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India, Israel, and the Rewiring of the Horn of Africa
India’s prime minister, Shri Narendra Modi, addresses the gathering at the Indian Community Reception Event at the Singapore Expo in Singapore on November 24, 2015.
On December 26, 2025, Israel took the dramatic step of becoming the first state to officially recognize the independence of Somaliland and to establish full diplomatic relations with it.
This was not merely symbolic. It was an extraordinary strategic move that could alter the balance of power in the Horn of Africa. Somaliland’s geographic significance became more apparent following the direct military confrontation between Israel and Iran in June 2025, which underscored Tehran’s efforts to move physically closer to Israel by establishing footholds at regional flashpoints. Israel’s recognition of Somaliland was also a strategic response to Ethiopia’s existential need — as the world’s most populous landlocked state — for sovereign access to the sea. The Port of Berbera in Somaliland is the key to freeing Addis Ababa from its near-total dependence on Djibouti’s ports, which are under increasing Chinese influence.
The Israeli move targets the pressure points of other actors as well as Iran. These include Turkey, which is deeply entrenching its political and military influence in Somalia and adjacent maritime routes; and China, which maintains infrastructural and security dominance in Djibouti through economic leverage within the BRI framework. Israel is not planning on a heavy military deployment, but rather on using a combination of monitoring, control, intelligence, and digital capabilities — an approach that aligns with India’s emphasis on capacity-building and functional sovereignty enhancement.
Africa as a central axis in India’s maritime statecraft
Over the past decade, New Delhi has redefined Africa as a key arena in shaping the Global South and as a core component of its strategic interests. India views the continent as a neighborhood in which it can implement its concept of maritime statecraft — a security-economic infrastructure, centered around the Indian Ocean, that is aimed at establishing India as a preferred security and development partner. This approach is anchored in the SAGAR and MAHASAGAR doctrines, which provide a strategic framework for integrating security, growth, and connectivity. Africa is also a critical arena in which India hopes to realize its defense export target of $5 billion by 2025 — a goal unattainable without a deep, institutionalized, and long-term presence on the continent.
The continental anchor: The India-Ethiopia strategic partnership
The historic visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Addis Ababa on December 16-17, 2025, marked a new phase in the political anchoring of India in the Horn of Africa. The elevation of bilateral relations to the level of strategic partnership was intended to inject “new energy and depth” into the countries’ cooperation, with a focus on security, technology, and the economy. Ethiopia — a country with a population of over 126 million that is undergoing a demographic and geo-economic transformation — is a key partner in the realizing of India’s vision of the “Global South.”
Israel’s move in Somaliland provides the protective envelope required to safeguard shared interests in the Indian Ocean “maritime neighborhood.” Israeli capabilities in ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), port security, and MDA (maritime domain awareness) are vital tools in the countering of threats from Iran and maritime terrorism in the Red Sea. The security synergy with Israel directly supports India’s goal of reaching $5 billion in defense exports by 2025, the success of which will be contingent on expansion in Africa.
The combined Indian-Israeli presence in the Horn of Africa offers a clear alternative to China’s BRI model. The Chinese model focuses on massive investment in physical infrastructure that often generates financial dependency and debt. The Indian-Israeli model advances a “resilience and redundancy” approach that is based on sovereign trade corridors and strategic autonomy. India contributes capacity-building and digital infrastructure while Israel adds an advanced technological-operational layer.
Somaliland as a laboratory of informal order
Somaliland stands out as a strategic anomaly: it is a stable and functioning entity despite the absence of formal international recognition. This characteristic makes it an ideal testing ground for the Indian-Israeli model.
A central component of the complementary security package offered by the Indian-Israeli axis is ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance), which encompasses advanced technological tools like unmanned platforms, satellite systems, and sensor networks that enable continuous data collection and real-time operational intelligence.
While India focuses on physical infrastructure and human-capital training as part of its capacity-building efforts, Israel contributes digital “eyes.” These capabilities are particularly vital for states with extensive Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) but limited monitoring capacity, as they enable effective maritime control without requiring a heavy military presence.
