By Ziyad Motala
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is best understood as a convergence of mischief geopolitics and diplomatic disruption.
Somaliland occupies a strategic position along the Gulf of Aden, close to the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, a corridor vital to global shipping and regional security. At a moment when Israel is preoccupied with Red Sea instability, Iranian influence, and Houthi attacks, formal ties with a cooperative authority on that coastline offer intelligence, security, and logistical advantages. With a base on the horn of Africa, they can better handle the Houthis and fight back against any disruption of shipping through the Red Sea.
The move also signals Israel’s willingness to challenge long-standing African and international consensus on territorial integrity, reinforcing a broader pattern in which Israel acts unilaterally where it sees strategic gain, regardless of diplomatic backlash from the African Union, the Arab world, or multilateral institutions.
A more controversial but important dimension is demographic and territorial calculation. Recognition of Somaliland creates the possibility of an external territory willing to enter into arrangements that others categorically reject. Within Israeli political discourse, particularly among hard-right factions, the idea of relocating Palestinians from Gaza has moved from fringe rhetoric to open discussion. Somaliland, economically fragile, diplomatically isolated, and eager for recognition and investment, is seen as a potential partner in schemes framed as “voluntary resettlement” but understood internationally as forcible population transfer. Israel the perennial scofflaw of international law. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland lowers political and legal barriers to imagining them, which explains both the intensity of Somalia’s reaction and the alarm across much of the Global South.
The Zionist lobby must be working in over drive to get the Trump administration to recognize Somaliland as an independent state, just as it did to get the US to recognize Morocco’s claim over Western Sahara, as a reward for Morocco embracing the Abraham Accords, regardless of the position of the AU on Western Sahra.