Israel’s recent decision to recognize Somaliland took most countries by surprise and generated almost instantaneous Pavlovian condemnations from a wide body of local, regional, and global powers.
While Israel’s actions acknowledged that Somaliland governs its own territory effectively and that it actually meets the requirements of sovereignty (defined territory, governance, capital, and even its own currency), many countries and organizations clearly felt deeply offended and threatened by the disruption of the established order of things.
The minutia of Somali (that of Somaliland and neighboring Somalia) statehood is a topic for another essay. My aim here is to explore what the Israeli move means at a strategic and operational level, and whether this disruptive recognition may be the first in a series of Israeli diplomatic moves against its regional enemies and adversaries, or just a diversion by an internationally isolated Israeli government. I obviously hope it’s the former.
A failed state
As an assessment officer at the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in New York, I was tasked with providing military assessments of the situation in the Horn of Africa between the years 2014-2017.
As I documented and analyzed the atrocities of the local brand of jihadi terror, Al-Shabaab, in Somalia, it quickly became apparent that Somalia was a classic failed state due to a dysfunctional local government, corruption, foreign meddling, and bad luck that had now become a permanent client of the international “humanitarian” industry.
From African Union peacekeeping forces to all of the UN-affliated aid programs, Somalia had it all. But while the people in Somalia continued to live in some of the most abject conditions on Earth in terms of safety, liberties, and economic prospects, neighboring Somaliland was a stark contrast. In Somaliland, no terror organizations or extremist Islam were tolerated; free and steady elections were held; the government actually worked to improve the infrastructure and conditions on the ground for its citizens; and most people had basic rights and liberties.
Somaliland decided to work its way out of poverty and despair in 1991, but the international community steadfastly refused to award Somaliland freedom and independence, and forced the territory to remain tethered to the failing Somalia.
In that sense, Israeli recognition was both sensible and long overdue. But I assume the true motivation for this move was more related to regional politics and the Israeli decision to start applying diplomatic pressure on its regional adversaries.
Breaking taboos
When Israel broke another international taboo and became the first UN member state to recognize Somaliland, its enemies and adversaries responded quickly – perhaps because they grasped that the Israeli move could herald regional changes detrimental to them.
Turkey, Iran, Syria, Qatar, and the Arab League hurried to voice concerns over “regional stability” and “territorial integrity” of nation-states. One wonders whether these and additional countries hostile to Israel honestly kindle regional stability, or feel threatened by what this move could mean for their own nations – many created by colonial powers – that sit within artificial borders, void of ethnic or historical logic.
Absent from Arab, Muslim, and African condemnations was Ethiopia. Aside from an off-script tweet by an Ethiopian minister, which was subsequently deleted, Ethiopian authorities stayed silent and expressed a need for more time to assess the situation.
Ethiopia serves as the seat of the African Union and is a powerful African nation. It is also a landlocked neighbor of Somaliland that would very likely benefit from access to the Indian Ocean via Somaliland’s Berbera port, and has nurtured semi-covert military ties with Israel for decades.
What’s next?
I doubt Somaliland will become the new home for hundreds of thousands of Gazans, as anti-Israel activists have claimed, or house forward operating bases in the Gulf of Aden for Israeli planes or vessels, despite the obvious advantages of such developments.
It is more likely that ties between the two countries will gravitate toward softer aspects, and that the recognition will be ratified internationally, with an American blessing, by Somaliland joining the Abraham Accords. Somaliland will continue to prosper, while Somalia remains dependent on international “aid.”
If this Israeli move is not just a tactical diversion, the near future may turn very interesting, and even historic. Israel, which usually excels at the use of kinetic force rather than at subtle diplomacy, may challenge regional enemies and adversaries with similar non-conformist moves. Essentially, it is flipping the script against its adversaries, who have been using the Israeli-Arab conflict and the local Arab population (referred to as “Palestinians” in this narrative) against Israel for decades.
For example, the Druze minority in Syria dreams of autonomy from the oppressive Sunni Syrian regime that has been facilitating pogroms against them. The Kurds in Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran have been fighting for their own nation-state for decades but were shortchanged by global powers when the time came to reward them for their service against ISIS.
While many countries in the post-colonial Middle East struggle with domestic instability rooted in ethnic grievances, Turkey has responded to the Israeli recognition in the most aggressive terms. The reason may be two-fold: frustration with a competing Israeli presence in Somaliland versus massive Turkish investments in Somalia, as well as a genuine fear of the aspirations of the oppressed Kurdish minority in eastern Turkey.
Syria, created by French and British imperial hands, would risk losing roughly 30% of its territory and 25% of its population and resources if Kurds, Druze, Yazidis, and Alawites break off and declare sovereignty or autonomy.
For decades, the only national struggle that was pampered and fueled by global and regional powers was the so-called Palestinian cause as a tool against Israel. By recognizing the empirically sound aspirations of Somaliland, Israel might be signaling to the region and the world that it, too, can throw wrenches into the machinery of other nation-states, which have been throwing diplomatic stones at Israel from houses that now could be exposed as glass castles.■
Jonathan Conricus is a retired IDF lieutenant colonel and senior fellow at the DC-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). He served as a combat commander in Lebanon and Gaza and was the IDF’s international spokesman. He is politically unaffiliated.