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What Jewish voters need to know about Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican running for president
(JTA) – In late April, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Jerusalem, voicing support for Israeli West Bank settlements, touting a law he had just signed giving families thousands of dollars per year in private school tuition vouchers and signing a bill that increased penalties for antisemitic harassment.
Two weeks later, his education department rejected two new textbooks on the Holocaust as part of a clampdown on what he has called “woke indoctrination.”
Those two developments may anchor the Jewish arguments for and against DeSantis as he stands on the cusp of announcing a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
Supporters paint him as a steadfast ally of Israel who speaks to the pocketbook concerns of Jewish families. In the years since he became Florida’s governor in 2019, the state has seen an influx of Orthodox Jews, drawn both by lax pandemic policies and the promise of discounted day school tuition.
But DeSantis’ opponents portray him as a cultural reactionary whose anti-“woke” politics are inhibiting education on the Holocaust and antisemitism — along with teaching about race, gender and sexuality. He has repeatedly condemned George Soros, the progressive megadonor who is an avatar of right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theories. Surveys show that his near-total restriction of abortion rights is unpopular with Jews nationally.
And hanging over the campaign is the candidacy of former President Donald Trump, who is running for a second term, is leading in the polls — and shares much in common with DeSantis even as he has attacked him.
While DeSantis’ allies have played up some of their differences (such as DeSantis’ youth and military service), when it comes to their respective records on issues of interest to Jewish voters, Trump and DeSantis are less distinct.
Each has sought to cultivate Jewish support by focusing on Israel and erasing church-state separations that, Orthodox Jewish leaders argue, inhibit religious freedoms. And both have attracted white nationalist supporters while leaning into the culture wars.
DeSantis is set to officially announce his campaign in a chat with Elon Musk, who was just condemned by a wide range of Jewish figures (and defended by a handful of others) for tweeting that Soros “hates humanity.”
Here’s what you need to know about DeSantis’s Jewish record:
He has been an outspoken booster of Israel.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at a Jerusalem Post conference at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on April 27, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
DeSantis, a Catholic, has a visceral affinity for Israel, and has framed his support for the country in religious terms.
“When I took office, I promised to make Florida the most pro-Israel state in the United States, and we have been able to deliver on that promise,” he said this week, addressing evangelical Christians at the National Religious Broadcasting Convention in Orlando, The Jerusalem Post reported.
He likes to tell audiences that on his first visit to Israel as a U.S. congressman, his wife Casey scooped up water from the Sea of Galilee into an empty bottle to save for baptisms. The couple had yet to have children.
The water came in handy for the baptisms of their first and second children, but after DeSantis was elected governor, staff at his residence cleared away the unremarkable bottle (which was still half full) after their second child was baptized in 2019. Not long afterward, DeSantis mentioned the minor fiasco in passing at a synagogue in Boca Raton, and before he knew it people were sending him bottles of water from Israel.
The gesture still moves him. “I was sent, all the way from Israel, this beautiful big glass jar filled with water from the Sea of Galilee that sat on my desk in the governor’s office in Tallahassee until our third child was born and baptized, and we used that water to do it,” DeSantis said last month when he visited Israel.
DeSantis made Israel a focus when he was congressman, taking a leading role in advocating for moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He was among a group of lawmakers who toured Jerusalem in March 2017 and was bold enough to pick out what he said would be the likeliest site.
In November of that year, as chairman of the House national security subcommittee, he convened a hearing on what he called the necessity of moving the embassy. The following month, Trump announced the move, and the site the Trump administration chose was the one DeSantis had identified.
In May 2019, just months after becoming governor, DeSantis convened his state cabinet in Jerusalem and gave a definition of antisemitism favored by the pro-Israel community the force of law. The same year, he banned government officials from using Airbnb after the vacation rental broker removed listings in West Bank settlements. DeSantis’ blacklisting of the company was seen was key to Airbnb reversing the decision.
He’s garnered allies — and enemies — among Florida’s Jews.
