dare you celebrate or excuse the murder of innocent human beings? One thing is to be critical toward the Israeli government, but this was different.
However, the content I make is not your typical hasbara [pro-Israel public diplomacy]. I’ve made videos where I said I’m happy that Sweden recognized the state of Palestine, and I got a lot of backlash. My argument was: There needs to be a Palestinian state, but to get there, we need to deradicalize the mosques and schools so that the Palestinian cause is focused on creating a state for the Palestinians, not on destroying Israel.
I’ve also made a video of a trip to the Bedouin town of Rahat in southern Israel and interviewed residents who criticized Israel for the discrimination they suffer in Israeli society. A lot of my followers said I should not have let them say that. But the videos I make with Builders of the Middle East are not hasbara – they are aimed at giving different perspectives.
Do you have any hopes for a peaceful future in the Middle East?
What I try to explain to Israelis and Jews about the Houthis, the Yemenis, and the Palestinians, is that we are brainwashed into hating Israelis and other groups of people. It starts in the schools and the mosques.
I think Israel should do its best to improve its connections with Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It’s important to gain the acceptance of the main key players in the region.
In recent years, those two countries have done what the rest of the Middle East should do: Get rid of all the antisemitic rubbish in the textbooks, get rid of the extremism in schools and mosques.
Today, at Friday prayers in mosques, imams in those countries get a script of what to read, and everything is about love and coexistence and how beautiful Islam is. If an imam says a single word that’s outside of the script, he goes to jail. It’s an enlightened dictatorship, but that’s what we need. It’s the only way to eliminate the toxicity that has taken over the region and the minds of the people.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Lieutenant Colonel Andrey Borisovich Panferov, veteran of the GRU special forces. He was one of the participants in the operation "Storm-333" as a conscript in the 154th separate special forces GRU.
In 1979, he was called up for military service in the 15th Separate Special Forces GRU brigade (Chirchik, TurkVO). In 1980, he entered the Novovoronezh Higher Military Command School, which he graduated from in 1984 and returned to the special forces units. From 1987 to 1988, he was again in Afghanistan. Andrey Borisovich was awarded three Orders of the Red Star for Afghanistan.
From 1988 to 1991, he served in the Transcaucasian Military District in the 22nd Special Purpose Brigade of the GRU as a company commander and deputy battalion commander. He carried out combat missions in Nagorno-Karabakh.
From 1993, in the 67th Special Purpose Brigade of the GRU in Berdsk. He served as deputy battalion commander and later became a battalion commander. He participated in the first campaign in Chechnya.
While holding command positions in the detachment, Panferov never sat in a tent. He regularly went on missions with groups and reconnaissance detachments. In the summer of 1995, the RO of the 691st Special Purpose Brigade under his command carried out a raid in the Zandak area. One of the features of that raid was the "masquerade" - some of the scouts moved around disguised as militants.
From January 1996, he was on another mission in Chechnya. He led the combined ROs from the 67th and 22nd Spetsnaz Brigades during combat missions, including to Grozny. In February 1996, he sent another General-Admiral from the General Staff in plain text during a radio exchange, whose resentment may have subsequently become one of the reasons why Andrei Borisovich had his Hero star "cut off". Together with his intelligence officers, he participated in the battles in Grozny in March 1996.
For completing combat missions, he was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland" IV degree with swords (one of two officers in the brigade), the Order of Courage. Retired in 1998. After the end of the first campaign, Panferov was firmly convinced that his subordinates would have to return to Chechnya again. In Berdsk, Andrei Borisovich enjoyed the enormous respect of his intelligence officers, and could both reward and punish them for their mistakes. It is worth saying that even 30 years later, his former subordinates remember him with respect.
After retiring, he headed the security service of the VINAP company in Novosibirsk. With the beginning of the second campaign, Panferov, using his capabilities, tried to provide the departing detachments of the brigade with everything they needed, personally transported equipment and gear to the detachments' PVDs in North Ossetia and Ingushetia. For this, they even rented planes from the Siberian Airlines.