A complementary pillar is port security, which involves a multi-layered physical and digital defense of port infrastructure, piers, and logistical facilities against sabotage, maritime crime, and terrorism. In this context, India invests in physical infrastructure at strategic points while Israeli capabilities ensure that the assets function as protected “sovereign trade corridors.” Port security is not merely a narrow security concern but a prerequisite for developing a sustainable blue economy and reshaping intra-African trade patterns.
The third component is MDA (maritime domain awareness), defined as the ability to generate an integrated situational picture of all maritime activity relevant to security, economic, and environmental interests. MDA relies on the synthesizing of raw data into broad intelligence that can be used for real-time decision-making. India’s aspiration to position itself as a “first responder” to disasters and threats in the Indian Ocean depends heavily on such capabilities. Advanced MDA systems will enable effective responses to piracy, illegal fishing, and non-state threats, strengthening India’s standing as a rule-setting maritime power rather than a reactive one.
The integration of ISR, port security, and MDA creates an operational synergy that deepens African states’ positive dependence on the capabilities offered by the Indian-Israeli axis. While India lays the diplomatic, economic, and physical foundations, Israel provides the critical technological edge that turns the partnership into a game changer vis-à-vis the Chinese model, which relies more on centralized control and less on empowering local capabilities.
Strategic synergy: Redefining the rules of the game
The Indian-Israeli partnership in the Horn of Africa is more than a classical security alliance. It represents an attempt to test whether sustained maritime influence can be built through legitimacy, partnership, and sovereignty enhancement rather than coercion. The division of labor is clear: India shapes the normative framework, legitimacy, and connectivity to the Global South, while Israel supplies the operational-technological layer required to counter physical and technological threats. This synergy strengthens both states: India is perceived as a provider of non-colonial security and development solutions, while Israel establishes a presence along a strategic line stretching from the Indian Ocean through Ethiopia to the Horn of Africa.
The promise inherent in Indian-Israeli synergy in the Horn of Africa is not immune to structural failure or geopolitical shifts. For the proposed model to be sustainable, it must address three risk vectors.
The first is the continent’s structural fragility. Somaliland is positioned as a “laboratory of stability,” yet it operates within an African environment marked by chronic instability. There is a tangible risk that population growth will turn from a “dividend” into a socio-economic burden due to inadequate infrastructure. In the short period from 2020 through 2023, nine military coups occurred in seven African countries, illustrating institutional erosion across the continent. Moreover, debt traps and food insecurity further exacerbate risk. Africa’s debt-to-GDP ratio has doubled over the past decade (from 30% to approximately 60%), limiting states’ ability to invest in costly defense technologies. Concurrently, severe food insecurity affects around 20% of the continent’s population, potentially triggering internal unrest that could undermine strategic partnerships.
The second challenge is the Indian legitimacy paradox. India seeks to lead the Global South by promoting sovereignty and transparency. However, recognition of a secessionist entity like Somaliland incurs a dual political risk. It may clash with the African Union (AU), as African states are highly sensitive about preserving post-colonial borders. Supporting Somaliland could be perceived as undermining Somalia’s sovereignty, thereby damaging India’s status as a consensual continental hub. There is also the possibility of a Turkish-Somali backlash. Turkey’s model in Somalia is based on a military presence and deep influence. Recognition of Somaliland places New Delhi and Jerusalem on a collision course with Ankara, which may respond by escalating its military footprint at other maritime chokepoints.
The third challenge is technological competition: Israel’s edge versus the Turkish model. Israel offers superior ISR and MDA but faces competition from proven operational models. Turkish defense equipment (such as Bayraktar UAVs) has demonstrated its battlefield effectiveness in Africa (for example, in Ethiopia and Somalia). The Indian-Israeli model must prove that its security package offers operational and economic value superior to that provided by the cheaper and readily available alternatives supplied by Ankara and Beijing.
