Israel Has Been Trying to Take Over Part of Somalia for 80 Years. And Now Israel is About to Cause a Civil War in the Region. Let Me Explain.

This isn’t peace. It’s map-making, destabilization, and a long paper trail most people have never seen

Israel just became the one and only country on earth to recognize “Somaliland” as a sovereign state. The U.N. Security Council convened an emergency meeting. The African Union condemned it. Regional governments erupted. And if you think this is some quirky diplomatic stunt, you’re missing what’s happening.

Because this isn’t just a move. It’s a method.

Before I break it down, I want to ask you from the heart to become a member today. I keep this work free for the world—for readers in Gaza, for students in public schools, for families living in deep poverty, for elders on fixed incomes—because a smaller circle of people who can afford it chooses to carry the cost. Please click here to become a memberand please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support keeps this work free for them, and even for you when you can’t afford to pay.

What Israel just did — and why it’s outrageous

The Washington Post reported that Israel signed a declaration—signed by Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar—recognizing the “Republic of Somaliland” as a “sovereign and independent state.” The Post noted that no other country recognizes Somaliland, and that Israel’s recognition made it a global outlier—so much so that the U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting.

That right there should tell you everything. If the entire planet refuses to recognize a breakaway region as a state, and Israel decides to do it anyway, this is not “shared values.” This is strategic disruption.

Somaliland is not some harmless symbolic issue. It sits on the Horn of Africa, across the Gulf of Aden, staring directly into one of the most sensitive maritime corridors on earth—shipping lanes tied to Yemen, the Red Sea, and global trade.

And the Post makes it explicit: Somaliland could serve as a staging ground for operations against Yemen’s Houthis, who attacked shipping in the Red Sea during the Gaza genocide. That’s not an accidental geographic benefit. That’s the point.

It gets worse.

The Post also reported that Somaliland was among places discussed by Israeli and U.S. officials as a possible destination for Palestinians expelled from Gaza—part of that sick, ongoing “where can we dump Gaza’s population” conversation that keeps surfacing in different forms. If you’ve been reading me for any amount of time, you already know: when people start talking about “relocation” under a siege and bombardment, they are describing ethnic cleansing with polite vocabulary.

So Israel’s recognition of Somaliland isn’t simply about Somalia. It’s about the whole region. It’s about the Red Sea. It’s about Yemen. It’s about Gaza. It’s about future leverage points—ports, bases, and political bargaining chips—used to shape who moves where and who controls what.

And the fallout was immediate. The Post notes Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, China, and many others signaled disapproval. The African Union warned this undermines Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Somalia’s president called it illegal aggression and said Somalia is “one: inseparable by division.”

That’s the diplomatic way of saying: you are trying to rip our map apart.

Now let me explain this in plain English, the way I’d explain it to a young student.

The modern world has a basic rule: countries can’t just take pieces of other countries because it’s convenient. That rule exists because without it, every powerful state becomes a border-rewriter and every smaller nation becomes a hunting ground. That’s why international law emphasizes territorial integrity—the idea that recognized borders can’t be altered by outside actors picking favorites and declaring a new state into existence.

Israel is blowing past that rule like it doesn’t exist. But that is what they do.

And I need you to see the deeper pattern: Israel has spent decades throwing the Middle East into a tailspin—starting wars, expanding occupation, sabotaging peace processes, and then demanding the world treat the chaos as “security needs.” Now it’s exporting that same destabilization logic into the Horn of Africa.

This isn’t accidental. It’s strategic.

It’s how you create leverage: you make the map unstable, then you position yourself as the indispensable player who can “manage” the instability you helped create.

That’s why Israel is alone in recognizing Somaliland. Because this move isn’t about what’s right. It’s about what’s useful.

The document that changes everything

Harrar Council :: Documents Showing Israel Wanted This Land 80+ Years Ago

4.16MB ∙ PDF file

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I want you to see this for yourself and save it.

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Now I want to show you something the public has largely never seen, and this is where @Tsedy (on X) deserves credit. She surfaced a 34-page document that is frankly one of the most revealing artifacts I’ve seen in a long time. I’m embedding the full document in this post so you can read it yourself.

The document describes something called the “Harrar Council—Council for an Autonomous Jewish Province in Harrar.” It dates back to the 1940s. And it lays out, in black and white, a plan to create a Jewish state project tied directly to the Horn of Africa—by linking Harrar territory with British Somaliland.