DeSantis has done much to cultivate support in Florida’s growing Orthodox community, which shares his enthusiasm for bringing faith into government.
In 2021, DeSantis came to a Chabad synagogue in Surfside to sign two bills, one affording state recognition to Hatzalah, the Jewish ambulance service, and the other tasking all Florida public schools with setting aside a daily moment of silence, long a key initiative of the Chabad movement.
In his first gubernatorial campaign in 2018, DeSantis campaigned on steering state money to religious day schools. This year he made good on the promise, signing a law that makes $7,800 in scholarship funds available annually to schoolchildren across the state, regardless of income, and to be used at their school of choice.
DeSantis also has plenty of Jewish enemies in a state where the majority of the Jewish community votes for Democrats.
In his first term, he had a contentious relationship with Nikki Fried, a Democrat who, as agriculture commissioner, was one of the four ministers in the Cabinet who had a vote. DeSantis maneuvered to freeze her out of the decision-making process.
Fried, who describes herself as a “good Jewish girl from Miami,” now chairs the state’s Democratic Party. She routinely calls DeSantis a fascist. In April, she was arrested at an abortion rights protest outside Tallahassee’s City Hall.
Under DeSantis, Florida has prohibited abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. That stance has set him up for clashes with other prominent Jews in the state as well. Last year, he suspended Andrew Warren, a Jewish state attorney, because Warren pledged not to prosecute individuals who seek or provide abortions after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
L’Dor Va-Dor, a synagogue in Boynton Beach, spearheaded the first lawsuit filed against Florida’s abortion ban in 2022, citing religious freedom arguments. Daniel Uhlfelder, a Jewish lawyer who drew attention when he dressed as the Grim Reaper to protest DeSantis’s reopening of the beaches during the pandemic, signed on as an attorney for the synagogue.
His “war on woke” has had implications on Holocaust education.
Recently, much of DeSantis’ tenure has been defined by what he calls the “war on woke,” a term originated by Black Americans to describe awareness of racial inequity but now more often functions as shorthand for conservative criticism of progressive values. DeSantis has enacted multiple pieces of legislation restricting what can be taught in schools and has also limited transgender rights, banning gender-affirming medical care for children.
While most of the books challenged under DeSantis’ education laws have focused on race and gender, the study of the Holocaust has been affected as well. In addition to the education department’s rejection of the Holocaust textbooks this month, Florida laws that make teachers liable for teaching inappropriate content to students have led multiple school districts to take Holocaust novels off the shelves, including a graphic novel adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary.
DeSantis calls claims that he’s chilling Holocaust education “fake narratives.” He and his defenders point to his requiring all Florida public schools to certify that they teach about the Holocaust.
Neo-Nazi and white supremacist activity has increased under his watch.
A recent report from the Anti-Defamation League described an upward trend of extremist and antisemitic activity in the Sunshine State, driven in part by emerging white supremacist groups — some of whom have gone to bat for DeSantis in the past.
DeSantis has been dogged by accusations that he caters to the far right. One of the most stinging exchanges in the 2018 election season came when Andrew Gillum, DeSantis’s Democratic opponent in the race, accused DeSantis of not being forceful enough in renouncing the white nationalists who expressed support for him in robocalls.
“First of all, he’s got neo-Nazis helping him out in this state,” Gillum said. “Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.” DeSantis flinched.
DeSantis eked out a victory a few weeks later, and was soundly reelected last year, but he remains sensitive on the issue. Last year, when neo-Nazis intimidated Orlando’s Jews with signs and shouts at an overpass, politicians in the state reflexively condemned them. A reporter asked DeSantis why he had not done so, and after calling the neo-Nazis “jackasses,” the governor said the question was a “smear” and added, “We’re not playing that game.” (Several months later, the leader of the antisemitic propaganda group Goyim Defense League moved from California to Florida, saying he thought the Sunshine State would be more hospitable to his efforts.)
