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Bosnian Jews mourn Moris Albahari, one of Sarajevo’s last Ladino speakers
(JTA) — Moris Albahari, a Holocaust survivor, former partisan fighter and one of the last Ladino speakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s dwindling Jewish community, passed away at the age of 93 last month.
It is believed that he was one of four native Ladino speakers remaining in a country where the Judeo-Spanish language once flourished and was spoken by luminaries like Flory Jagoda, the grande dame of Ladino song, and Laura Bohoretta, the founder of a uniquely Sephardic feminist movement in Bosnia.
Bosnia’s small Jewish community — with barely 900 members throughout the country, 500 of whom live in Sarajevo — are mourning the loss of a living link to communal memory as well as a dear friend.
“From you, uncle Moco, I learned a lot about Judaism, about life, about nature and especially about people. About both the good and the evil,” Igor Kožemjakin, the cantor of the Sarajevo Jewish community, wrote in a memorial post on Facebook, referring to Moris as “Čika,” or uncle, a term of endearment in Bosnian.
“It is a terrible loss, especially for Sarajevo. Our community is very small, especially after the Holocaust,” Eliezer Papo, a Sarajevo-born Jew and scholar of Ladino language and literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We’re not speaking just in terms of prominent members of the community, we’re speaking in terms of family members. Everyone is like a family member.”
When Albahari was growing up in the 1930s, the Jewish community of his native Sarajevo numbered over 12,000. Jews made up more than a fifth of the city and it was one of the most important centers of Jewish life in the western Balkans.
In his youth, the city was part of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Formed out of the borderlands between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, it was a multiethnic state composed of Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, Slovenians, Macedonians, Hungarians, Albanians and more. Among them were many Jewish communities both Ashkenazi and Sephardic.
The unique mix of of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities, with their mosques, synagogues and churches defining Sarajevo’s skyline, earned the city the nickname “Little Jerusalem.”
Speaking in a 2015 documentary made by American researchers, “Saved by Language,” Albahari explained that his family traced their roots back to Cordoba before the Spanish Inquisition, and through Venice, before settling in what would become Bosnia when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
“We didn’t want to ‘just’ write an article about Moris or Sarajevo; we wanted [the audience] to see what we saw and hear what we heard,” Brian Kirschen, professor of Ladino at Binghamton University, who worked on the documentary with author Susanna Zaraysky, told JTA. “This resulted in a grassroots initiative to create the documentary.”
In the film, Albahari takes the researchers and their viewers on a tour through what was Jewish Sarajevo, giving glimpses of the thriving Ladino speaking community in which he was raised and explaining how ithe language would save him many times, when the Nazis and their Croat allies, the Ustaša, came to shatter it.
“In sharing your story of survival during the Holocaust, you opened doors that remained closed for decades,” Kirschen said in a memorial post on Facebook. “Some of your stories were even new to members of your family, but each survivor has their own timeline. While you experienced great pain during your life, from your story, we also learn about moments of kindness and heroism. Through your story, you also taught us about the power of language.”
Albahari wasn’t yet a teenager when, in 1941, Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy invaded Yugoslavia. The Nazis occupied the eastern portion of the country, including what is now Serbia, while they raised up a Croat fascist party, known as the Ustaša, to administer the newly formed “Independent State of Croatia” — often known by its Serbo-Croatian initials, NDH — in the western regions that included the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Ustaša collaborated in the Nazis’ genocidal plans for Europe’s Jewish and Roma comunities, and they had genocidal designs of their own for the Orthodox Serb communities living in the NDH.
To that end they established the Jasenovac concentration camp, which would become known as the Auschwitz of the Balkans. By the war’s end it had become the third largest concentration camp in Europe, and behind its walls the overwhelming majority of Sarajevo’s Jews — at least 10,000 — were massacred. Including Serbs, Jews, Roma and political dissidents of Croat or Muslim Bosniak background, as many as 100,000 people were killed in Jasenovac.
Albahari was 11 years old when the Ustaša came to deport him and his large family to Jasenovac. A former teacher working as an Ustaša guard in the town of Drvar, where the train stopped, warned Albahari’s father, David, about their destination, and he was able to help his son escape from the train.
The teacher helped guide the young Moris to an Italian soldier named Lino Marchione who was secretly helping Jews.
This was the first case when Albahari’s Ladino came in handy. Ladino is largely based on medieval Spanish, with a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and other languages mixed in. For speakers of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, it’s entirely incomprehensible. But for a speaker of another Romance language such as Italian, it’s not such a stretch to understand, and Moris was able to converse with his Italian savior.
With his family gone, he was taken in by a Serb family, and changed his name to Milan Adamovic to hide his Jewish identity. Still, by 1942, it became clear that neither as Adamovic nor Albahari would he be safe in the town. So he fled to the mountains.
“If there was [a battle] I took clothes from a dead soldier to wear, I lived like a wolf in the mountains, you know. Visiting villages [asking for something] to give me for eating, it was a terrible time,” Albahari recalled in “Saved By Language.”
He would only feel safe in villages under the control of partisan forces. Yugoslavia was the only country in Europe to be liberated from Nazi rule by its own grassroots resistance.
During his time in the mountains, Albahari joined up with a partisan unit aligned with the movement of Josip Broz Tito, who would lead Communist Yugoslavia after the war. By the war’s end, Tito’s partisans numbered over 80,000 and included more than 6,000 Jews, many in prominent positions, such as Moša Pijade, who would go on to serve as vice president of the Yugoslav parliament after the war.
