This article by Joël-François Dumont pays tribute to the analytical work of Hedy Belhassine, whose writings on Yemen and Saudi Arabia have demonstrated exceptional foresight since 2013. The author emphasizes that Belhassine’s predictions—particularly regarding the fragility of Saudi military power, which she described as a “paper tiger”—have been confirmed by current events in 2026. The text highlights the region’s reliance on personal alliances, such as the one with Donald Trump, rather than on stable treaties. Through a retrospective look at her articles, the author presents Yemen as a barometer of major global upheavals. This portrait of a committed observer blends political criticism, incisive humor, and a deep understanding of the realities of the Arab world.

The Art of Making People Laugh Without Ever Lying

Coluche would have loved Hedy Belhassine’s Yemen. Thierry Le Luron, no doubt, would have dreamed of impersonating his princes. For there is, in Hedy, a very French art of the killer line — one that says everything while appearing to say nothing — an art once thought reserved for cabaret stages, which he has methodically applied, for thirteen years, to one of the bloodiest files in the world.

Who else would have dared to sum up thirty-five months of bombing as “the stick and the carrot, to tame the donkeys”? Who would have thought to offer, in a single sentence, a $200,000 Bentley to every Saudi pilot “traumatized by having incinerated his Yemeni brothers” — without ever specifying which of the two, the trauma or the gift, is the more obscene? Who, finally, would have dared write that the army of the world’s fourth-largest military budget is, without its auxiliaries, nothing but “a paper tiger” — a phrase so accurate it took thirteen years to stop being true, and still hasn’t?

Hedy’s humor is never gratuitous. It is the vehicle, not the goal — a way of delivering an unpleasant truth without ever seeming to hammer it home. It is humor that triggers laughter first, and then, a second later, an uneasy silence: the one you feel upon realizing you just laughed at something that should make no one laugh. That, perhaps, is the real talent — and it is a rare one.