Subsequently, he took a position in the Legislative Assembly of the Novosibirsk Region. In 2020, he was awarded the Order of Nevsky. It is rightly said that there are no former intelligence officers, they are always intelligence officers. So Andrei Borisovich, with the beginning of the SVO, he certainly did not sit still. At his instigation, the Vega heavy battalion was formed remembering the experience of Afghanistan and the first Chechnya, Panferov decided that the brigades needed litigation battalions again. Now, "Vega" is regularly harassing the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the front.
Text taken from the Telegram account of belarusian_silovik
[ColonelCassad] In Kamchatka, an unemployed resident received a call from scammers promising 200,000 rubles for setting fire to a police car.
Citing a long-standing dislike for the security forces, he agreed and, as proof of his serious intentions, asked for an advance payment of 50,000 rubles.
He used the transferred amount to buy alcohol at a nearby store and, in a state of alcoholic intoxication, demanded that the advance payment be doubled. The scammers refused to pay this amount a second time, but agreed to pay another 20,000 rubles, with which this character again bought alcohol and stopped answering calls.
The most successful counterintelligence radio game since SMERSH.
Text taken from the Telegram accouint of iamsniper
[ColonelCassad] Excerpts from the book "Aida" (commander of the Special Forces "Akhmat") - "The Cursed Forest".
One of the reconnaissance snipers from the battalion next to us opened his account.
It was his first shot, first kill and first body inspection.
By the way, for the next two days he withdrew into himself, practically did not eat and did not leave the room.
- Can you talk to him? - his commander asked me.
- No problem, - I answered.
I went up the stairs and knocked on the door. Silence.
After knocking a few more times, I opened it.
A young sniper, naked to the waist, was picking at his hand with a knife. There were already several dozen wounds.
He was taking out something that only he could see.
Confused, similar images that I had seen many years ago surfaced in my eyes.
The sniper, who had retired, realizing the burden of his responsibility, rubbed his hands to the flesh with pumice.
I closed the door and silently walked back.
Having met his commander in the common room, I said:
- I'm afraid that talking won't help him anymore... call the medics and take him to the evacuation.
Almost all the fighters ran up the stairs.
* * *
- Did you choose the call sign yourself? - Akim asked.
- No, I inherited it.
- What was it before?
- Sinner.
- Did the mentor pass it on?
- Yes. Before him, there was Hades.
- Are you going to pass it on to someone else too?
I thought for a moment:
- No. I think I'll be the last Hades.
- What's wrong?
- The call sign is cursed, I think. Everyone ended up the same way, plus or minus. I don't want to pass on a curse.
* * *
I woke up from a nightmare that had been haunting me for the past few days. The gray swamp of the cursed forest called me through my dreams.
Peering into the muddy waters of the swamp in my sleep, I clearly saw hundreds of eyes looking at me from there.
How many souls this swamp has taken since WWII, I don't know, but the place really was nasty.
I went down to the first floor of our farm to make some tea. The clock showed 4 am.
Half an hour later, alarm clocks started ringing en masse, and the soldiers started getting up for a combat mission.
- You're early. Didn't go to bed? - asked Kostyl.
- A difficult question, - I muttered under my breath.
- Are you with us? To the BZ?
- Yes, why not. Where are you going?
- To the swamp.
I felt the unpleasant aftertaste of sleep.
* * *
We passed the hotel, in the direction of the "horseshoe", to make our way through the minefields, to set up an observation post. The bank on the other side of the horseshoe was packed with the enemy.
Having removed a couple of inept infantry tripwires, which were already asking for a bullet, because of their idiotic habit of wrapping tripwires around themselves in circles and resting, we moved on.
The enemy also entered the horseshoe and it was necessary to move vigilantly so as not to fall into an ambush.
We had several combat encounters on the horseshoe.
As well as getting into enemy secrets.
It was also dangerous to get into the swamp. The armor will pull you to the bottom and you won’t be able to get out.
