Israel's Goals in Recognizing Somaliland

When Trump proposed his plan to displace Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, the name Somaliland was mentioned as a potential location for such displacement. At that time, we wrote an article on March 27, 2025, titled: (Between the Hell of Gaza and the Hell of Displacement), in which we stated that the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip know their conditions best, and the decision is theirs alone. No one has the right to speak on their behalf or to demand their patience and resilience, especially those who exploit their blood and suffering from outside the Gaza Strip, claiming that the people of the Gaza Strip are victorious and engaged in martyrdom projects, and we emphasized that the issue of displacing between two and a half million and even a million people to another country outside the region is not an easy matter, as it is impossible for any country to accept such a large number all at once unless it is a state without sovereignty or a failed state led by a weak government.

Although Washington has temporarily backtracked from the resettlement plan, Israel remains adamant about it, whether in Gaza or the West Bank, as it is impossible to establish a Jewish state between the sea and the river with around 7 million Palestinians present. With the failure of Israeli and American efforts to persuade world countries to accept large numbers from the Gaza Strip's population, despite the ongoing voluntary displacement of dozens daily through Ramon Airport, Israel has taken a step in its bet on mass displacement to Somaliland by recognizing this rejected state, in hopes that it might accept a large number of Palestinians.

As for Somaliland, it was once part of the Somali Republic, which has witnessed decades of bloody civil war between the government, extremist Islamist groups, and pirates. Somaliland declared independence from the central state in 1991, but has not been recognized by the United Nations or any other country worldwide. The situation in Somalia is generally unstable, and civil war might resume, putting Palestinians in the midst of this war, alongside the poverty and lack of resources in the country, and the differences in ethnicity, color, and culture between the Palestinians and the local population, making integration and coexistence impossible.

In this context, we hope our people in the Gaza Strip think carefully about this matter, no matter the promises made, as they will face genocide at the hands of the native population, which will be no less than the Zionist genocide. At that point, they will not be able to return to Gaza or move to other countries, as upon reaching the asylum location, they will be stripped of all their identification papers and placed in closed cantons.

Tel Aviv, like Washington, knows the difficulty of displacing the people of the Gaza Strip to Somaliland. Nevertheless, Israel recognized this state despite the publicly declared American rejection of this step. This recognition may not only be linked to the displacement of Palestinians, but also related to establishing a foothold in the Horn of Africa and setting up a military base there. In this case, this base would also be American due to the nature of the strategic relations between Tel Aviv and Washington. Thus, Trump played smartly when he announced his lack of desire to recognize Somaliland or to change existing borders between countries to avoid angering some Arab countries, but left the matter to Israel to carry out the task, even though Trump threatens to annex Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, and invade Venezuela, while bolstering the presence of American troops in Syria!

The alarming aspect of Israel's recognition of Somaliland, which is supposed to be part of a member state in the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the United Nations, is that this recognition could encourage and pave the way for the recognition of new separatist entities looming on the horizon, whether in Sudan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, or a state for the Kurds.