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Abdiqani A. Aden

Oct 16, 2026, 12:14 AM

The Letter From Hargeisa: Egal’s 1995 Appeal to Israel

The four-page letter dated 3 July 1995, attributed to Somaliland President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal and addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, proposing a strategic partnership between Somaliland and Israel. The copy reproduced here is held in the author’s historical archive. Egal reportedly denied authorship before his death, and the document’s authorship and delivery to Israel remain unverified.

Courtesy of Keydka Cabdiqani C. Aadan (Historical Archive).

In 1995, Somaliland’s president asked Israel for a “strategic partnership.” Thirty years later, Israel recognised the country. The letter explains much about the logic, and almost nothing about the cause. On 3 July 1995, a letter was prepared at the...

Talyah Ginsberg

Oct 12, 2026, 6:45 PM

The Country I Left Still Thinks It Knows Me

I have travelled from a war-stricken country to an allegedly crime-ridden one via Addis Ababa, which, depending on how melodramatically one wishes to phrase it, means I crossed deepest, darkest Africa with hand luggage and a nervous system already...

Oct 9, 2026, 6:34 PM

Why do security files stop at borders that extremists cross freely?

Flydubai airplane at Ben Gurion airport (AP/Alon Bernstein)

After almost every terrorist attack, governments condemn, express solidarity and promise cooperation. Then the shock fades, and each returns to its own agencies and databases. Extremist ideas, money and recruiters cross borders more easily than the intelligence that might...

Jonathan Shavit

Oct 9, 2026, 6:21 PM

Children of Abraham: A review

Published this year, its author Marc David Baer attempts to apply much-needed nuance to a topic, Jewish-Muslim relations, that usually veers into myths of interfaith utopia or perennial antagonism. Spanning the period from Islamic rule to the present, Baer...

Oct 7, 2026, 3:17 AM

How Soft Power Learns to Speak to AI

When the internet was still new, I once told my grandmother about people I had met online. She knew almost nothing about computers and listened to my explanation with some suspicion. Then she asked a question that made us...

Jose Lev Alvarez Gomez

Oct 1, 2026, 10:18 PM

Israel’s Benghazi Option: Realism Over Diplomacy

Egyptian subversion greeted King Hassan II’s February 1961 ascension, as Gamal Abdel Nasser’s assassins actively targeted the new monarch. In response, Mossad intelligence exposed the plot and alerted General Mohamed Oufkir, allowing Moroccan troops to dismantle the hostile Casablanca...

Abdiqani A. Aden

Sep 25, 2026, 5:41 AM

From Grievance to Geopolitics: What Somaliland’s CFR Appearance Reveals About a Changed Diplomatic Strategy

President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi (Cirro) addresses the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, September 24, 2026. (Photo: Office of the President, Republic of Somaliland)

At the Council on Foreign Relations, President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi framed recognition as a strategic bargain, not a historical debt — but the gap between his reception in Washington and actual U.S. policy tells its own story. For thirty-five years,...

Sep 15, 2026, 3:22 AM

The 2026 BRICS Declaration: The Grammar of EMDE-Centrism

PM Narendra Modi at BRICS Summit Session on “Inclusive Global Governance and Strengthening Multilateralism” at Bharat Mandapam, in New Delhi on September 12, 2026. (Photo Credit: PIB/Govt. of India).

From a bureaucratic category to a language of collective leverage, the New Delhi Declaration shows how BRICS is weaving EMDEs into its claims over capital, representation, and the architecture of global economic governance. On September 12, 2026, BRICS leaders unanimously...

Sep 14, 2026, 12:16 PM

Folha de São Paulo / WHO, May 19, 2026 On May 5, health workers in Mongbwalu — a small town in the Ituri province of eastern Congo, near the Ugandan border — noticed something wrong. People were dying, including colleagues....

Sep 10, 2026, 11:35 PM

Sudan’s Chemical Weapons and the New Red Sea Security Order

Sudan‘s largest oil refinery set ablaze, sending thick, black smoke over Khartoum, the country’s capital. (AP Photo)

The latest revelations about Sudan’s alleged chemical weapons program expose more than another escalation in a war already defined by atrocities. They show how foreign military relationships are becoming embedded in Sudan’s security system and why the consequences extend...

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