News - Middle East: In the weeks leading up to President Joe Biden’s announcement that US forces and a group of allies launched  a series of strikes against Yemen, major media outlets were acutely aware of the risk that Israel’s war on Gaza could grow into a wider regional conflict, a US think tank reported.

According to the Responsible Statecraft magazine, in the breadth of stories that covered the Biden administration's desire and efforts to avoid such an escalation, mainstream media rarely mentioned the clearest non-military pathway to easing regional tensions: helping to broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The report pointed out that Yemen has said its attacks will not cease until Israel’s “crimes in Gaza stop and food, medicines and fuel are allowed to reach its besieged population.

Between October 7 and January 14, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal ran over 60 articles that focused on some aspect of the threat of escalation in the Middle East. At least 14 of them focused on the Biden administration’s decision-making process, the report added.

“Attacks Heighten Fears of a Wider War for the Middle East and US,” reported the New York Times.

“Tensions in the Middle East are rising beyond Israel. Here’s where,” said the Washington Post.

“US Steps Up Diplomatic Push to Avert Broader Middle East War,” added the Wall Street Journal.

But of those 14 articles, the report added, only five mention the demands of US adversaries in the region, namely that Israel allow food and medicine into Gaza and end its bombing campaign. In most cases, the articles only briefly note that the Yemeni attacks were being carried out “in solidarity” with suffering Gazans. But nowhere in the series of stories about the potential crisis was the pursuit of a ceasefire mentioned as an option.

Instead, the articles mostly framed the options as maintaining the status quo or pursuing a military solution.

“Senior officials said they must decide whether to strike Houthi missile and drone sites in Yemen, or wait to see whether the Houthis back off after the sinking of three of their fast boats and the deaths of their fighters,” reported the New York Times on December 31.

The magazine pointed out that in making an argument for Washington to take the lead in pushing for an end to violence in November 2023, three fellows at the Century Foundation offered that a ceasefire would “reduce tensions regionally, lessening the risk.

A few hours before the strikes in Yemen on Jan. 11, RAND Corporation researcher Alex Stark made the case that pushing for an end to the war in Gaza was the most effective way for Washington to de-escalate tensions with the Houthis.

Following the US operations, the New York Times did note that countries like Qatar and Oman “had warned the United States that bombing the Houthis could be a mistake, fearing that it would do little to deter them and would deepen regional tensions. They have argued that focusing on reaching a cease-fire in Gaza would remove the Houthis’ stated impetus for the attacks.”

The report added that there was also a notable decrease in Yemen's attacks in the Red Sea during that timeframe, according to a timeline compiled by the maritime risk intelligence firm Ambrey Analytics.

“During the ceasefire that was in place in November their attacks dramatically decreased, providing a degree of empirical evidence that the ceasefire had a strong likelihood of being an effective option to stop the attacks,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) took it a step further, drawing the direct link between Washington's unwillingness to call for a ceasefire and the potential for escalation in the region. “This is why I called for a ceasefire early. This is why I voted against war in Iraq,” Lee wrote on X. “Violence only begets more violence. We need a ceasefire now to prevent deadly, costly, catastrophic escalation of violence in the region.”