Somaliland Got Recognized. Palestine Didn’t. Read to Find Out Why!

Israel became the first country in the world to recognize Somaliland as an independent state, and the announcement came wrapped in the familiar language of partnership and regional stability, the kind of diplomatic theater that makes conquest sound like cooperation. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called it the culmination of dialogue, Somaliland’s president welcomed it as historic, but no one mentioned what recognition actually purchases in this case: proximity to Yemen, access to Bab-el-Mandeb, another forward position in Israel’s plan of conquest to form a “Greater Israel”. Because greatness means killing the inhabitants and taking their land.

 

And the timing of this gesture shows just how nefarious their plans really are; days earlier, Turkey and Somalia finalized a maritime agreement after Turkish surveys discovered petroleum deposits off Somalia’s coast, and a joint public announcement was being prepared when Israel’s recognition of Somaliland broke the moment, pulling attention and leverage elsewhere to disrupt a partnership that didn’t serve Israeli or Emirati interests. Sounds like someone doesnt like the attention not being on them…

That narrow stretch of water where the Red Sea meets the Gulf of Aden, where global shipping lanes funnel through twenty miles of strategic chokepoint, where Somaliland sits close enough to Yemen to matter for everything now translated into the language of security. Recognition here has nothing to do with Somaliland’s decades-long push for statehood or its claims to democratic governance, and everything to do with purchasing real estate at one of the most critical maritime passages in the world, at a time when Israel was embarrassed by Yemenis who exercised their duty under international law (R2P) in preventing shipments to the genocidal state.

This pattern extends back decades through different iterations but always toward the same end, revealing how recognition operates less as acknowledgment of legitimate statehood and more as a legal instrument for managing imperial interests across territories that serve strategic purposes. South Africa’s apartheid government “recognized” bantustans like Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda, and Ciskei that no other country acknowledged, creating the fiction of self-determination while maintaining total control over territories that existed only to warehouse the Black population the regime wanted disappeared from white South Africa, giving the apartheid system a veneer of legitimacy by claiming these weren’t occupied territories but independent nations that Black South Africans could “return” to, as if people being shunted into impoverished enclaves on the worst land represented anything other than internal colonization dressed up in the language of sovereignty.

The United States switched recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China not because Taiwan lacked legitimacy or functioning democratic institutions, but because Beijing offered more valuable strategic and economic partnerships, and Washington decided the transaction was worth making, abandoning a government it had supported for decades the moment that support became inconvenient to larger geopolitical objectives. But the Taiwan case reveals something deeper about how recognition functions as imperial infrastructure rather than acknowledgment of legitimate statehood, because the United States didn’t simply withdraw recognition and move on—it created an entire framework of ambiguity that keeps Taiwan in permanent legal limbo, dependent on American power but denied the sovereignty that would give it genuine independence.

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The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 established unofficial relations that function exactly like formal diplomatic ties, complete with arms sales worth billions of dollars, security commitments that obligate the US to respond to threats against Taiwan, economic integration through trade agreements and technology transfers, all without granting Taiwan the recognized sovereignty that would give it standing under international law to negotiate these arrangements as an equal partner rather than as a dependent client state. Strategic ambiguity serves American interests by letting Washington maintain Taiwan as a permanent military outpost and technology partner and geopolitical counterweight to China, while avoiding the diplomatic crisis with Beijing that formal recognition would trigger, ensuring that Taiwan remains locked into accepting whatever security architecture the United States designs because it has no other options for survival against potential Chinese military action.

This deliberately manufactured dependence means Taiwan cannot pursue full independence without American approval, cannot negotiate reunification with China on its own terms without Washington’s blessing, cannot adopt a policy of neutrality that might serve its own interests better than permanent confrontation, because every one of these paths requires a level of sovereignty that recognition would provide but that American strategy deliberately withholds. A Taiwan with full recognized statehood could theoretically refuse to host American military assets, could cut its own deals with Beijing that prioritize Taiwanese interests over American containment strategy, could pursue economic and diplomatic policies that don’t align with Washington’s broader objectives in the region, and that kind of independence defeats the entire purpose of maintaining the relationship, which is to keep Taiwan as a strategic asset rather than as an actual sovereign state with the ability to determine its own future.

Taiwan’s limbo status reveals how recognition itself becomes a tool of control, how withholding sovereignty can be just as effective for maintaining imperial dominance as granting it under conditions that ensure continued dependence. At the same time that the United States denies Taiwan the recognition that would give it genuine independence, it recognizes other territories precisely because that recognition serves American strategic interests, creating a pattern where sovereignty gets deployed selectively as a mechanism for managing global power rather than as a principle applied consistently based on any coherent criteria about self-determination or democratic governance or popular will.

