Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025 is a forward-looking initiative that supports a nascent democracy, advances regional stability and provides strategic gains for Israel and more generally for Western interests.
Strategic Gains
Recognition unlocks critical advantages for Israel and its allies:
Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Security: A formal partnership with Somaliland, which has a lengthy coastline on this crucial chokepoint, provides a strategic foothold to monitor and counter threats like the Houthis and ensure freedom of navigation. It builds a permanent, friendly presence on the opposite shore.
Diversifying Regional Partnerships: Turkey and Qatar are both investing in influence in Somalia and the Horn. Israel’s move empowers an alternative regional actor, Somaliland, in creating a more balanced strategic landscape.
Expanding the Abraham Accords: Recognition is a natural extension of the Accords’ spirit of building bridges with pragmatic Muslim-majority nations. To date, two non-Arab states have joined the Accords – Kosovo and Kazakhstan. Expanding the Accords to the Horn of Africa would demonstrate that this is a dynamic alliance of pro-American countries, not a closed list.
Intelligence and Early Warning: A formal relationship allows for deepened security cooperation, providing invaluable intelligence on regional militant movements and state actors, addressing past intelligence gaps.
Strengthening Somaliland, Not Weakening It
Far from deepening divisions, formal recognition consolidates Somaliland’s statehood and unifies its populace around a concrete diplomatic achievement. Recognition unlocks international aid, foreign direct investment, and security partnerships that increase the government’s capacity to deliver services and stability to all its communities, reducing the appeal of separatist narratives or Mogadishu’s influence.
In some international media, Somaliland is depicted as inherently unstable or unworthy of recognition owing to internal diversity. Many nations, especially in their formative stages, navigate complex internal dynamics. The relevant metric is not the absence of challenges, but rather the demonstrated capacity to manage them through legitimate, peaceful political processes, a capacity Somaliland has shown for decades. Israel’s recognition affirms this reality.
Clan and sub-national identities influence politics across the Horn of Africa and beyond. Somaliland’s achievement is that it has successfully channeled these identities into a hybrid system of governance that has maintained peace. Its multi-clan Guurti (Upper House) and repeated peaceful transfers of power are evidence of institutional strength. To focus solely on clan is to ignore the record of three decades of sustained state-building.
In 2024, Somaliland’s democratic credibility was further reinforced when the opposition party, Waddani, secured a peaceful transfer of power, one of only five such opposition victories in Africa that year.
In Somaliland, clan is a living, adaptive system. It remains the primary source of social security, political mobilization, and identity. The “Somaliland miracle” is largely attributed to its leaders’ pragmatic accommodation and formal integration of clan dynamics into governance rather than attempting to eliminate them.
The most critical clan dynamics in Somaliland are in the eastern regions of Sanaag and Sool, bordering Puntland and Somalia. Their integration into Somaliland is somewhat contested, not only on nationalist grounds, but also on the basis of clan politics. The Dhulbahante clan, in particular, has been divided between allegiance to Somaliland and Puntland. The city of Las Anod, a Dhulbahante stronghold, has been a flashpoint of recent conflict.
The Warsangeli, Issa, Gabooye, and Samaroon clans fully support the independence of Somaliland. The Isaaq and Harti tribes have coexisted peacefully over the years in the Sanaag region. But recently the federal government of Somalia, with the help of some foreign states notably China and Turkey, have tried to undermine the peaceful tranquility iof the region. To their disappointment, the Sanaag communities have agreed to solve their differences, in a series of resolutions that included an integrated security framework, which endorses the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Somaliland.
Recognition strengthens Hargeisa’s hand to pursue inclusive dialogue and development in all regions of the country.
Recognition as a Stabilizing, Not Destabilizing, Force in the Horn of Africa
Somaliland is a de facto nation-state that has maintained peace, held democratic elections, and built functional institutions for over three decades, while southern Somalia has been mired in conflict. The claim that recognition will intensify conflicts in the Horn of Africa assumes a passive, reactive Somaliland and misunderstands the dynamics of sovereignty. Formal recognition will:
Empower diplomacy, by granting Somaliland the international standing to negotiate disputes from a position of strength and legal equality.
Unlock development, by facilitating major foreign investment and infrastructure projects (e.g., Berbera port) and creating economic incentives for others in the region to buy into the Somaliland project.
Deter external aggression, by raising the costs for any actor to fuel instability through military means.
Recognition rewards a model of functional governance. It empowers Somaliland to counter extremism with international support, intelligence cooperation, and economic development — which are the most potent tools against radicalization. Strengthening Somaliland’s state institutions directly undermines the governance vacuum that terrorist groups like al-Shabaab thrive on.
Three Red Herrings
Opponents of Somaliland’s sovereignty often raise three arguments to distract attention from the aforementioned benefits of recognition.
Palestinian Relocation: Somaliland has explicitly denied any discussions of relocating Palestinians from Gaza to Somaliland, and Israel has not proposed it. Introducing this point is a distraction meant to inflame passions. Israel’s recognition is about bilateral relations and regional stability, not demographic engineering.
Somaliland as Islamist: The country’s constitution states that Islam is the religion of the state and the national flag carries the Islamic declaration of faith (just as some Christian countries’ flags display a cross). But the constitution also states that its system of government is a democracy and grants every person the right to freedom of belief. To date, there have been no documented cases of religious persecution against non-Muslims. In short, Somaliland is a traditional, conservative Islamic society but it is not Islamist.
Diplomatic Backlash: The African Union and Arab League’s opposition is predictable but not immutable; both bodies contain members who engage privately with breakaway regions when it serves their interests. The UAE’s favorable view and Ethiopia’s interests in port access demonstrate that pragmatic economic and security concerns ultimately drive policy.
Conclusion
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is a bold, strategically sound decision that advances stability, rewards democratic exceptionalism, and counters malign influences in a critical region.. This is a vote of confidence in Somaliland’s future, in Israel’s strategic vision, and in the power of expanding pro-American partnerships.
