In May, I visited Somaliland without knowing what to expect. It is a true anomaly: a Muslim African country that proudly calls Israel a friend. I left with something more human than a mere strategic perspective.
Hargeisa does not hide its identity. The call to prayer echoes across the capital city. Quranic verses are displayed on shop fronts and taxis. Men spill out of mosques into sun-baked streets; women in bright hijabs move through markets of dust, goats, mobile-money stalls, and plastic jerrycans. This is a visibly and heavily Sunni Muslim country: conservative, devout, African, and proud.
A different feel
It is also one of the few places I have visited where the word Israel, more often than not, elicits a smile.
That should make Israelis pause. In much of the MENA region, Israel is accustomed to recognition being brokered between governments behind closed doors, while hostile publics look on.
Somaliland feels different. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland in December 2025, the first formal recognition it had received from a UN-member state since declaring independence from Somalia in 1991, felt like vindication.
In meetings with ministers, officers, port officials, regional leaders, and ordinary Somalilanders, I repeatedly heard the same sentiment: Israel saw us. Israel respected us. Israel did what others would not.
This does not erase the issue of Palestine. Somalilanders are Sunni Muslims; many sympathize with Palestinians, and some view Israel through the lens of Gaza first.
There is friction, and there will be more if Israel acts carelessly. Recognition has nevertheless created goodwill for the Jewish state among Somaliland’s millions of overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims.
A Muslim partner
Somaliland sits on the African shore of the Gulf of Aden, opposite Houthi-controlled Yemen and near the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Berbera port cannot replace Israeli naval power, US-led maritime operations, or missile defense against the Houthis, but it offers a friendly, functioning Muslim partner on the right coastline at the right moment.
The Houthis have shown how cheaply a non-state actor can disrupt global trade, drive up insurance costs, and turn the Red Sea into a political weapon. Israel needs more than ships and interceptors. It needs relationships, port access, political allies, and civilian partnerships along the corridor.
Somaliland can provide part of that architecture. Its institutions are limited but real and proven to function, in stark contrast to the dysfunction of its Somali neighbors.
Its democracy has flaws, including delays and border disputes. However, compared with much of the neighborhood, Somaliland has an unusual record of internal order, elections, tax collection, security control, and public identification with the state. Its hunger for recognition makes it receptive to partners who treat it seriously.
Not a simple transaction
That is the test. Somaliland must not be treated as a trophy base or a cheap platform for someone else’s war. Jerusalem may be tempted to look at Berbera on a map and see only the Houthis, Iran, and the sea lanes.
Hargeisa may be tempted to see Israel as a diplomatic key that unlocks everything overnight, and both sides might view it as a simple transaction that benefits them. Both instincts would overlook the wider opportunity.
What I saw in Somaliland was beyond strategy. I saw poverty that sits in the throat. Roads dissolve into dust. Young men have too little work and too much time. Government offices operate with threadbare capacity. Families live at the edge of subsistence while a modernizing port hints at a future they can almost see but cannot yet touch.
Somaliland is poor in the grinding way that is unique to Africa: visibly, structurally, and with a stubborn dignity that makes pity feel insulting.
Recognition must therefore become a partnership. Israel should not arrive with a narrow security agenda and a large flag. It should arrive with water technology, solar power, agriculture, health systems, veterinary science, port management, customs integrity, telecoms resilience, and practical training.
It should help Somaliland make Berbera a lawful, efficient commercial gateway for Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa. The benefit for Israel will be the opportunity to quietly and defensively strengthen maritime domain awareness and coastguard capacity. No theatrical militarization or language that turns Somaliland into an Israeli outpost.
A durable relationship requires dignity, civilian benefit, and restraint. Somalilanders are not supplicants. They have governed themselves since 1991, despite conditions that would have broken many polities. The average Somalilander must feel that recognition means jobs, clinics, trade, water, electricity, and education, not merely meetings between security officials.
Broader opportunity
Israel is often told that the Muslim world is closed to it, except within the narrow corridors of cold diplomacy. Somaliland disproves that. Here is a devout Sunni Muslim society in which Israel’s boldness has generated genuine affection because they know what abandonment feels like. Recognition spoke to their own wound.
The opportunity is bigger than geopolitics. Israel can help turn diplomatic recognition into tangible improvement for a poor but resilient African country. Somaliland can offer Israel a principled partner on a contested coastline.
Somaliland has waited in limbo for 35 years. Israel has opened the door. Now it has to walk through it properly.■
Andrew Fox is a former British Army officer, senior fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, and co-host of The Brink podcast.