DeSantis has also called liberal prosecutors “Soros-funded”. It’s not an unusual political gambit — the billionaire Jewish liberal donor does fund progressives running for prosecutor. But Soros has also been the focus of multiple conspiracy theories that antisemitism watchdogs say are antisemitic, casting the Holocaust survivor as a malign influence with excessive power.
Some Jewish donors are already supporting him.
DeSantis appeared last year at a conference in New York of Jewish conservatives, where he talked to a friendly audience about his war against the “woke” and was also conveniently in the room with some of the most generous Republican donors.
He is reportedly working some of those donors, who gave generously to his gubernatorial runs. He was a star last November at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual Las Vegas confab, and Axios reported that he met with Miriam Adelson, the widow of GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson, as well as other Jewish donors when he was in Jerusalem last month.
A number of them are hanging back, not wanting to alienate Trump while he remains influential in the party. (Adelson has said she does not want to weigh in on the primaries.)
Among the Jewish donors and fundraisers said to be in DeSantis’s camp: Jay Zeidman, a onetime Jewish White House liaison who is now a Houston based businessman; Gabriel Groisman, a lawyer who is the former mayor of Bal Harbor; and Fred Karlinsky, a leading insurance lawyer.
Last week, Jewish conservative political commentator Dave Rubin tweeted that DeSantis would bring “Freedom, sanity and competency” to the country. Groisman shared the tweet with the word “This.”
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The post What Jewish voters need to know about Ron DeSantis, the Florida Republican running for president appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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New York City Mayor’s Office Releases Antisemitism Report as Jews Brace for Mamdani Administration
New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the Unisphere in the Queens borough of New York City, US, Nov. 5, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
New York City on Wednesday released its first mayoral report on antisemitism amid major looming changes to the city’s government, which will soon be in the hands of an avowed democratic socialist who has made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career and been accused of promoting antisemitic rhetoric.
Unveiled by the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism, which was established in May, the document arrived hours before Zohran Mamdani is inaugurated to become the next mayor of New York City on Thursday.
Mamdani, an anti-Zionist, is an avid supporter of boycotting all Israeli-tied entities. He has repeatedly accused Israel of “apartheid” and “genocide”; refused to recognize the country’s right to exist as a Jewish state; and refused to explicitly condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” which has been associated with calls for violence against Jews and Israelis worldwide.
The new report, replete with statistics showing a connection between anti-Zionism and historic surges in antisemitic violence, reads as a rebuke of the nexus of ideas which forms the worldview of Mamdani and his subordinates.
It defends the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which Mamdani has accused of “chilling free speech.” It denounces the boycott, divest, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel as discrimination based on “race, creed, color” and other immutable characteristics. Mamdani supports BDS, calling it “consistent with the core of my politics.” Additionally, the report argues that anti-Zionism is antisemitic, a statement with which Mamdani disagrees — in 2021 he said, “Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism.”
“The connection between Jewish identity and the Land of Israel is not political preference but religious and cultural foundation extending back millennia,” the report says. “The practical consequence of anti-Zionist rhetoric is the dehumanization of Zionists (the vast majority of Jewish people) and the dehumanization of all Jewish people. When Zionism itself is characterized as racist or illegitimate, Jewish people become targets for hostility and violence. This dynamic helps explain why attacks on Israel’s legitimacy correlate with increased antisemitic incidents in the diaspora, targeting all Jewish people regardless of their politics.”
It adds, “Understanding modern antisemitism requires recognizing that Jewish identity is intrinsically tied to Israel. Municipal responses that fail to account for this dimension misunderstand the contemporary manifestation of this ancient hatred.”
Despite such statements in the report, Mamdani’s transition and administrative appointees have histories of antisemitic rhetoric, support for terrorist groups, or affiliations with organizations hostile to Israel and the Jewish community, according to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
In a detailed document released last week, the ADL said it reviewed more than 400 individuals appointed on Nov. 24 to serve on 17 transition committees responsible for staffing the incoming administration and shaping its policy agenda. The ADL said at least 20 percent of these appointees have either a “documented history of making anti-Israel statements” or ties to radical anti-Zionist organizations that “openly promote terror and harass Jewish people.”
