In a surprising move, Israel’s leadership decided to draw even more international condemnation by recognizing the breakaway state of Somaliland as an independent state last weekend, becoming the first UN member state to do so, alongside Taiwan.
Despite the mostly negative reactions, this has the potential to be a strategic boon to the Jewish state, strengthening existing alliances while checkmating the Iranian regime’s last (nearly) untouched proxy force in the region.
However, it is also not without significant risks, as no other country has so far joined Israel’s recognition, while U.S. President Donald Trump quipped, “Does anyone know what Somaliland is, really?”
What’s Somaliland?
Somaliland is the northwestern province of the internationally recognized Republic of Somalia, a country that has been mired in a civil war for over 30 years.
Large parts of Somalia are currently controlled by terror groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS), while the government is dependent on foreign support from the U.S., but also from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.
The country sits astride the Horn of Africa, opposite Yemen on the Gulf of Aden and near the Bab al-Mandab strait, where strategic shipping lanes usually carry roughly 12% of global trade – when the Yemeni Houthis don’t attack ships there.
The former British colony of Somaliland had joined the formerly Italian-ruled portion to declare independence and establish the state of Somalia in 1960. However, the regional government declared it would break away from the union at the start of the civil war in 1991.
Since then, the fledgling country has built itself into the only stable, democratically ruled and relatively peaceful – albeit dirt-poor – country in its corner of the world.
Its population of roughly six million people is nearly 100% Sunni Muslim, and mostly part of the Isaaq clan that Somaliland argues was subjected to a genocide at the hands of the central government in the late 1980s, which killed up to a claimed 200,000 people.
Notably, the father of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who is currently involved in a scandal surrounding Somali immigrants in Minnesota, was among the leading figures of this alleged genocide.
Despite the lack of formal recognition, Somaliland has good relations with several countries, chief among them the United Arab Emirates and neighboring Ethiopia. A 2024 strategic memorandum of understanding granted the landlocked Ethiopia access to the strategic port of Berbera, which is being developed with the help of the United Arab Emirates.
However, the hints that Ethiopia would become the first to recognize Somaliland’s independence have not materialized, and so, Taiwan – which itself is widely not seen as a legitimate state – was the only country to recognize Somaliland until now.
But over the past year, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, former National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and the Mossad began an intensifying dialogue, sending teams for visits and hosting Somaliland’s leaders several times, according to press reports.
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