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An Open Response by Hassan Dahir (Weedhsame)
At the outset, two points: First, Sheikh Mustafe Haji Ismail is entitled to his views on Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. Second, he is not an infallible prophet immune from criticism. While respecting his dignity, we retain our right to challenge his arguments.
Understanding the profound historical blindness in Sheikh Mustafe’s recent Friday sermon requires examining the genocidal regime he now defends. Speaking from the pulpit—a sacred space where Islamic tradition forbids congregation challenge—he posed a question: How would Somalilanders feel if, during their persecution, they were replaced with a transplant population? He intended this as emotional appeal against the false claim that Somaliland would resettle Palestinians—a claim the Somaliland government has explicitly and repeatedly rejected as baseless propaganda.
The crushing irony? What he described as hypothetical horror was precisely Siad Barre’s documented plan—a plan the United Nations recognized in 2001 as the Isaaq Genocide.
Before examining his specific claims, we must identify the logical fallacies undermining his argument. First, the Sheikh commits a false equivalency—equating Barre’s rhetorical opposition to foreign colonialism with actual moral principle, while treating his domestic genocide as somehow categorically different. Second, he exploits an appeal to authority: delivering these revisionist claims from the Friday pulpit, where Islamic tradition forbids challenge, lending religious credibility to what are fundamentally political and historical assertions. These fallacies demand exposure before addressing the substance.
The Sheikh stated:
“Siad Barre, himself an oppressor, nevertheless understood that the oppression of colonialism or settler rule was unacceptable. That is why he opposed Ian Smith and South Africa. He believed that Black people subjugated by white colonial masters should be liberated, and in this he was right.”
This argument presents fundamental problems.
First, he conflates contradictory positions: acknowledging Siad as dictator while claiming he “understood that colonial oppression was unacceptable.” Consider the moral incoherence: A father who brutalizes his own children yet weeps when witnessing a stranger harm another child—is this compassion or hypocrisy? The Sheikh would have us believe oppression is categorized by the oppressor’s identity—foreign or domestic—rather than being an absolute wrong regardless of perpetrator
Second, his argument contradicts indisputable historical fact. While Barre publicly condemned Ian Smith’s racist oppression of Black Rhodesians, he simultaneously orchestrated what the UN concluded was a genocide “conceived, planned and perpetrated by the Somalia Government against the Isaaq people” of modern-day Somaliland.
Between 1987 and 1989, Barre’s forces massacred an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 civilians. In May 1988, his regime unleashed bombardments so devastating that Hargeisa earned the name “the Dresden of Africa”—90% destroyed, over 40,000 killed. Burao was 70% razed. The pilots? The very same Rhodesian and South African mercenaries Barre claimed to oppose—each paid $2,000 per sortie to commit genocide.
How can the Sheikh claim a man who hired Ian Smith’s soldiers—forces that oppressed Zimbabweans—to perpetrate genocide against Somalilanders “understood that colonial oppression was unacceptable”? This wasn’t principle; it was genocidal opportunism.
This is moral bankruptcy: condemning mercenaries for oppressing others while hiring those same mercenaries to commit genocide against your own people.
Third, and most damningly, his own question about population replacement—delivered from a pulpit permitting no challenge—exposes either profound ignorance or deliberate deception.
This was not hypothetical. This was documented policy.
On January 11, 1987, General Mohamed Said Hersi Morgan—Barre’s son-in-law, the “Butcher of Hargeisa”—submitted a classified memorandum outlining a “final solution” to Somalia’s “Isaaq problem,” advocating complete “obliteration” of the Isaaq people.
Morgan’s “remedies” included explicit demographic replacement:
– “Dilution of the school population with an infusion of [Ogaden] children from the Refugee Camps” – “Reconstruction of Local Councils to balance membership which is exclusively from [the Isaaq]” – “Balancing the well-to-do to eliminate concentration of wealth [in Isaaq hands]”
These weren’t suggestions. They were implemented policy. UN inspection teams documented in 1988 that Ogaden refugees, armed by the Somali Army, looted towns across modern-day Somaliland—the first phase of planned demographic replacement.
When Sheikh Mustafe asks, “How would you feel if replaced with transplant populations?”—the answer is: We know exactly. Siad Barre attempted precisely that. Over 200 mass graves across Somaliland bear witness. More than 300,000 fled to Ethiopia as refugees, strafed by fighter jets.
The man the Sheikh praises documented plans to colonize Somaliland and exterminate the Isaaq people. How is this not the ultimate hypocrisy?
The False Narrative
Sheikh Mustafe’s opposition to Israel’s recognition of Somaliland is not rooted in theology but in debunked political narrative. The claim that Somaliland agreed to resettle 2 million Palestinians has been explicitly denied.
On January 1, 2026, Somaliland’s Foreign Ministry stated: “The Government firmly rejects false claims alleging resettlement of Palestinians or establishment of military bases. These baseless allegations mislead the international community and undermine our diplomatic progress.”