More broadly, Mamdani’s administration will be staffed with lawyers who have defended al Qaeda members, advocated mandatory housing for the deluge of undocumented migrants straining the city’s public services, and as previously reported by The Algemeiner, would have included a woman who once fulminated on social media against who she described as “money hungry Jews” if the comments had not been revealed by the ADL and led to her resignation.
Other members of Mamdani’s team hold ties to the Nation of Islam, whose leader has called Judaism a “gutter religion”; participated in the anti-Israel encampments which convulsed higher education campuses following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel; and have been photographed promoting Hamas by brandishing its symbol, an inverted red triangle.
Mamdani will be sworn in as mayor amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City.
Jews were targeted in the majority (54 percent) of all hate crimes perpetrated in New York City in 2024, according to data issued by the New York City Police Department (NYPD). This week’s report from the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism noted that figure rose to a staggering 62 percent in the first quarter of this year, despite Jewish New Yorkers comprising just 11 percent of the city’s population.
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, antisemitic hate crimes have eroded the quality of life of New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community, which is the target in many, if not most, antisemitic incidents. In just eight days between the end of October and the beginning of November 2024, three Hasidim, including children, were brutally assaulted in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. In one instance, an Orthodox man was accosted by two assailants, one masked, who “chased and beat him” after he refused to surrender his cellphone in compliance with what appeared to have been an attempted robbery. In another incident, an African American male smacked a 13-year-old Jewish boy who was commuting to school on his bike in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Less than a week earlier, an assailant slashed a visibly Jewish man in the face as he was walking in Brooklyn.
In 2025, New Yorkers have seen organized antisemitic harassment. Last month, hundreds of people amassed outside a prominent New York City synagogue and clamored for violence against Jews.
Mamdani issued a statement which “discouraged” the extreme rhetoric used by the protesters but did not unequivocally condemn the harassment of Jews outside their own house of worship. Mamdani’s office notably also criticized the synagogue, with his team describing the event inside as a “violation of international law.” The protesters were harassing those attending an event being held by Nefesh B’Nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel, at Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.
In the new mayoral report, the outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, uttering what will be one of his final public statements as New York City’s chief executive, said it is the job of both the government and the people to oppose antisemitism.
“New York City is home to the largest Jewish community outside of Israel — a point of pride and a responsibility,” he wrote. “Antisemitism is not only a Jewish problem — it tests our city’s character. I invite you to read this report as both a record of what we have done and a blueprint for what we must continue to do: confront hate with moral clarity, back words with action, and ensure every New Yorker knows that in this city, hate has no home.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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London Cafe Owner Features Face of Alleged Hamas Operative on Outdoor Chairs
Demonstrators attend the “Lift The Ban” rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, Sept. 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Jasso
In London, a restaurant which has fashioned itself as a hotspot for anti-Israel advocacy has put forth a new provocation with the decision to feature images of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, a Palestinian pediatrician and neonatologist who was allegedly a key figure in facilitating Hamas’s terrorist operations, on the backs of chairs facing the sidewalks.
On Monday, Heidi Bachram — a Brighton, England-based, pro-Israel writer and social media personality with more than 51,000 followers — shared a video on X of Shakeshuka, a Palestinian eatery, showing off the face of Abu Safiya.
“Shakeshuka guy put the face of a Hamas Colonel on chairs outside his cafe in London,” Bachram posted. “This place is a five-minute walk from a popular Jewish restaurant. He’s despicable.”
The accompanying video shows owner Haleem Kherallah standing outside of his establishment, a self-described “Palestinian Kitchen,” with images of Abu Safiya attached to the backs of wooden chairs with woven seats.
Shakeshuka guy put the face of a Hamas Colonel on chairs outside his cafe in London. This place is a five minute walk from a popular Jewish restaurant. He’s despicable. pic.twitter.com/G5OplXSvYB
— Heidi Bachram
(@HeidiBachram) December 29, 2025
The restaurant declares itself “a home, a hub, a heartbeat.” At the top of its homepage, a large video features readings from Palestinian activists and poets.