Here is the line that should stop you cold, because it is not vague or metaphorical. It says:

“My proposal is to unite the so-called HARRAR-territory of Ethiopia with part of British-Somaliland and create there a state for the European Jews.”

I’m going to quote it again, because you need to feel how explicit it is:

“Unite… Harrar… with part of British-Somaliland.”
“Create there a state.”

This isn’t an internet rumor. This is a printed plan.

And it gets even more specific. The document speaks about ensuring “free access to the sea” through the ports of Berbera and Zeila—ports that sit on the very coastline that today is called Somaliland.

So when people act like Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is some new opportunistic move that came out of nowhere, understand: this region has been in the imagination of Zionist statecraft and strategic planning for generations.

Now, I’m going to be careful and honest.

The modern State of Israel did not exist in the 1940s. So I’m not going to pretend this is the exact same government running a continuous operation with a straight line of command.

But I am going to say something that is both fair and devastating: this document proves that the idea of anchoring Jewish state power and Jewish state logistics in this exact region—Harrar plus British Somaliland ports—was being openly discussed and proposed over 80 years ago.

And when a state does something today that matches an old blueprint—when it becomes the lone country to recognize Somaliland and pushes the region toward instability—we have every right to say: this is not random. This is a recurring strategic instinct.

The instinct is simple: find a choke point, find a corridor, find an outlet to the sea, find a partner or a breakaway region you can elevate, and then build influence that outlives governments and headlines.

That is how empires think.

And it’s especially revealing when this document’s logic is paired with the Washington Post’s reporting that Somaliland could be used as a staging ground tied to Yemen and the Red Sea—and was even floated in conversations about expelling Palestinians from Gaza.

If you want to understand why the Horn of Africa is suddenly being pulled into Israel’s orbit, you can’t only look at today’s press releases. You have to look at the long paper trail of strategic imagination. That’s what this document is.

And it’s why I’m embedding it.

How this throws the region into chaos—on purpose

Let’s talk about the consequences.

Somalia is on the U.N. Security Council. It’s set to take the rotating presidency. The region is already strained by conflicts in Yemen and Sudan. The Red Sea has been one of the most militarized corridors on earth because of the genocide in Gaza and the fallout from it.

Now Israel has injected a new destabilizer: unilateral recognition of a breakaway region, directly challenging the territorial integrity of an African state, while positioning itself closer to Yemen and global shipping lanes.

That’s not “peace.” That’s escalation by paperwork.

And because Israel is doing it alone, the message is: I don’t need consensus. I don’t need law. I don’t need the African Union. I don’t need the U.N. I’ll rewrite what I want, and everyone else can react.

This is exactly how Israel has operated throughout the Middle East. Create facts on the ground, let the world complain, and then demand that the world adapt to the new reality.

It’s the same playbook in Palestine: seize land, build settlements, declare “security,” and then act shocked that people resist dispossession.

Now it’s being deployed on the Horn of Africa map.

And once a region is destabilized, it becomes easier to justify militarization, bases, covert activity, alliances of convenience, and “security partnerships.” The chaos becomes the permission slip.

That’s why I’m saying Israel is throwing the region into a tailspin on purpose. The point isn’t stability. The point is leverage.

The moral line

Family, I’m not writing this as an abstract geopolitics lesson. I’m writing it because I’m tired of watching the world pretend these moves are disconnected.

Gaza has endured over two years of genocide. The West Bank and East Jerusalem are being emptied village by village. Humanitarian organizations are being pushed out. Courts are being bullied. Aid is being choked. And now Israel is expanding its destabilization playbook to another region that already has enough suffering to last a lifetime.

If you’ve ever wondered how a genocide can continue so long, look at the machinery around it: the diplomacy, the recognition games, the strategic corridors, the deals, the propaganda, the long-term projects that outlive outrage cycles.

This Somaliland recognition is part of that machinery.

And the Harrar Council document proves the public is walking into a story that is older than most of us have been alive.

If you want me to keep doing this work—digging up the receipts, connecting the dots responsibly, and telling the truth in a way that’s readable but rigorous—I need you with me. Please click here to become a member and please click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. I keep this work free for the world, but I can only do that if some of you decide to carry it.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

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