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Imperial lapdog Farage supports Israel’s Somaliland recognition

On 26 December, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel has officially recognised Somaliland as a sovereign state. As many noted, Israel are almost certainly doing this for cynical reasons, having previously discussed the prospect of ethnically cleansing Palestinians to the region.

Now, the imperial lapdog Nigel Farage has come forwards to offer his support:

Somaliland

Somaliland is a breakaway region of Somalia. As Al Jazeera report, Israel’s recognition of it has drawn condemnation from African and Arab nations. It’s easy to understand why they would oppose the interference of US-linked nations, what with the American empire having a history of destabilising and invading developing nations.

Al Jazeera also reported that Somalia’s foreign affairs minister:

accused Israel of pursuing Somaliland’s recognition in order to further displace Palestinians from Gaza. “One of the motivating factors is the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera. “It has been widely known – Israel’s goal on that issue.”

Palestine’s foreign ministry backed Somalia, recalling that Israel had previously identified Somaliland as a potential destination for forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza, which it described as a “red line”.

Many have commented on the development:

The lapdog

For years, Farage railed against the ‘unelected bureaucrats’ in Europe. The great hypocrisy of Farage, however, is that he has all the time in the world for wealthy US donors who want to rinse Britain for all they can get.

As Israel is very much a part of the US’s global, imperialist, power structure, his support has always extended to them too. It’s therefore not all that surprising to see him attaching himself to this announcement.

That aside, we should note that Farage has long voiced his support for Somaliland:

This was him in 2015:

Farage wasn’t a lone voice in the wilderness, however, with the American right also supporting recognition of Somaliland. Somaliland actually received a mention in ‘Project 2025’, which was a right-wing plan for what Trump should focus on if he returned to power, as the BBC reported:

The document mentions only two African territories in its sub-Saharan Africa section – Somaliland and Djibouti – and proposes “the recognition of Somaliland statehood as a hedge against the US’s deteriorating position in Djibouti”.

That same article notes that Trump is popular in Somaliland. Clearly, then, the region has the two things which the Americans look for in an ‘ally’ (i.e. ‘client state‘):

  • A willingness to play ball (usually at the expense of their own people).
  • The potential to give America some sort of tactical regional advantage.

Foreign affairs

In terms of Farage, it’s actually in the long-term interest of politicians like him to support anything which destabilises the world:

As such, we can probably expect to see all sorts of international interventions if Reform take power in 2029.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

This post was originally published on Canary.