THE HOUTHIES PROPAGANDA IN YEMEN: A copy of the Lebanese Hezbollah or their own product?

10.31857/S032150750009543-9

Anastasia A. BOURT
Applicant, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences ( This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )

   This article is comparing the tools and methods of propaganda that are used by both Ansarullah in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

   The author has personally visited both countries, met with the leaders of the Houthies in Sanaa and Saada, had a conversation with the former President Ali Abdallah Saleh and witnessed the way the propaganda machine works on the territories that are controlled by the Houthi movement .

   The spectrum of different tools that are used from music to mass media is reviewed and the effectiveness of each is analyzed. At the same time these tools are compared to the ones that.

   Hezbollah has used during the war with Israel in 2006. The focus is made on the work with foreign media on the one hand and the work with the population inside Lebanon on the other. At the same time the assumption that Iran can be directly involved in helping the Houthis is also analyzed. As there is a wide range of accusations starting from weapons aid and ending with technological support provided to the movement the author tried to understand if there is any basis for these accusations and to track down possible supporting facts.

   In general, the main goal of this article is to understand how after 5 years of war and airstrikes by the Arab coalition the Houthis stay in power in the capital Sanaa and why most people there still support them despite an economic siege and hunger which is considered by the UN to be one of the worst in the world.