Yemenite Jews once formed a sizable Jewish minority in Yemen with a distinct culture but most of them immigrated (ethnically and religiously expelled) to Israel in the mid-20th century.

Thinking this, he swiftly set in motion a plan for Jewish emigration en masse; referred to as "Operation Magic Carpet", the effort would see nearly 50,000 Jews flying safely out of Yemen.

Rumors spread in South Yemen that shortly before their withdrawal from there, the British collaborated with Israel in an attempt to crush the tribes of Southern Arabia in order to prolong their colonial rule.

A Yemeni government official assured the Americans that "North Yemen would do nothing to undermine U.S. peace efforts in the current Egyptian–Israeli talks to implement the Camp David agreements."

[7] In February 1977, Yasser Arafat was cordially received in Aden where he was referred to as "Brother Arafat the President of Palestine," and In March 1977, President Rubiyya Ali met the Somali, Sudanese and YAR chiefs of state in Taiz, in order to consider means of consolidating Arab solidarity "in order to confront Israel's aggressive policy and the Zionist forces supporting it".

When Ali Nasir Muhammad came to power as President in October 1980, South Yemen joined Syria, Libya, Algeria, Iraq and the PLO in boycotting Sadat's peace initiative.

Following the seizure of the Achille Lauro passenger ship by the Palestinians in October 1987, Ali Nasir feared an Israeli strike, and therefore denied that PLO forces were stationed on an island controlled by South Yemen.

When South Yemen embarked on an initiative to normalize relations with Oman in the late 1980s, the official statement from Aden was: "normalizing relations between the PDRY and the Sultanate of Oman is one of the PDRY's goals in securing the stability of the region and avoiding the hostile dangers that threatens our people as a result of the growing imperialist military presence and the U.S. and Israeli plots against our Arab peoples"Yet after the 1973 blockade, Yemen did not interrupt the free navigation of Israeli ships originating from Eilat, and when Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin visited Aden in September 1979, South Yemen was prepared to accept the principle of freedom of navigation for all ships from "all adjoining states".

Therefore, in 1976 South Yemen sent troops as part of the Arab deterrent force in Lebanon, and when Ali Nasser Muhammad visited Moscow in February 1978, the joint communique issued by the two governments condemned the Israeli-Egyptian dialogue.

In an interview to Radio Amman, Yemen's Deputy Information Minister Abd-al-Rahman al-Akwa denied reports from Israeli and American sources that attempts were being made to transfer Yemeni Jews to Israel.

In an interview with an Egyptian weekly, Saleh said that his country would be willing to host a meeting of all Palestinian factions, in order to discuss their differences and bring unity to their ranks.

In March 1994, Sheikh Abd-al-Majid al-Zindani, member of the Yemeni Presidential Council warned against what he regarded as a foreign and Zionist scheme to partition Yemen into several stateless in order to make it easier to control its oil wealth and strategic location, especially in the strait of Bab el Mandab.

[12] Yemeni officials suggested that Israel supplied ammunition and equipment to the Eritrean forces in return for military bases on the Red Sea islands.

The fears that Israel was determined to prevent Yemen from controlling Bab alMandab increased partially as a result of an intense Iranian propaganda campaign aimed at keeping the two countries hostile to each other.

In an interview to Al-Ahram, Saleh said that he conferred with Egyptian President's Hosni Mubarak, and told him that it was beyond his comprehension how the Arabs continuously engaged in negotiations with Israel while they remained at odds with each other.

Yemen sent a representative to attend former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's funeral, and although they were critical of the slow pace of the peace process, Yemeni officials were encouraged by the Israeli–Palestinian dialogue.

In February 1996, Abd-al-Wahhab Darawsha and Talab al-Sani, both leaders of the Democratic Party and Knesset members arrived in San'a at the invitation of the Yemeni parliament, the House of Representatives.

Yemen's Prime Minister, Faraj Said Bin Ghanem discussed issues of national security with his Egyptian counterpart, Kamal Ganzouri and Assistant Yemeni Foreign Minister, Eid Ali Abdel Rahman told news reporters that San'a would not take any steps towards establishing diplomatic relations with Israel until the latter agreed to the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In August 1997, it urged the government to boycott the Middle East and North Africa economic summit scheduled for November that year in Qatar, if Israel did not take serious measures toward a lasting peace.

In the same month, in a statement to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah, the then Yemeni foreign minister Abdul Qadir Bajamal said that all attempts made by Israel to use time to serve its interests in making a peace deal are doomed to failure.

The ruling party, General People's Congress strongly condemned the actions of what it considered to be aggressions against the Palestinians and the Lebanese and called for the international community to intervene.

In March 2009, a state security court sentenced 27-year-old Abdullah al-Haidari to death after convicting him of establishing contacts with the office of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

According to a statement released to the Saba News Agency from a government source, "Yemen has announced its strong condemnation and denunciation of the "brutal Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip, and standing of the Yemeni people with their brothers in Palestine at all times".

[23] The unnamed spoken also said that "The Yemeni government calls for the international community to bare their responsibilities towards the Zionist offensive and take swift action to stop this brutal aggression".

During a 2019 conference on fighting Iranian terrorism, a tense situation arose when the President of Yemen Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi had to sit next to the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu even though the two are enemies.

[27] Since mid-November 2023, the Yemeni Houthi group have launched repeated drone and missile attacks against Israeli-linked ships in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

[29] On December 16, 2024, the Yemeni Houthi group targeted Israeli military facilities in Jaffa, located in central Israel, using a hypersonic ballistic missile known as "Palestine 2".

The organ of the Nasserist Unionist People's Organisation, Al-Warawi, was critical of this decision: "The visit proves that the ruling coalition began to march toward normalization of cultural and economic relations with Israel."

It added that the approval given to the singer's visit was "a flying balloon whose purpose is to gauge the response of the nation and the parties before additional steps to normalize relations can be taken."

The organ of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party, Al-Thawri, claimed that the attempt to improve relations with Israel was part of a Yemeni grand design to become friendly with the United States.