Recent years have witnessed a notable escalation in Israeli movements toward vital sea lanes and the Horn of Africa, within the framework of a deeper transformation within Israeli strategy that redefines Israel's position within regional and international systems. This shift reflects a gradual transition from relying on hard power tools to employing economic and functional integration mechanisms within global trade and energy networks, as a new approach to reshaping political and security influence.
It should be noted that the Israeli movements in this regard cannot be understood in isolation from the stalled Indian Economic Corridor project announced at the New Delhi summit in 2023, which faced rejection from both the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for engagement before reaching a fair political settlement based on a two-state solution and returning to the borders of 1967. This rejection has pushed Israel to look for alternative routes that enable access to vital sea lanes, away from the political restrictions and conditions imposed by the traditional Arab states.
The emergence of the Horn of Africa as an open geopolitical space enables Israel to bypass regional political constraints and directly engage in one of the most important global navigation hubs linked to the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Red Sea. The Israeli recognition of Somaliland within this approach is regarded as a step beyond its symbolic diplomatic dimension to a deeper strategic function aimed at securing a political-economic foothold that allows Israel indirect control over international trade and supply chains, linking the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean within an integrated maritime and economic security vision. This approach reflects Israel's reliance on functional integration as a tool for reproducing influence away from direct political confrontation.
This path complements the legal and political framework provided by the 1979 Camp David Accords, which guaranteed Israel freedom of navigation through the Strait of Tiran, from the port of Eilat to the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb. This privilege has fortified Israeli trade and maritime supply chains against rising regional threats, whether linked to maritime piracy or security tensions in Yemen and the Red Sea. The recognition of Somaliland is part of a broader strategy to transform maritime influence into a tool for economic security, in line with the Israeli shift towards a concept of security through economy rather than relying solely on traditional military deterrence.
Undoubtedly, the 2020 Abraham Accords provided Israel with a political cover that enabled it to expand its scope of movement outside the traditional Arab realm and engage in sensitive strategic areas like the Horn of Africa without high political costs. This path coincided with the proposals observed at the 2023 G20 meetings concerning the Indian Economic Corridor, reflecting a high degree of alignment between Israeli strategy and emerging international economic dynamics.
This convergence reveals Israel's ability to transform normalization from a symbolic political framework into actual functional-economic integration, repositioning it within global trade networks as an indispensable actor. Also, this shift carries profound political dimensions at the regional level, enforcing the logic of economic peace as an alternative approach to managing the Arab-Israeli conflict at the expense of the political solution centered on ending the occupation and settling the Palestinian issue. This is evidenced by the abstention of several Arab states that signed the Abraham Accords from condemning the Israeli recognition of Somaliland, reflecting a structural shift in the philosophy of normalization from linking it with achieving Arab political gains to granting it a legitimacy based on functional integration and intertwined economic interests.
It is important to note that this path will lead to a decline in the centrality of the Palestinian issue in regional calculations, placing both Jordan and Saudi Arabia directly in confrontation with Israeli strategy, as the only two states that have maintained linking any regional economic engagement with a political solution condition.
Herein, Israeli movements in the maritime corridors and the Horn of Africa reveal an integrated strategy for functional-economic and geopolitical integration, aimed at ensuring sustained access to vital corridors and securing trade and energy chains, while redefining Israel's role in the region as a central actor in the equations of international economy and security. This transformation redefines the nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict, where the political dimension of the conflict is neutralized through the interplay of economic interests, while maintaining pressure tools towards traditional Arab states, opening the way for a new phase of conflict management based on the economy as a tool of soft geopolitical dominance.