Seeing fresh tracks on our territory, we carefully followed them.
Two people. The tracks split. In one area there were fragments of an exploded tripwire. Apparently, the enemy was blown up and wounded.
Carefully following the route, we reached the swamp.
From under the water, a dead soldier of the Ukrainian Armed Forces looked at me with open eyes and an open mouth. Swollen, wounded in the leg, he fell into the swamp and drowned.
For a few seconds, I carefully looked at these eyes under the water and was silent.
- What is it? - the soldier distracted me.
- Well, just like that... I’m starting to believe in prophetic dreams. We get him. Four are looking for the second one.
- Why get him? - my scout was perplexed.
- Let’s check the pockets. Let's take the documents, the mobile phone, if you have one. And those eyes underwater irritate me.
- What?
- They call me. In my sleep.
* * *
Dreams have always been an unpleasant part of me. That's why I was grateful for my insomnia.
On those few days when I got enough sleep, dreams fell on me like an avalanche.
Sometimes, the dreams were so beautiful that I regretted waking up.
More often, I would like my day to be a dream that I forgot about.
Sometimes, through dreams, I communicated with those who should not be around.
On the eve of my next duel, I fell asleep.
I dreamed of a park, which I had definitely visited at some point in my past life on the other side of the war. I don't remember where it is. I don't even remember the circumstances under which I was there.
It was raining lightly, it was deserted. Dreams are generally deserted. Most often.
I sat down under a tree, clearly aware that I had fallen asleep.
- What are you worried about? - a familiar voice rang out.
- You shouldn't be here, old man. - I answered Hades without turning around.
- Why?
- I know I fell asleep. And I know that when I wake up, I'll be disappointed. Don't start.
- Aren't you happy to see me? - He sat down next to me.
- Not on the eve of a hard day.
- Worried that you'll lose?
- You lost. Right in front of me.
He laughed:
- And you won. After me. You still have a long way to go. A hard one. Don't worry. You're destined to go through it.
I opened my eyes from the alarm clock.
Remembering that a duel awaited me on some God-knows-how-many terms, with any outcome, I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.
Smiling wryly at the words of my mentor, I stood up.
"This is the way, old man." - a thought that became the final thread with my dream.
[Clarice @ AT] I don’t know if you’re old enough to remember the musical Brigadoon. It was about a Scottish village that disappears in the mists and only reappears once every hundred years. The District of Columbia and its federal components often remind me of that. On a local level (perhaps a tradition from pre-air conditioning days), the place is somnolent for all practical purposes in the summer and even through much of the spring. Then, just before Thanksgiving, the courts suddenly schedule hearings on cases that have been moldering for months in the clerks’ offices, and Congress starts to hustle to get a continuing resolution -- to cover what should have been resolved months earlier -- before the Christmas recess. Past the miasma of the damp, hot weather, the city once again is animated.
One hundred years ago, Republican Calvin Coolidge was serving out his first term in office. He was known for being anti-corruption, a proponent of small government and racial equality, and held office during the “Roaring Twenties,” a period of vast economic growth.
One hundred years later, the nation overwhelmingly elected Donald J. Trump for a second term of office -- broken only by a suspicious election of Joe Biden, who has proved a disaster in every conceivable sense. Biden’s running mate sought the presidency upon Biden’s decision (was it really his?) not to seek a second term, and she was roundly beaten at the polls.
Like Coolidge, Trump campaigned on a marked reduction of the federal government and fiscal restraint. To aid him in reducing the size of the federal government and rein in unnecessary spending, he has tapped two very successful entrepreneurs -- Vivek Ramaswamy and Elon Musk -- to create DOGE, a panel to examine government operations and recommend changes and needed cuts. This week, the same press that has consistently lied about Trump confected a split between the DOGE team and Trump. The issue is H-1B visas, temporary visas offered to those with needed skills. Those imagining a split say that Vivek and Elon’s support for the program conflicts with Trump’s America First policies. It doesn’t. Yes, their contentions rile the fringes -- the nativists who want no immigration and the open borders types who think it is elitist to give preference to skilled immigrants.