Kosovo received recognition from the United States and most Western powers despite the move clearly violating Serbia’s territorial integrity and contradicting the principle that borders cannot be redrawn unilaterally, but it advanced NATO’s strategic positioning in the Balkans in ways that mattered more than the legal principles supposedly governing state recognition, creating a precedent that the West invokes when recognition serves its interests and ignores when it doesn’t. The same Western powers that recognized Kosovo despite Serbian objections refuse to recognize Palestine despite overwhelming international support, refuse to recognize Western Sahara despite Morocco’s occupation being condemned by the UN, refuse to recognize Somaliland until the moment that recognition becomes strategically useful for establishing military bases and countering rivals, revealing that the criteria for statehood have nothing to do with the legal and political arguments offered to justify recognition decisions and everything to do with whether recognition serves the interests of the powers making the determination.

South Sudan provides perhaps the clearest example of how recognition operates as a tool for managing imperial interests rather than as acknowledgment of genuine self-determination. The territory was celebrated as a triumph of humanitarian intervention and international support for oppressed peoples seeking freedom from Khartoum’s rule, with Western governments and international institutions treating South Sudan’s independence as vindication of the international community’s commitment to self-determination and human rights. But the support for South Sudan’s independence had far more to do with oil interests and the desire to weaken a Sudanese government that wasn’t sufficiently aligned with Western priorities than with any genuine commitment to the South Sudanese people’s right to determine their political future, which became obvious when South Sudan collapsed into civil war almost immediately after independence and the international community that had championed its statehood largely abandoned it to violence and chaos, because the strategic objectives that motivated recognition in the first place had been accomplished.

The oil fields were secured, agreements were signed giving Western companies access to resources they couldn’t access under a unified Sudan, the Khartoum government was weakened and isolated, and once those goals were achieved the actual governance and stability of South Sudan became someone else’s problem. Recognition here functioned not as the culmination of a liberation struggle but as a transaction that served external interests while leaving the recognized territory trapped in dependency and dysfunction, a pattern that repeats across contexts where statehood gets granted because it serves power rather than because populations have achieved genuine self-determination.

The parallel to Somaliland becomes clear when you recognize that recognition there similarly provides legal cover for foreign control while obscuring the actual relationships of power that govern how the territory operates and who benefits from its resources and strategic position. British contractors manage Somaliland’s security apparatus, the UAE operates military bases capable of projecting force throughout the region, the United States positions the territory as a hedge against declining influence in Djibouti, Israel establishes forward positioning for operations against Yemen and control over shipping lanes, all while recognition allows these arrangements to be described as partnerships between sovereign states rather than as layers of imperial control disguised through the language of capacity-building and security cooperation and regional stability.

Israel itself was recognized as a state through a process that reveals how recognition operates to legitimize dispossession when it serves the interests of powerful states. The UN partition plan that led to Israeli statehood required recognizing Jewish claims to territory in Palestine while denying Palestinian claims to the same land, treating European Jewish immigration to Palestine as creating legitimate grounds for statehood while treating indigenous Palestinian presence as something that could be partitioned and managed and ultimately displaced. Recognition of Israel required non-recognition of Palestine, required treating one population’s claims as legally valid and deserving of sovereignty while treating another population’s claims as subject to negotiation and compromise and eventual erasure, establishing from the beginning that recognition serves power rather than principle, that it gets deployed to advance certain interests while denying others, that sovereignty is something granted selectively based on strategic calculations rather than applied consistently based on coherent criteria.

The fact that Israel now extends recognition to Somaliland while continuing to deny recognition and basic political existence to Palestinians living under its occupation reveals the complete cynicism of the enterprise, demonstrates that recognition has never been about self-determination or democratic governance or any of the principles invoked to justify it, but always about what serves the strategic and material interests of the states powerful enough to make recognition meaningful in the international system.

What distinguishes the Somaliland case is how it layers multiple colonial projects on top of each other while disguising all of them as support for a breakaway state’s right to recognition: British infrastructure and security apparatus built through contractors who manage everything from intelligence services to military doctrine, UAE military bases complete with fighter jet capabilities, US strategic positioning to counter Chinese influence in Djibouti, Israeli forward deployment for operations against Yemen. Each level of foreign control gets obscured behind the language of partnership and capacity-building and regional stability, but the effect is to turn Somaliland into legal cover for a network of imperial interests that have nothing to do with the territory’s actual independence or the self-determination of its people.

Somaliland police have a history of applying disproportionate force to contain disorder. One document from July 2015 called for Somaliland law enforcement to be trained by UK National Police in Britain, where they would learn first aid, how to engage effectively with crowds or protesters, and gain understanding of human rights according to international law. Training in constructive methods of dealing with public disturbances would ensure proportionality, lawfulness, and accountability.

