Israel’s recognition of Somaliland should not be understood as a provocation or a geopolitical manoeuvre. It is, rather, a sober and principled acknowledgement of history, responsibility, and political reality. At its core, it reflects an understanding of what it means for a people to survive attempted erasure, to rebuild without protection, and to insist that truth and memory matter in the face of denial.
Somaliland’s claim to statehood is neither novel nor opportunistic. It was an independent country in June 1960, recognised by a number of states, including Israel, before voluntarily entering a union with Somalia days later. That union was intended to be one of equals. Instead, it became a vehicle for repression.
In the late 1980s, the Somali state carried out a campaign of violence against the people of Somaliland that meets the definition of genocide under international law. Under the military dictatorship of Mohamed Siad Barre, this campaign was guided by a chilling doctrine: “Leave nothing but the crows.” It was a policy of total destruction. Cities were treated as enemy territory. Hargeisa, then one of the largest urban centres in the Somali Republic, was bombed by its own air force until most of it lay in ruins. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Hundreds of thousands were displaced. Wells were poisoned, livestock destroyed, and escape routes deliberately mined to prevent civilians from fleeing.
This was not counter-insurgency. It was collective punishment and extermination.
These are not atrocities I have read about. I was there. I was in Hargeisa in 1988 when my grandfather was dragged from our home, and when my grandmother told me she could not return to retrieve the gold she had hidden because the army had mined the road back – even the entrances to the houses my family and others were forced to abandon.
This was not the chaos of civil war. It was organised, intentional violence directed at a civilian population. The evidence remains today in mass graves scattered across Somaliland, and in the collective memory of a society still shaped by that trauma.
What has never followed is accountability. No Somali government has formally acknowledged these crimes. Denial remains embedded in official narratives, including at international forums such as the UN Security Council, where Somalia has sought to lecture others while refusing to confront its own history of mass violence.
The expectation that survivors should simply move on without recognition or justice is a familiar one. It has been repeatedly imposed on communities that have endured large-scale atrocities, often in the name of diplomatic convenience.
During this period of abandonment, Israelis quietly provided humanitarian and medical assistance to Somalilanders. This support came without publicity or political leverage. Survivors recall it as help offered with discretion and empathy, grounded in a shared understanding of what it means to be left exposed while the world looks away. That history of solidarity places today’s recognition in a longer moral context.
The connection between Somaliland and the Jewish people predates the genocide. Somaliland once had a small Jewish population, and Jewish-owned homes and buildings still stand today. They have not been erased or desecrated, but preserved – a modest yet telling reflection of how Jewish history has been regarded locally. This relationship was built on coexistence rather than ideology, on lived respect rather than political alignment.
Since withdrawing from the failed union with Somalia in 1991, Somaliland has taken a markedly different path. Without international recognition and without access to the vast levels of aid directed at Somalia, it has built functioning institutions, held repeated democratic elections, overseen peaceful transfers of power, and maintained internal security in one of the most volatile regions in the world. Alongside Israel, it stands as one of the very few democracies in its region – deriving legitimacy not from inherited borders, but from consent, accountability, and governance.
Recognition is not only about the past; it is about the future. Nearly 80 per cent of Somaliland’s population is under the age of 30. This generation has known no political reality other than Somaliland, yet has been denied the opportunities that recognition unlocks: access to investment, international markets, global institutions, and mobility. Recognition allows young Somalilanders to build viable futures at home rather than being forced to export their talent and ambition abroad. It is a lifeline for a generation whose aspirations have long been constrained not by lack of ability, but by political exclusion.
Opposition to Somaliland’s recognition is routinely framed around Somalia’s “territorial integrity”. This argument collapses under scrutiny. Territorial integrity presupposes a functioning sovereign state – one that exercises authority, protects its population, and takes responsibility for its past. Somalia has, for decades, failed to meet that standard. Power has been concentrated in fortified enclaves in Mogadishu, sustained largely through international funding rather than effective governance.
To insist that Somaliland must subordinate its future to the territorial claims of a state that neither protected it in the past nor governs effectively in the present is not a neutral legal position. It is a moral avoidance. It privileges diplomatic inertia over historical truth and asks the survivors of mass violence to accept permanent political limbo in the name of a stability that has never materialised.
Israel’s recognition cuts through this contradiction. It reflects a principle deeply embedded in Israel’s own political history: that sovereignty is not an abstract legal indulgence, but a practical necessity for survival. As Theodor Herzl once wrote, “If you will it, it is no dream.” Somaliland’s experience reflects that same reality – a people who rebuilt their state not because it was easy, but because the alternative was erasure.
There is also a forward-looking dimension. Somaliland occupies a strategic position along vital shipping routes and has demonstrated that democratic governance and internal stability are possible in the Horn of Africa. Engagement with Israel opens avenues for cooperation in technology, security, and trade – areas where Israel’s experience of state-building under constant pressure is especially relevant.
But beyond strategy lies something more fundamental. Recognition is about memory and moral clarity. It is about refusing to allow genocide to be obscured by euphemism or erased by political fatigue. It is about affirming that peoples who survive attempted destruction have the right to determine their own political future.
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is not reckless. It is responsible. It affirms that democracy matters, that history cannot be negotiated away, and that principles only matter if they are applied consistently – even when doing so is uncomfortable.
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