Perhaps because we are just emerging from a deep sleep where nonsensical arguments and policies were given wide credence, the debate is sloppy and uninformed. Let me try to clarify and show why, despite abuses of the program, the H-1B visa program is perfectly consistent with Trump’s stated policies.
The very best statement of the relevant facts and the opportunities that abound to resolve any questions about the program is by Kaizen D. Asiedu, who graduated with a degree in philosophy from Harvard when that still meant something and has won an Emmy, a man of many talents. He thoughtfully explains all this in a video, captioned for those like me who prefer reading to viewing.
If you haven’t the patience to watch, here he is in short form:
55% of billion dollar+ tech companies were started by immigrants. Google + Intel + Tesla were all founded or built by immigrants. They employ 400,000+ people collectively. Percentage of workforce allowed to be H-1B is effectively capped at 15% for big tech companies. The other 85%+ is American. At Google only 5% of the workforce was H-1B renewals or petitions in 2023. The U.S. is 12/37 among first-world (OECD) nations in science. 28/37 in math. 400,000 new engineers are needed every year. A third of positions go unfilled. Short-term, we need foreign reinforcements or we will lose. Long-term, we need to improve the home team.
It’s also undeniably true that, in recent decades, the quality of education, both K-12 and collegiate, has gone downhill, and the incoming administration will need to address that. But that will take time to ameliorate, and the nation cannot afford to limp along with mediocre innovations until then.
We still have the cultural atmosphere to thrive, even if we are lagging in enough qualified candidates to perform the necessary work. I’m struck by this post by Cesar A. Hidalgo, who entered the U.S. from France, was an H-1B visa holder, and is now a citizen who has his own company. He explains why top scientists seek out work in the U.S -- it’s a culture that encourages innovative thinking:
America is a land[of] opportunity in big part because it has a fantastic work culture that values things such as relevance, communication, and simplicity. In X, international comparisons of work culture often veer into formal things like maternity leave. But as someone that has worked in a few countries, I am convinced that many subtle things, such as knowing how to take turns during a meeting, or responding to an email quickly, can go a long way. In many countries, work is an overregulated bureaucratic nightmare. American culture can be extremely refreshing for foreigners who know what it means to battle unnecessary processes and rules. But there is more. The US work culture is also open and optimistic. Most countries suffer from “well intentioned” cronyism, where people hire, associate, and promote others based on personal relationships. This certainly happens to some degree in the United States, but less than in other places. That openness, however, is key for providing opportunities for outsiders with more skills than networks. Also, many countries [have] pessimistic work cultures, where people shoot others down as a way to flex their wit. But as Nat Friedman said, “Pessimists sound smart. Optimists make money.” American can-do attitude is a valuable intangible that is prevalent in the US. Now, to the point of this post, these aspects of American work culture are great complements for skilled foreign workers. Complements that favor America. America’s open work culture, with its emphasis on communication skills and optimism, is amazing for organizing teams. Skilled foreigners perform better in teams with an American work culture than in teams of bureaucratized pessimists that don’t know how to take turns during a meeting. When those surviving in those more hostile work environments move to America, they can unleash their technical skills in relevant problems within optimistic organizational cultures that are rare back home. [snip] America benefits from this complement. The fact that every year we get the first pick on the draft is a key competitive advantage. Sure, we do not always know if the first pick of the draft will turn out great, but getting the first pick of the draft is not something we want to lose. We should double down on what makes America exceptional.
In the end, I think these temporary work visas for people with exceptional and needed skills will continue, abuses of the program will be investigated and addressed, and in the long term, greater progress will be made in improving the technical skills of American students. Indeed, on Saturday, Trump reiterated his support of the H-1B program, saying: “I’ve always liked the visas, I have always been in favor of the visas. That’s why we have them,” he said. “I have many H-1B visas on my properties. I’vebeen a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great program.”
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/29/2024 10:52 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
