Two situations tend to warrant emergency meetings of the United Nations Security Council: genuine crises and Israel doing something that council members dislike.
On Dec. 26, Israel became the first country to recognize the independence of Somaliland, a quiet corner of northwestern Somalia that has enjoyed de facto self-rule since 1991. So the Security Council held the second kind of emergency meeting.
Somalia’s U.N. representative, Abukar Osman, described Israel’s decision to recognize the breakaway republic as “a flagrant assault” and an “act of aggression,” which threatens “the unity and the territorial integrity of Somalia.”
“No external actor has the legitimacy or authority to alter the unity, the sovereignty or territorial configuration of Somalia or any other sovereign state,” Osman told the Security Council. “Israel’s actions not only set a dangerous precedent but also pose a serious threat to regional and international peace and security.”
JNS spoke on Tuesday with Bashir Goth, Somaliland’s representative in the United States, about what Israeli recognition means for
‘Israel was always on our side,’ Somaliland envoy in Washington says
“Somaliland’s history will be divided in two: the history before recognition and the history after recognition by Israel,” Bashir Goth told JNS.
Andrew Bernard
Residents in downtown Hargeisa wave Somaliland flags as they celebrate Israel’s announcement recognizing the nation’s statehood, Dec. 26, 2025. Photo by Farhan Aleli/AFP via Getty Images.Residents in downtown Hargeisa wave Somaliland flags as they celebrate Israel’s announcement recognizing the nation’s statehood, Dec. 26, 2025. Photo by Farhan Aleli/AFP via Getty Images.
On Dec. 26, Israel became the first country to recognize the independence of Somaliland, a quiet corner of northwestern Somalia that has enjoyed de facto self-rule since 1991. So the Security Council held the second kind of emergency meeting.
Somalia’s U.N. representative, Abukar Osman, described Israel’s decision to recognize the breakaway republic as “a flagrant assault” and an “act of aggression,” which threatens “the unity and the territorial integrity of Somalia.”
“No external actor has the legitimacy or authority to alter the unity, the sovereignty or territorial configuration of Somalia or any other sovereign state,” Osman told the Security Council. “Israel’s actions not only set a dangerous precedent but also pose a serious threat to regional and international peace and security.”
JNS spoke on Tuesday with Bashir Goth, Somaliland’s representative in the United States, about what Israeli recognition means for his nascent country.
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“Somaliland’s history will be divided into two: the history before recognition and the history after recognition by Israel,” Goth told JNS.
“It was a moment that we had been waiting for 35 years for,” Goth said. “It was a very exciting moment and a sweet surprise for me and for millions of Somalilanders.”
“It was a moral acknowledgement of Somaliland’s past and a strategic endorsement for its present reality as a democratic, peaceful and stable country,” Goth told JNS.
The United Kingdom granted Somaliland independence in 1960 before the territory joined a union with Italy’s former colony days later to form Somalia.
Goth said that Somaliland’s relationship with Israel dates to those first days of independence.
“When we go back to June 26, 1960, when Somaliland became independent, Israel was the first country that recognized Somaliland,” Goth said. “Israel is also a like-minded democracy. We almost have the same values. Israel was always on our side, on our radar.”
The current iteration of Somaliland declared independence in 1991, after the end of an independence war, in which Somali dictator Siad Barre ordered the destruction of Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa, and the murder of tens of thousands of civilians in what is widely referred to as the Isaaq genocide, named for one of Somaliland’s largest clans and the target of the massacre.
The collapse of Barre’s regime prompted a civil war in Somalia from which the country has never fully recovered. To the extent that they are able to govern, Somalia’s leaders run the country from a heavily fortified compound around the presidential palace in Mogadishu. Somalia’s al-Qaeda affiliate, al-Shabaab, controls much of the country outside the capital.
Somaliland, by contrast, has created relative security and stability in the territory it governs, and al-Shabaab has virtually no presence there.
Goth told JNS that the federal government’s weakness is one reason why he’s not worried about a military response to Israel recognizing his country.
“The Mogadishu government would have attacked Somaliland if they had the ability and the power. They don’t have the power,” Goth said. “The president of Mogadishu cannot move from his office to the airport without a huge security detail.”
“If they had power, they would have defeated al-Shabaab,” he said.
Firmly in the pro-Western camp
The Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region have become a critical area for outside powers to vie for influence, with the United States and China putting naval bases in Djibouti and Middle Eastern countries like Turkey, Iran and the Gulf Arab states projecting their rivalries into Yemen and Somalia itself.
Goth said that Somaliland has placed itself firmly in the pro-Western camp, which Israel’s recognition should reinforce.