Moris was out on patrol as a partisan when he came upon a group of American and British paratroopers. They raised their weapons at him, thinking he was an enemy. Moris tried to communicate, but he spoke no English.
When he asked the soldiers if they spoke German or Italian, they shook their heads. When he asked about Spanish, one perked up: a Hispanic-American soldier by the name of David Garijo.
In Ladino, Alabahari was able to explain that he was not an enemy but could lead them to a nearby partisan camp where they would be safe.
“Ladino saved my life in the war,” Albahari recalled in the documentary.
At the partisan camp, Morris received even bigger news: The family that he had assumed had all perished after he left the train were in fact alive. The former school teacher and Ustaša guard who had warned his father had met them at the next train junction to help them escape. Furthermore, around half of the Jews in the train car were able to escape using the same hole Moris used during his initial escape.
Ultimately the family all survived the war, unlike so many other Jews of Sarajevo.
“Where is Samuel, where is Dudo, where is Gedala? They never came back,” Albahari lamented, listing missing neighbors while walking through Sarajevo’s old Jewish neighborhood in the documentary. “Maybe we are happy because we are alive after the Second World War, but also unlikely because every day we must cry for these dead people.”
When Moris returned to Sarajevo, it was an entirely different place from the bustling Jewish community he had once known.
Gone was the sound of Ladino in the streets and alleyways of Bascarsija, the market district where so many of Sarajevo’s Jews had once lived. Gone were the synagogues — only one of the many synagogues that had existed before WWII still functions. Gone was the robust Jewish life that was once a central part of Sarajevo.
Moris was still only 14 by the war’s end, so he returned to school and ultimately graduated at the top of his class. He became a pilot and later director of the Sarajevo Airport.
In this new world, Ladino was spoken, if at all, only in the home.
“Always, when I hear Spanish, I hear my father and mother, and all the synagogues, prayers in Ladino and rabbis who spoke Ladino. But that is in the past,” Albahari says in “Saved by Language.”
Eliezer Papo, who is a generation younger than Albahari, recalled that in his youth Ladino had long been reduced to a language of secrets.
“Mostly, Ladino was used when the elders didn’t want youngsters to understand,” Papo said.
Only later, in the 1980s, did community members realize what was being lost and begin to gather to maintain their language, recount what Jewish Sarajevo had been like and share their wartime stories of survival.
“He never took his story to the places of revenge, but he took it and his life experience to a place of ‘Never again,’ not just ‘Never again for Jews’, but never again for anybody,” said Papo.
Like many Sarajevans, World War II would not be the last major conflict Albahari would see. Less than 40 years later, war would once again come to Sarajevo with the break-up of Yugoslavia.
From 1992-1995 the city remained under constant siege by Bosnian Serb forces looking to break away from what would become Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moris joined with other Jews of Sarajevo in working to provide aid to their fellow Sarajevans during the harsh period.
Sarajevo’s synagogue was turned into a shelter and a soup kitchen. The community ran a network of underground pharmacies and a message service allowing Sarajevans to get word to family and friends outside of the city during what became the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
“Moris was an inspirational persona to many members of Jewish community and La Benevolencija,” Vlado Anderle, the current president of that local Jewish humanitarian organization told JTA. “He was a man with such inviting spirit and energy.”
When the dust settled on the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the new Bosnian state rose from its ashes, Moris found himself once again in a new role.
During the communist era in Yugoslavia, religious activity was discouraged. Sarajevo’s Jews emphasized the ethnic character of Jewish culture rather than the religious one. In the new Bosnia and Herzegovina, that was no longer true. So the community worked to reconnect with their religious identity as well.
“Everybody looked up to the people who had Jewish upbringing before the Second World War,” Papo recalled. “This doesn’t mean that they were rabbis. Just that they knew it better than anyone else.”
Moris, whose formal Jewish education ended in his preteen years, was appointed president of the community’s religious committee.
As such it often fell on him to represent Judaism to the Bosnian society at large, often in a very creative way, according to Papo, who in addition to being a scholar of Ladino is ordained as a rabbi and serves the Sarajevo community as a rabbi-at-large from Israel.
In one case, while being interviewed on a major Bosnian television station, Moris was asked why Jews cover their head with a kippah or other hat during prayer. Moris’ response, or rather creative interpretation, as Papo called it, was made up on the spot.
Moris’ interpretation began with the ancient temple in Jerusalem where Jews once had to fully immerse in a ritual bath before entering.
“Since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed it was reduced to washing the uncovered parts of the body only, before entering a synagogue, similarly to Muslims: the feet, the head, the hands…” Papo recalled him saying. But in Europe, as Moris’ answer went, they began to cover more and more of their body. “In Europe they started wearing shoes, so the feet were not uncovered anymore, and then they started wearing a hat, not to have to wash their head… you know it’s Europe, one could catch a cold if going out with wet hair…”
“A few months later, I came to Sarajevo, and found that everyone has heard this explanation and is talking about it, not just people in the community, but in the street,” Papo said. “And you know, I let it pass, I couldn’t correct them, it was just so beautiful. That was his genius.”
“Identity is all about telling stories. And Moris was one of the great storytellers of the community,” Papo added. And through his stories he expressed an identity which was “made of the same contradictions that Sephardic Judaism is made of, that Sarajevo is made of, that Bosnia and Herzegovina is made and that Yugoslavia was and is made of and that the Balkans are made of.”
Albahari is survived by his wife and a son.
—
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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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