Hargeisa, Somalia | Oct. 22, 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET | 5 min read

At a foreign exchange stall in a bustling marketplace here in Somaliland’s capital city, Abiquatar Farah proudly holds out a red banknote. Money generally moves quickly through his hands as visitors exchange their U.S. dollars and Ethiopian birr for brightly colored Somaliland shillings.

This Israeli shekel, however, Mr. Farah will never give up. The note is “a memory,” he says, of the day last December when Israel announced that it would recognize this breakaway state in the Horn of Africa as an independent nation – the first country in the world to do so.

Somaliland split from Somalia in 1991 following a brutal civil war. From the rubble, it established its own government and military. But without diplomatic recognition, it remains locked out of the global fraternity of nations.

So, when Israel made its announcement, Mr.…