Somaliland's President Abdirahman Abdullahi Mohamed with Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, at the Presidential Palace in Hargeisa [Somaliland Presidential Office/AFP]
Breaking the longstanding African consensus on post-colonial borders, Israel is actively destabilizing an entire continent to serve its interests and Washington's.
Originally published in Worker's World.
The Israeli state’s aggressive efforts as a proxy for U.S. imperialism continue in its assigned role to destabilize all of West Asia. Increasingly. Israel is also a serious U.S. partner in efforts to fragment and destabilize African countries. This was shown when, on Dec. 26, Israel formally recognized the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland.
The formal recognition took place only two days before Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu departed for extensive meetings with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The timing was the clearest signal that the recognition was not just Netanyahu’s unilateral decision.
Israel’s very existence is totally dependent on the multibillion-dollar, endless stream of U.S. military aid, equipment and satellite reconnaissance and on U.S. and Western imperialist subsidies and investments.
A Jan. 4 Wall Street Journal article explained the larger stake in Israel’s recognition: “By extending diplomatic recognition to the breakaway statelet of Somaliland, Israel has cut a deal aimed at sharing intelligence and securing the strategic waterways of the Red Sea — making the country a player in the Horn of Africa, where Arab countries are jostling for influence.”
A Dec. 31 BBC article noted that Somaliland in return is likely to recognize the State of Israel. An Israeli think tank expects Somaliland to provide Israel with a military base and might be part of a larger plan to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza.
The recognition of Somaliland is viewed by African countries and Asian countries as an open provocation and a new effort to destabilize the entire region.
A key juncture between Africa and Asia
Somaliland lies on the crucial Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the vital shipping route on the Gulf of Aden, at the entrance to the Red Sea and directly across from Yemen. Significant amounts of global trade, including oil, pass through this strategic and narrow body of water. In solidarity with the Palestinian resistance, the Ansarullah government of Yemen has closed this area off to all ships taking supplies to Israel.
Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia that has operated autonomously for decades without international recognition, until Israel’s announcement on Friday, Dec. 26. No country in Africa has recognized Somaliland because of the destabilizing impact this could have on other countries where imperialist powers have long sought to break up fragile post-colonial countries.
Africa’s struggle to hold on to unity
Many different African nations and cultures were divided by competing European imperialism powers at the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 solely for their convenience. As the countries of Africa gained independence and broke official ties with the colonial rulers, they collectively decided in the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1964, not to redraw the borders imposed by the Berlin Conference. They took this step to avoid new rounds of wars among and between African nations.
These countries’ leaders knew that during such divisive wars, the imperialist powers would again try to play one nation off against another, to further weaken the newly independent states. This decision on “territorial integrity” had continued for decades until the division of Sudan in 2011, a division imposed by today’s imperialist powers.
Israel’s blatant intervention in this vital region and recognition of Somaliland has drawn a wave of global condemnations, with both African and West Asian countries and international organizations denouncing the move as a blatant violation of Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
A special meeting of the United Nations Security Council was convened Dec. 29 in response to Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. Addressing the Security Council, Somalia’s U.N. ambassador, Abu Bakr Dahir Osman, implored members to firmly reject Israel’s recognition as an act of aggression, which he said not only threatened to fragment Somalia, but also to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa and the Red Sea regions.
At the U.N. meeting, Somalia and the League of Arab states accused Israel of seeking to relocate displaced Palestinians from Gaza to Somaliland.
The United States was the only member of the 15-member U.N. Security Council that refused to condemn Israel’s recognition of the break-away region. Instead, Tammy Bruce, U.S. representative to the U.N., defended Israeli recognition of Somaliland. Bruce’s actions further confirmed the U.S. role, where Israel as the U.S. proxy acts in U.S. larger geo-political interests.
African and Asian countries denounce recognition
In a statement covered in trtafrika.com, the African Union denounced the recognition as provocative and a serious threat to regional security, saying it “risks setting a dangerous precedent with far-reaching implications for peace and stability across the continent.” The AU reaffirmed its firm commitment to Somalia’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity and its stance for “respect for the intangibility of borders inherited at independence.”
The Arab League rejected the move as a clear violation of international law. The Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit described the move as ‘‘provocative and a serious threat to regional security.’’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Esmaeil Baqaei warned that the recognition is part of Israel’s broader policy to destabilize the region and fuel insecurity in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as well as 21 Arab and Islamic countries, condemned Israel’s measure as a serious threat to international peace and security. Even Egypt raised concerns over security in the Red Sea, the body of water between Africa and Asia, with Egypt on the African side and Yemen on the Asian side.
The Palestinian resistance organization Hamas said the move reflects the depth of international isolation of Israel as a result of its genocidal crimes in Gaza.
The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah movement, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, noted that Israel seeks to use Somaliland for hostile activities against Somalia, other African countries and Yemen and to threaten the security of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Aggressive efforts by U.S. imperialism to destabilize Africa were seen the next day, Dec. 27, in the U.S. bombing strikes in Nigeria, in West Africa, on the border of the newly emerging Alliance of Sahel States. The AES had just announced its next steps in forging anti-imperialist unity.
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