An alliance of sovereignty and resilience
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is not an end in itself but a first step in a broader alliance aimed at reshaping the regional rules of the game. The real contest is not over declarations but over the building of durable networks of influence and alliances capable of controlling trade, information, and intelligence flows. For Israel and India, this constitutes a process of strategic rewiring in which they are positioning themselves as rule-setting powers through partnership, resilience, and functional sovereignty. This represents an alternative model for the regional — and potentially global — order, one that respects the sovereignty of Global South states and strengthens their resilience against external threats.
Dr. Lauren Dagan Amos is a member of the Deborah Forum and a lecturer and a teaching assistant in the Department of Political Science and the Security Studies Program at Bar-Ilan University. She specializes in Indian foreign policy. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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German Antisemitism Commissioner Leaves the Left Party Over Anti-Israel Stance, Lack of Support Amid Death Threats
Andreas Büttner (Die Linke), photographed during the state parliament session. The politician was nominated for the position of Brandenburg’s antisemitism commissioner. Photo: Soeren Stache/dpa via Reuters Connect
Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, has resigned from the Left Party, citing a rise in antisemitism within the ranks, relentless personal attacks, and a party climate that has become intolerable.
“I struggled with this decision for a long time, as I have felt a deep connection to the party over many years,” Büttner wrote in a letter to the party leadership, as reported by German media.
“But I have reached a point where I must acknowledge that I can no longer remain a member of this party without betraying my own convictions,” he continued.
According to several German media reports, the commissioner, who had been a member of the Left Party since 2015, said he was resigning over the party’s handling of antisemitism, internal expulsion proceedings aimed at removing him, and relentless personal attacks.
“The fight against antisemitism is a task that transcends party lines,” Büttner wrote in his letter. “All the more shocking for me is what I have had to witness within my own party for years.”
He criticized the Left Party’s rejection of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, noting that the party falsely regards it as a tool to repress protest while continuing to relativize antisemitic rhetoric.
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016.
Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations.
In his letter, Büttner also condemned the Left Party in Lower Saxony, a federal state in northwestern Germany, for its position on Zionism, insisting that challenging Israel’s right to exist is unacceptable — especially after the state convention passed resolutions branding Israel a “genocidal state” and an “apartheid state.”
“These resolutions are no longer acceptable to me,” he said.
In recent years, Büttner has faced not only external threats but also a sustained campaign of insults and defamation from members within his own party.
“The way my own party has handled attacks against me is particularly troubling,” Büttner wrote in his letter. “Instead of clear solidarity, I have too often experienced silence.”
Federal party leader Jan van Aken expressed regret over Büttner’s resignation but rejected any accusations of antisemitism within the Left Party, reiterating that the party “stands unequivocally against antisemitism.”
Earlier this year, Büttner endured two personal attacks within a single week, the second escalating into a death threat.
The Brandenburg state parliament received a letter threatening Büttner’s life, with the words “We will kill you” and an inverted red triangle, the symbol of support for the Islamist terrorist group Hamas.
A former police officer, Büttner took office as commissioner for antisemitism in 2024 and has faced repeated attacks since.
In the week prior to this latest attack, Büttner’s private property in Templin — a town approximately 43 miles north of Berlin — was targeted in an arson attack, and a red, inverted Hamas triangle was spray-painted on his house.
According to Büttner, his family was inside the house at the time of the attack, marking what was at the time latest assault against him in the past 16 months.
In August 2024, swastikas and other antisemitic symbols and threats were also spray-painted on his personal car.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials have noted that the real number of antisemitic crimes registered by police is likely much higher, as many do not get reported.
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Over 100 Groups Call on University of California to Address Campus Antisemitism
Illustrative: Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect
Over 100 Jewish advocacy groups have signed a petition imploring the University of California (UC) system to confront faculty antisemitism amid the fallout over a new AMCHA Initiative report which argued that professors accelerated the campus antisemitism crisis by promoting the use of their platforms to promote anti-Jewish tropes in the name of opposing Israel and Zionism.
“We urge the [UC Board of Regents] to act now: stop faculty and academic units from using UC authority, resources, classrooms, and UC-branded platforms to advance political advocacy as institutional practice by strictly enforcing UC’s existing rules, and strengthening them where needed,” said the petition, which has so far amassed 124 signatures from groups, as well as 4,000 individuals. “This is not about policing faculty speech. It is about enforcing the crucial boundary between private speech and institutional advocacy.”