“We would like, as a young country that is seeking international recognition, to have good relations with all countries all over the world,” Goth said. “But we are a democratic country. We have a free-market economy. We have all the values that democratic countries in the world have.”
“We are in the same league as the United States, as Israel, as any other country that practices democracy and freedom of speech and has a free-market economy,” he said.
Goth added that Somaliland is a counter to China in the Horn of Africa.
“We don’t have any relations with China,” he said. “We have strong engagement with Taiwan.”
Goth noted that Somaliland and Eswatini are the only two African countries that recognize Taiwan, and that Somaliland has not indebted itself to China in exchange for infrastructure projects like other countries in the region.
“China actually is very hostile to us,” he said. “We see ourselves in the block of the United States, Israel, the United Arab Emirates—those kinds of like-minded countries.”
Goth is Somaliland’s representative to the United States but has not been officially received as an ambassador, because the United States does not recognize Somaliland.
A 2024 Washington Diplomat profile of Goth describes how he, like the representatives of other such countries that seek but do not have official recognition from Washington, has to meet administration officials outside of their official offices at coffee shops and other informal venues.
Tammy Bruce, U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, dismissed the Security Council’s meeting on Monday, saying that it would “distract from serious work” and that “Israel has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state.”
“Earlier this year, several countries, including members of this council, made the unilateral decision to recognize a nonexistent Palestinian state,” Bruce said. “Yet no emergency meeting was called to express this council’s outrage.”
Bruce suggested, however, that the United States was not moving closer to recognizing Somaliland.
“On the matter of Somaliland, we have no announcement to make regarding U.S. recognition of Somaliland,” she said. “There has been no change in American policy.”
Still, Goth said that the U.S. response was “encouraging” and that the Trump administration’s willingness to cut through diplomatic formulae at the United Nations and elsewhere is a positive sign.
“I think that really helps us, because whether it’s the United Nations or the African Union or the Arab League, these are clubs,” he said. “Clubs have their own rules and norms that are very obsolete.”
Goth cited the Biden administration’s “one-Somalia policy” as one such norm that ought to be challenged.
“The State Department came up with this idea of a single-Somalia policy, which was a copy-paste from the single-China policy, vis-a-vis Taiwan,” Goth said. “That was problematic, because every statement they made, whatever they wrote, they were just putting within the single-Somalia policy.”
“This time, with the Trump administration, the policies are still being developed, but I think that will disappear,” Goth said. “We expect that recognition will come.”
The United States could also take steps towards cooperation with Somaliland that fall short of full recognition. In December, the head of U.S. African Command visited Somaliland for talks about joint counter-terror efforts in the region, which could increase.
That cooperation may become more important amid threats from al-Shabaab and Yemen’s Houthis to retaliate against Somaliland following Israel’s recognition, and efforts by regional actors to force Somaliland into the frame of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At the United Nations, Somalia’s representative claimed without evidence that Israel intended to expel Palestinians from Gaza to Somaliland, a charge that Goth denied.
“It’s false and just creating a bogeyman for the international community, especially for the Muslim and Arab world,” Goth said. “It never happened.”
“Somaliland’s recognition by Israel is not connected to any agreement or understanding about resettling Palestinians in Somaliland,” he said. “Our engagement is focusing solely on diplomatic, economic and security cooperation and other benefits.”
After Israel recognized Somaliland, unconfirmed videos on social media purported to show a Somali police colonel in Mogadishu leading a crowd in chants of “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud,” an Arabic slogan about massacring Jews.
Goth said he was “shocked” by the antisemitic video.
“I don’t know whether that will lead them in the Somali government to be their official rhetoric, strategy or policy, or whether that’s just an incident that happened out of anger at that moment, but that’s a very bad development,” Goth said. “I don’t know whether it’s something ingrained, or whether they are kind of trying to counter al-Shabaab in that way, but that’s what happens there.”
“That’s not Somaliland, that’s Somalia,” he added.
Israeli recognition of Muslim countries has sometimes produced cold results. The 1979 peace agreement with Egypt ended decades of war but did not create friendly relations between Israelis and Egyptians. The Iranian government under the Shah was once a close partner of Israel, but today the Islamic Republic is one of Israel’s most dangerous foes.
Goth told JNS that Somalilanders want a close and friendly relationship with the Jewish state.
“The celebration of the Somaliland people in Hargeisa and other cities of Somaliland went on for days,” he said. “Even the religious establishment in Somaliland, the ulema,” the religious scholars, “came out in strong support of this recognition and relations between Somaliland and Israel.”
“This is a genuine feeling of the people,” he said. “This is what we want.”
Source JNS