If such training was conducted, it had no tangible impact. In late 2022, mass protests broke out in Las Anod. Somaliland security forces crushed the upheaval using lethal force, leaving dozens dead. Unrest intensified, leading to Somaliland’s military savagely shelling the city in 2023. Amnesty International branded the assault indiscriminate in the extreme, with civilian infrastructure including hospitals, schools, and mosques struck, hundreds killed and injured, hundreds of thousands displaced.

Given this context, Somaliland’s appeal to Israel and its Western backers becomes obvious when you understand what the territory actually offers. A well-armed repressive domestic security apparatus stands ready to brutally quell any resistance, trained and equipped by British contractors who have spent years building the exact kind of forces needed to maintain order through violence when necessary. If the United States uses Somaliland as a staging ground for strikes against Yemen, any displaced populations in the territory could be exploited as hostages and human shields to deter AnsarAllah counterattacks, because the same logic that treats Palestinian life as disposable and movable extends easily to any population that becomes strategically useful to constrain.

Reports from months ago suggested Somaliland could serve as a dumping ground for Palestinians forcibly removed from Gaza, a former British colony with fragile international standing where their removal would provoke less global outrage than forcing them into Egypt or Jordan, where the international community might actually notice and object. The logic that renders Palestinian life as something to be managed and relocated and warehoused, that treats an entire people as a demographic problem to be solved through displacement rather than as human beings with rights to their land and homes and futures, gets rehearsed beyond Palestine itself and translated into the language of ports and bases and recognition and regional stability, until occupation stops announcing itself as occupation and arrives instead as partnership, as development assistance, as security cooperation.

Gaza clarified what the broader project requires: control without accountability, expansion without consequence, a regional order where Arab life gets administered rather than respected, where populations exist to serve strategic interests rather than possessing inherent dignity and rights that might constrain how power operates. Somaliland represents not an exception to this logic but another implementation of it, another place where recognition becomes a tool for extending control while obscuring the actual relationships of domination that govern how the territory will be used and who will benefit from that use.

Those who enable this system through silence or facilitation are not incidental to it. They are essential. The same worldview that rationalizes siege and starvation and mass displacement in Gaza is what renders the Horn of Africa as terrain to be rearranged, leveraged, absorbed.

The African Union reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity, Egypt and Turkey condemned Israel’s move as unlawful interference in the sovereignty of a recognized state, and Saudi Arabia warned that recognizing Somaliland violates international law and undermines the principle that borders cannot be redrawn unilaterally by outside powers, while officials in Mogadishu called Somaliland an inseparable part of Somalia whose independence claims have never been accepted by any international body with the authority to make such determinations.

But international law only matters when it serves power, when it provides useful justification for actions that states want to take anyway or convenient grounds for condemning adversaries. Israel has violated more UN resolutions than any other state in the organization’s history, accumulating condemnations and advisory opinions and Security Council demands that sit in filing cabinets in New York and Geneva while the violations continue unabated. The International Court of Justice found Israel’s occupation illegal, its settlements violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, its wall and apartheid system contrary to the most fundamental principles of human rights and self-determination, and none of these findings produced any material consequences because the states with the power to enforce international law decided that enforcing it against Israel didn’t serve their interests. Resolutions pile up, documented and condemned and ultimately ignored, because law without enforcement is just the language power uses to describe what it was going to do anyway.

Israel doesn’t recognize Somaliland because it believes in self-determination or the right of peoples to determine their political futures free from external interference. Israel denies recognition and basic political existence to Palestinians living under its military occupation, refuses to acknowledge their claims to statehood despite those claims being supported by the vast majority of UN member states and grounded in decades of international legal instruments affirming the Palestinian right to self-determination.

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Project 2025 explicitly called for recognizing Somaliland as a hedge against America’s deteriorating position in Djibouti, where Chinese influence has grown. Senator Ted Cruz urged Trump to recognize Somaliland citing its support for Israel and the Abraham Accords. Former British defense secretary Gavin Williamson revealed he had been engaged in meetings with Trump’s policy leads on the issue months before Somaliland became linked to potential Palestinian resettlement. Williamson has long been an ardent advocate of Somaliland’s independence, regularly undertaking all-expenses paid trips to the territory, receiving honorary citizenship for his lobbying efforts.

Israel’s recognition of Somaliland will not be remembered as diplomacy or as a triumph of self-determination, but as another piece of the broader domination that stretches from Gaza to the Red Sea and beyond, sustained by governments and institutions that mistake their proximity to power for insulation from the consequences of how that power operates and what it destroys. The occupation’s methods do not always announce themselves through checkpoints and walls, do not always arrive with the visible mechanisms of military control, but sometimes come packaged as recognition, as partnership, as development assistance, as the language of regional stability and security cooperation that makes violence sound like mutual benefit.

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I also want to give credit to Ahmed el-Din who did great research that helped me inform this piece as well as the research and reporting done from Al Jazeera and others.