“Over the years, Shakeshuka has become more than a space, it’s a community,” the website states. “A gathering point for authors, artists, activists, filmakers [sic], changemakers, and everyone who stands with Palestine, united in their voice, their creativity, and their commitment to justice. In these walls, conversations have sparked, connections have grown, and the fight for peace has been held with strength, dignity, and hope.”
The restaurant’s homepage describes ShakeShuka as “the brainchild of Haleem Kherallah from Palestine” and explains how he draws inspiration “from his mother’s cherished recipes and the bountiful fresh ingredients found in Palestine.” ShakeShuka calls itself “a unique dining experience in the heart of London” and “the first Palestinian restaurant in the city” which offers that with “every bite, diners are transported to the authentic tastes of Palestine.”
In June, ShakeShuka attracted attention for its anti-Israel advocacy when video emerged of customers celebrating during an Iranian missile attack against Tel Aviv.
Kherallah “operates as a Palestinian activist, making it shocking that such an establishment exists in central London,” Dr. Amira Halperin, a professor at the University of Nottingham who researches terrorism, said at the time, according to Israel Hayom.
Halperin described how “walking into the restaurant just one day after the terrorist attack against two Israeli diplomats in Washington felt like entering a Hamas command center.”
“Gaza photographs and anti-Israel messaging covered the walls,” Halperin observed. “Tables displayed Palestinian flag colors alongside ‘save Gaza’ slogans. One image promoted an ‘Apartheid Free Zone’ campaign connected to the BDS movement. The owner actively participates in Cage International alongside attorney Fahad Ansari, who represents Hamas in legal proceedings seeking to remove the organization from Britain’s terrorist list. Moussa Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official, directs the case and advises the legal team.”
Advocating on behalf of Abu Safiya has become a popular cause in the pro-Hamas support network around the world. On Monday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) released a statement calling on the Trump administration to “demand” the Abu Safiya, describing him as “the Gazan doctor who walked toward Israeli tanks in an iconic video, and who has been held for one year without charge or trial after being kidnapped by Israeli forces.”
Last December, Israel arrested Abu Safiya and several other people while conducting a raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military was fighting Hamas terrorists. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it arrested Abu Safiya because he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.” The IDF also insisted that the hospital has been used as a “command and control center” for the Palestinian terrorist group.
The following month, a new report citing terrorists’ confessions revealed Israeli hostages were held in Kamal Adwan hospital, where the Israeli raid had uncovered a sprawling network of terrorists operating within the hospital’s walls, leading to the detention of over 240 Hamas terrorists, some of whom admitted that the facility was used as a base for Hamas operations.
Israeli forces also discovered that Abu Safiya was actively complicit in Hamas’s terrorist activities. As interrogations of detainees progressed, it became clear that the doctor was more than just a passive observer — he was a key figure in facilitating Hamas operations, according to Israel. Despite his alleged involvement in the group’s actions, however, an international campaign emerged since then to call for his release, a movement spurred by his media appearances throughout the war.
“We realized that the person at the heart of it all, the one organizing the terrorism and Hamas activities within the compound, was the hospital director himself,” Lt. (res.) D., a field investigator in military intelligence, told Israel’s Channel 12 news in January, referring to Abu Safiya. “The world must understand that there is close and clear cooperation between the medical team and the senior leadership of the terrorist organization: they cynically exploit our desire to avoid harming the helpless and use the medical platform to establish a base for terrorism.”
Terrorists inside the facility reportedly distributed grenades, mortars, and equipment for ambushing IDF troops.
On Saturday, the Qatari network Al Jazeera uploaded a video of Abu Safiya’s son pleading for his father’s release. The House of Thani monarchy in Qatar has long funded Hamas and offered safe harbor to Muslim Brotherhood leadership.