It continued, “When that boundary disappears, academic norms break down and students face harassment, intimidation, and exclusion. We call on you to protect students, restore the university’s academic integrity, and rebuild public trust in the University of California.”
The petition’s signatories include Alums for Campus Fairness, the Harvard Jewish Alumni Alliance, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, The Lawfare Project, Zionist Organization of America, and Students Supporting Israel (SSI).
The AMCHA Initiative report, titled “When Faculty Take Sides: How Academic Infrastructure Drives Antisemitism at the University of California” examined the “antisemitism crisis” across UC campuses since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. It included dozens of examples of faculty antisemitism, including their calling for driving Jewish institutions off campus; founding pro-Hamas, Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapters; and endorsing institutional adoption of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
The University of California system is a microcosm of faculty antisemitism, the AMCHA Initiative explained in the exhaustive 158-page report, which focused on the Los Angeles, Berkeley, and Santa Cruz campuses.
“The report documents how concentrated networks of faculty activists on each campus, often operating through academic units and faculty-led advocacy formations, convert institutional platforms into vehicles for organized anti-Zionist advocacy and mobilization,” the report said, adding that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) alone holds at least 115 faculty endorsers of the BDS movement, according to the report. Meanwhile, dozens of its academic departments issued statements of support of the pro-Hamas encampments which struck college campuses during the 2023-2024 academic school year and became the hubs of antisemitic assault and discrimination.
It also said that FJP chapters offered more than supportive words, “defending and helping orchestrate boycott-aligned activism (including encampment demands), seeking to deplatform Israeli speakers, and filing an amicus brief … that denied Zionism’s place within Jewish identity and defended exclusionary encampment conduct toward Zionist Jewish students, including expulsion from campus spaces.”
UC Office of the President spokesperson Rachel Zaentz reportedly said the UC system was taking AMCHA’s report “seriously” and reviewing it. However, UC spokesperson Dan Mogulof expressed concerns about the methodology used to compile the data.
“While we appreciate this organization’s dedication to confronting antisemitism, it is unfortunate that no apparent effort was made to seek information directly from the campus and/or confirm information, some of which appears to have been gathered from unreliable sources,” Mogulof told The Daily Californian.
The AMCHA report followed previous studies revealing the extent of faculty misconduct in higher education promoting anti-Israel animus and even outright antisemitism.
In February, The Algemeiner learned that, according to a lawsuit, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University assigned a Jewish student a project on “what Jews do to make themselves such a hated group.”
Similar incidents have come at a fast clip since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 massacre: a Cornell University professor praised the terrorist group’s atrocities, which included mass sexual assaults; a Columbia University professor exalted Hamas terrorists who paraglided into a music festival to murder Israeli youth as the “air force of the Palestinian resistance”; and a Harvard University FJP chapter shared an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Zionists as murderers of Blacks and Arabs.
The AMCHA Initiative has explored faculty antisemitism before.
In September 2024, the organization published a groundbreaking study which showed that FJP is fueling antisemitic hate crimes, efforts to impose divestment on endowments, and the collapse of discipline and order on college campuses. Using data analysis, AMCHA researchers said they were able to establish a correlation between a school’s hosting an FJP chapter and anti-Zionist and antisemitic activity. For example, the researchers found that the presence of FJP on a college campuses increased by seven times “the likelihood of physical assaults and Jewish students” and increased by three times the chance that a Jewish student would be subject to threats of violence and death.
FJP, AMCHA’s researchers added, also “prolonged” the duration of “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” protests on college campuses, in which students occupied a section of campus illegally and refused to leave unless administrators capitulated to demands for a boycott of Israel. They said that such demonstrations lasted over four and a half times longer where FJP faculty — who, they noted, spent 9.5 more days protesting than those at non-FJP schools — were free to influence and provide logistic and material support to students.