The logistics alone expose absurdity: 5 million people absorbing 2 million refugees? This propaganda began circulating months before recognition, propagated through Qatar-funded Al Jazeera and weaponized by Somalia’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud—a government aligned with Hamas and Turkey. Textbook information warfare designed to make Somaliland “radioactive” before any diplomatic breakthrough.
Somaliland’s engagement with Israel is purely diplomatic and lawful. Yet the Sheikh weaponizes false narrative, demanding outrage over fiction while defending a dictator who actually attempted demographic replacement during genocide.
Unlike a Sheikh proselytizing from a pulpit that permits no rebuttal, or despotic regimes like Qatar and Egypt that silence dissent while profiting from Israeli gas and trade, the Republic of Somaliland is a functioning democracy—a government of the people, by the people, for the people, in every sense of those words. That popular sovereignty manifested spectacularly when thousands rallied in Hargeisa’s streets celebrating Israel’s recognition—not in protest, but in jubilation. Our government answers to the ballot box, not to imams or autocrats. Should our leadership betray its explicit commitment that no Palestinian resettlement forms part of any agreement, our citizens will exercise the ultimate democratic power: voting them out. This is what separates democracies from dictatorships and theocracies—accountability runs upward from the people, not downward from pulpits or palaces. The people decide. The people choose. The people govern. So when the Sheikh, speaking from his position of religious authority, presumes to lecture Somalilanders on what diplomatic ties we may pursue based on debunked propaganda, he must understand a fundamental truth: we are not bound to silent acceptance of claims—whether they originate from Mogadishu, Doha, or anywhere else. We are free citizens of a sovereign republic who will determine our own future, answer to our own conscience, and chart our own course. Those who oppose our diplomatic choices possess no vote in Somaliland. We do. And we have spoken.
The Staggering Hypocrisy
The orchestrated outrage against Israel’s recognition reveals rank hypocrisy. Muslim-majority nations condemning this milestone maintain full diplomatic relations with Israel and conduct billions in trade—often while publicly denouncing it.
Turkey epitomizes this duplicity. First Muslim-majority nation to recognize Israel (1949), yet Erdoğan condemns Somaliland’s ties loudest. While calling Netanyahu a “modern Hitler” and accusing Israel of “genocide,” UN trade data reveals Turkey was Israel’s fifth-largest supplier in 2024, exporting $2.86 billion—routed through Greece and Palestinian Authority shell companies despite announced embargo. Pre-embargo bilateral trade exceeded $9 billion annually via a 1996 Free Trade Agreement.
The pattern: inflammatory rhetoric for domestic consumption while doing brisk business with Israel and maintaining full diplomatic ties.
Egypt presents equal hypocrisy. Since Camp David (1979), Egypt maintains full relations—the first Arab nation to do so—receiving $1.3 billion annually in U.S. aid as consequence. In 2018, Egypt signed a $15 billion natural gas deal with Israel, recently extended to $35 billion. Egypt imports 40% of its natural gas from Israel.
Yet when Somaliland—democratic, stable for three decades without recognition—receives diplomatic recognition, Egypt joins condemnation. The message: Egypt may normalize and profit handsomely, but Somaliland must be denied sovereign rights.
Turkey and Egypt—with Jordan, UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan—maintain diplomatic and economic ties with Israel, conducting tens of billions in annual trade, yet condemn Somaliland for identical engagement. Somaliland, having earned recognition through democratic governance and stability, becomes pariah for the same diplomacy.
Where was outrage when these nations signed agreements? When Turkey conducted $9 billion in trade? When Egypt signed multi-billion gas deals?
The answer: this selective outrage concerns geopolitics, not Palestine. Somalia’s government, supported by Turkey and aligned with Qatar and Hamas, wields the Palestinian cause to delegitimize Somaliland’s independence. The Sheikh, wittingly or not, validates this cynical strategy.
If Sheikh Mustafe truly cared for Islamic solidarity and Palestinian welfare, he would direct Friday sermons toward massive Muslim nations profiting from Israel while doing little for Palestinians. Instead, he reserves indignation for Somaliland—a tiny, unrecognized nation seeking merely to exist.
This is not religious principle. This is political opportunism in religious garb.
Despite suffering under Siad Barre’s prison brutality, I cannot fathom what compels Sheikh Mustafe to lionize the Father of the Revolution—a man who desecrated the Quran and executed religious scholars.
About the Author
Mr. Hassan Dahir (Weedhsame) is a prominent poet and writer, and the author of his recently published poetry collection titled Dugyar. He was educated at Amoud University, where he earned a BSc in Mathematics and an MSc in Applied Statistics. For the past 20 years, he has been politically active as a firm Somaliland-first advocate and a vocal activist against corruption and the mismanagement of public resources.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, or viewpoints of Somaliland Chronicle, and its staff.
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