If the motivation was to prevent malnutrition and third-world unemployment, there are much more direct ways that take fewer warships.
I mean, the point isn't that it's their motivation. The point is that that's the effect. I'm pretty sure the motivation of the Houthis in this is to raise their reputation, not save Palestinian children.
Surely that seems like a reasonable thing to say? Maybe not. (And just to be clear I'm not talking about bombing the IDF. I have no idea what the actual solution is or would look like. Just struck by the contrast; that's all.)
I guess that's where the difference between our positions comes in. For me, there's a solid solution to stopping the Houthis with minimal costs, while the number of practical solutions to stop the ongoing Israeli genocide is... smaller, and all of the options have much higher costs - not simply monetary, but diplomatic and in human life - and require much wider consensus to implement in terms of getting the government to act. "The Commander-in-Chief is the Commander-in-Chief - we are authorized to retaliate to defend our civilian ships and ourselves" is much easier than "The Congress which can't even pass a budget at the moment needs to strip Israel, a long-term 'ally' which has bribed 2/3s of our government, of all assistance until they stop their genocide against people we have no authority over or especial legal responsibility to protect"
(Edit: I think I'm gonna stop responding now unless there's something really new; I feel like I'm repeating myself and genuinely don't want to try to hijack this story to start talking about Gaza.)
While fair, it is connected to Gaza insofar as it's the Houthis' claimed reason for their terrorism.