During the Gaza war I condemned Hamas terrorism and the Netanyahu government's war crimes, before some readers followed my account after Somaliland's recognition. Governments, media institutions and diaspora advocates should learn from Somaliland's genocide, take Gaza's war crimes seriously and reject terrorism against civilians. Condemning one side does not excuse the other; Somaliland's history offers lessons for both.
Before you reach for a "make this about you" meme, yes, it is about us. My family and kids read this, and they need to know where we morally stand without appeasing anyone. My Gaza posts were among the least popular because they upset both camps. Popularity is not the goal.
Somalilanders remember cities broken and civilian life crushed in the name of security until the skyline itself became evidence. Gaza's destroyed urban life, overwhelming force against civilians in pursuit of a militia and scale of death touched that wound. We identified war crimes early because our memory is not theoretical.
Civilians Remain Beyond Revenge
Our rule is simple. Civilians are not legitimate targets. The SNM did not answer Somalian Faqash by killing Somalian kids or raping Somalian women; it fought a genocidal regime without making murder its signature. Values are proved when rage is strongest. A man attacking a woman and dragging her into a car has abandoned the moral world, not performed resistance.
Netanyahu's war in Gaza and Hamas's attack both carry the stain of war crimes, the latter with murderous intent. Numbers matter, but in Islam intention is the first witness. A weaker actor is not innocent because it failed to kill as many as it wished; a stronger one is not innocent because it claims it could have killed more. If Israel and Palestine are treated as states, both must answer as political actors for their conduct.
Somalilanders call the collapse of moral restraint Faqash, barbarism and weakness inside the soul. Siyad Barre's regime became Faqash by trying to erase Somaliland; Hamas by targeting Jewish civilians; Netanyahu's government by answering terror with unbearable civilian life in Gaza. This is moral consistency, not false equivalence. As Understanding the Somaliland Mindset explains, survival made memory a foundation for sovereignty, not a licence for vengeance.
Crimes Cannot Dissolve States
Some Free Palestine rhetoric would wipe Israel off the map over Gaza, inventing a new Montevideo Convention in which a government's war crimes erase all four statehood criteria. Nobody demands Somalia's disappearance for Barre's crimes, Turkey's for its treatment of Kurds, or Sudan's for mass atrocities. Singling out Israel turns government guilt into the alleged dissolution of a country and a stain on Jews everywhere.
That is neither international law nor Islamic ethics. The Qur'an says no soul bears another's burden; Allah will ask those who ordered, enabled or defended crimes, not every Israeli child, diaspora Jewish family or Jew walking through a Western city. Many making collective accusations know Jewish neighbours, colleagues, classmates and friends as ordinary people with families, hopes, flaws, talents, generosity, grief and civic lives. Yet they burden them with a government they did not elect, command or control. That is collective punishment wearing the clothes of justice.
Suffering Cannot Create States
Victimhood does not itself create a state. Rwanda suffered genocide and remained Rwanda; Gaza's devastation alone cannot answer its statehood question. Somaliland's case rests on state continuity after a failed de facto union and institutions Somalia no longer owns. Genocide exposes broken trust and why forcing a people back under a system that tried to erase them is practically impossible and morally absurd. It explains why reunification is impossible without replacing the legal case.
Recognition as rescue sounds elegant but has not worked in practice. The United Kingdom's recognition of Palestine can be read in that light, yet conflict continued. It neither removed Hamas nor disarmed armed movements, made Israelis safer or Palestinians free. The question is what kind of state would emerge beside Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.
Hamas and Hezbollah have inflicted enormous damage without recognised statehood's full apparatus. Movements using extermination language would multiply the danger if they gained state weapons, procurement channels, diplomatic cover and institutions. Chanting from the river to the sea while denying Israeli Jewish self determination speaks of removal, not coexistence. Mocking the Holocaust while playing suffering as a statehood card denies the other side's humanity. Somaliland recognises Palestinians' and Israelis' human value together.
Forgiveness Preserves Political Memory
After 1991, Somaliland forgave many associated with the genocidal system within its own political community, one of its least appreciated achievements. Forgiveness did not absolve the regime, erase mass graves or recast the past as misunderstanding. People sharing a country could not live forever inside total revenge. In a world that cancels people for shaking the wrong hand, Somaliland made peace possible without surrendering memory.
Some anti Somaliland accounts mock our genocide while speaking solemnly about Gaza; some Arab voices demand recognition of Palestinian suffering while denying Somaliland recognition. I challenged that hypocrisy in Normalise Somaliland's Recognition and the Australian consistency debate. Civilian suffering cannot be a slogan for one people and a joke against another. This is a world that wants moral language without moral discipline. Justice cannot depend on a preferred geopolitical script.
The Somaliland mirror shows Netanyahu's government what overwhelming force does to its soul, Palestinians what terrorism does to their cause, and Arabs and Somalians what their silence reveals.