Additionally, FJP facilitated the proposing and adopting of student government resolutions demanding acceptance of the BDS movement — which aims to isolate Israel culturally, financially, and diplomatically as the first step toward its destruction. Wherever FJP was, the researchers said, BDS was “4.9 times likely to pass” and “nearly 11 times more likely to be included in student demands,” evincing, they continued, that FSJP plays an outsized role in radicalizing university students at the more than 100 schools — including Harvard University, Brown University, Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and Yale University — where it is active.
“One of the important functions of these groups is to give academic legitimacy to the notion that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, and that’s a hugely important trope being trafficked on campuses right now,” AMCHA Initiative executive director Tammi Rossman-Benjamin told The Algemeiner at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Support for Israel Craters Among US Democrats, According to New Poll
“Hands Off Lebanon & Iran” Protest, March 8, 2026, Chicago, Illinois. Photo: Screenshot
A new national poll reveals the extent to which support for Israel among Democratic voters in the US has dropped dramatically since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of the Jewish state, a trend that has raised alarm among analysts and pro-Israel advocates who warn that the long-standing bipartisan foundation of the US–Israel alliance may be weakening.
According to a new NBC News survey, just 13 percent of Democrats now have a positive view of Israel, a massive dip from 2023, when the figure stood at 34 percent before the war in Gaza. As for those who view the Jewish state negatively, the percentage skyrocketed from just 35 percent in 2023 to a majority, 57 percent, today.
In contrast, the poll indicates that Republican support for Israel remains overwhelmingly strong, although not to the same extent as before the Oct. 7 attack. According to the survey 54 percent of Republican voters continue to view Israel positively, a nine-point drop from 2023. The percentage of those who view the Jewish state negatively increased slightly from 12 percent to 18 percent,
The poll also reveals a sharp generational divide in attitudes toward Israel, with support declining across every age group but falling most steeply among younger Americans. Among Americans aged 65 and older, support for Israel slipped modestly over the past three years, declining from 64 percent in 2023 to 55 percent in 2026. During the same period, negative views toward Israel rose from 12 percent to 21 percent.
The drop was more pronounced among Americans aged 50 to 64. In that group, support for Israel fell from 59 percent in 2023 to just 37 percent in 2026, while unfavorable views doubled, climbing from 15 percent to 30 percent.
Among those aged 35 to 49, support declined from 34 percent in 2023 to 20 percent in 2026. At the same time, 43 percent of respondents in this age bracket reported negative feelings toward Israel.
Younger Americans expressed the most critical attitudes. In the 18–34 age group, only 13 percent said they support Israel, while 63 percent reported unfavorable views.
The results highlight a growing partisan and generational divide in American attitudes toward the closest US ally in the Middle East, with Republicans largely framing Israel’s recent military actions as a legitimate exercise of self-defense against terrorism. Analysts note that this alignment reflects broader trends within the Republican Party, where support for Israel has become an increasingly central element of foreign policy identity and where sympathy for Israel significantly outweighs sympathy for the Palestinians.
For decades, Israel enjoyed broad support across the American political spectrum. While Republicans have generally been more strongly aligned with Israel in recent years, Democratic leaders historically remained supportive of the Jewish state’s security and its strategic partnership with the United States. The latest polling, however, suggests that this bipartisan consensus is under growing strain.
Some supporters of Israel argue that the polling shift reflects the success of a sustained global campaign to delegitimize Israel following the Oct. 7 massacre. They note that Israel’s military operations in Gaza are aimed at dismantling Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization that openly calls for Israel’s destruction and continues to embed its fighters within civilian areas.
The political implications could be significant. US military aid and diplomatic support for Israel have historically depended on bipartisan backing in Congress. If Democratic public opinion continues to move away from Israel, analysts say it could influence future policy debates over arms transfers, diplomatic support at the United Nations, and the broader US approach to the Israeli-Palestinian
At the same time, many Democratic lawmakers remain firmly supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.
A major analysis of Democratic voters released last week suggests that despite increasingly vocal criticism of Israel in some activist circles, especially among the party’s youth, the broader Democratic electorate remains largely supportive of the US–Israel relationship.