Some Saudis are blaming the UAE for the failure to check the Houthis' extraordinary advance on the west coast. While Abu Dhabi will no doubt be celebrating the Houthi victory at the expense of Saudi Arabia's allies (and preparing a roadmap to share the Bab Al Mandeb with Iran that offers the Houthis the northern parts of Yemen in exchange for an independent South for UAE proxies), it is an exaggeration to blame Bin Zayed. It is Bin Salman who spent years unable to decide which scenario would be worse for him: a pro-Iran Houthi government in Sanaa or a free Yemen where the people might elect a government he doesn't like (à la Arab Spring). He considered both equally disastrous. The greatest ally of the Houthis was never Iran. Unwittingly, it was Bin Salman, who spent so much money and effort dismantling the authority of the internationally recognised government to prevent it from exerting any independent power. Bin Salman concluded that the Houthis (however threatening they might be to Saudi Arabia) were a secondary priority. The first priority was preventing the emergence of a central government authority that might be capable of independent action. The Houthis have fought six wars to seize Yemen and were defeated each time by the central government (with the help of Saudi Arabia) and driven back to their home in Saada in the north. The difference with this seventh war is that Bin Salman decided to first chain, suppress, and weaken the government in an attempt to remake it to his liking, effectively gifting an unprecedented opportunity to the Houthis to cement their control and entrench their positions. Rather than allow a unified central government to emerge, Riyadh facilitated individual fiefdoms that it sponsored precisely as a means to prevent one. This is perhaps the greatest gift Riyadh has given the Houthis. Instead of facing off against a unified central authority, the Houthis have only had to fight individual fiefdoms that refuse to reinforce one another, taking them out one by one. Riyadh's woes in Yemen are not the result of the Houthis or Iran being particularly strong. They are the result of Bin Salman having weakened Yemen's defences for them. Bin Salman's fear of a free Yemen is as great as his fear of the Houthis. As a result, he is caught in no man's land, and as he plunges the kingdom into unprecedented debt, Iran is completing its encirclement of Saudi Arabia.

At the Oxford Union debate, I argued that Israel seeks a peace that erases Palestine, while Palestinians seek a peace of true religious coexistence. "Do you know why [Israelis] can point to Jewish heritage in Palestine? It is because Muslims preserved it. They were not like the Israelis today who are trying to erase Palestinian heritage"