On Dec. 22, the Middle East Monitor published an op-ed by Adnan Hmidan, chair of the Palestinian Forum in Britain, declaring that Abu Safiya deserves the title of “Hostage of the Year 2025.”
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Somaliland already operates as a de facto state. So why is Israel’s recognition of it so controversial?
Last week, Israel became the first nation in the world to recognize Somaliland as a country, prompting global outcry and an emergency meeting of the United Nations.
The de facto state on the northern coast of the Horn of Africa has long operated independent of Somalia, but before Israel’s announcement, its sovereignty had not been officially recognized by any UN members.
After the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime in Somalia in 1991, Somaliland declared independence. The breakaway region has its own democratically elected government, military, currency, license plates and passports. It is often lauded for bringing relative stability to the region, with a record of peaceful transfers of power, though it is still only rated “partly free” by Freedom House amid crackdowns on journalists.
Somaliland also benefits from relative social cohesion, with the Isaaq clan comprising the majority of the population— a factor which has contributed to its stability in a clan-based society, according to Seth Kaplan, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who has researched Somaliland.
Somalia, however, considers Somaliland to be part of its territory, and slammed Israel’s recognition as an “illegal act” that undermines the region’s stability.
Is the recognition illegal?
There is no international law that bars countries from unilaterally recognizing a state. But countries generally consider international norms, including deference to the preservation of existing borders so as to prevent cascading secessionist conflicts.
The African Union has been especially committed to this principle, adamant that post-colonial borders remain intact to avoid instability and ever-changing lines.
“Any attempt to undermine the unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Somalia runs counter to the fundamental principles of the African Union and risks setting a dangerous precedent with far-reaching implications for peace and stability across the continent,” Nuur Mohamud Sheekh, spokesperson for the African Union, wrote in a statement.
In Somalia’s case, its border disputes trace to the late 19th century, when the north was governed by Britain as British Somaliland, the south by Italy as Italian Somaliland, and the area that is now Djibouti by France as French Somaliland. In 1960, the British and Italian territories gained independence and united to form the Somali Republic.
In Somalia, tens of thousands of people protested against the recognition, many waving Somali flags. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also called Israel’s move to recognize Somaliland illegal.
At the same time, there is no blanket ban on recognizing breakaway states that challenge existing borders: Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, and more than 100 UN member states, including the United States, recognize it. Serbia does not, nor do five European Union countries, which have cited concerns that recognition could embolden separatist movements within their own countries.
Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador to the UN Tammy Bruce accused the international body of applying double standards when it comes to unilateral recognition, noting that several countries have independently recognized Palestine as a state without triggering emergency UN meetings.
Somaliland’s bid for recognition is bolstered by the fact that it already functionally operates as a relatively stable, autonomous state, according to Kaplan. It meets many of the widely cited criteria for statehood, including a permanent population, a defined territory, and an independent government.
“In general, I support those norms of not recognizing breakaway states,” Kaplan said. “But if there’s one country or one state in the world that deserves it, this would be the one place.”
Israel’s goals
For others, resistance to Somaliland’s independence appears less driven by objections to Somaliland’s sovereignty than by opposition to Israel’s goals in the region.
While Israel’s exact motivations remain unclear, Kaplan said the move seems intended to secure a strategically important foothold in the Horn of Africa. As part of the recognition, Somaliland has agreed to join the Abraham Accords, a series of normalization agreements between Israel and Muslim-majority nations.
“From the Israeli perspective, this is going to be a base that it can leverage to get a better handle on Yemen, as well as anything that Iran or other rivals of Israel might be doing in the Red Sea,” Kaplan said.
There is also fear about ulterior Israeli motives, with Israel having reportedly contacted Somaliland about sending Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza to the region. Somaliland denied that such a discussion took place.
Even in Somaliland, some residents expressed disappointment that the long-awaited recognition came from Israel of all countries, though most coverage has depicted scenes of celebration.
“It would be less controversial if Ethiopia or the UAE had done it,” Kaplan said. “But for the people of Somaliland, you can understand why they might be happy with this decision by the Israeli government.”
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