00:00Tobias, you've visited Somaliland in a political capacity, and as Awale rightfully pointed out, Britain does have a historical past in that region.
00:13So give us your perspective on why Israel has taken this step to break the status quo, so to speak, now.
00:21Yeah, I think you highlight two very important but slightly separate questions here.
00:25There's the pursuance of independence by Somaliland, which is clearly a long-term project, and then there's the sudden decision by Israel at this moment in time to suddenly say we now support Somaliland as an independent state.
00:42I think the only country in the world to do so, and it's useful to perhaps take those separately.
00:48We started off quite rightly by looking at the history, and much of Africa's history is somehow tied to British engagement and control, and Somalia and Somaliland is no different.
01:02The key date, I think, is 1960, when both British and Italian parts of Somalia became independent and merged into what we see today as the one country.
01:13But when I visited, it was clear that there's a massive feeling of independence, of autonomy in the various parts of the country.
01:22It is a federated structure anyway, similar to the United Arab Emirates, in fact, where you are.
01:28So, you know, Putland, Jubaland, the southwest state, for example, they all have their own separate parliaments.
01:34They all have their, I think, their own presidents as well.
01:36So, on top of that, you must overlay the chaos that's caused by a very corrupt Mogadishu, a very corrupt central government, and, of course, Al-Shabaab.
01:49That's taken full advantage of the chaos, of the absence of good governance, security as well.
01:56Somaliland has been interesting because it's managed to exist in an autonomous state to do well, to look after its own.
02:04And so it clearly wants to advance in that direction.
02:09I see greater autonomy should be given as a first step before you talk about a breakaway Somaliland.
02:16Giving, in a similar way, Scotland, in the UK, for example, got more powers to run its own affairs.
02:23That, I think, is a logical step to take the world with you.
02:27What we've now seen is Israel make this decision, and then immediately the world has condemned this.
02:32The neighbours, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the African Union itself.
02:37China has also wedded in.
02:38There's only a single country, I think, that's sort of stood up and said, well, that's not a bad idea.
02:43And that's Prime Minister Netanyahu's friend, Donald Trump.
02:46And that takes me very quickly to say, why is Israel doing this now?
02:50I think this is what we call in Britain a dead cat.
02:52It's a deliberate, throwing something on the table to get us all talking about something that isn't Israel.
02:59Because if you think of the pile of problems that Israel's currently facing, why would they wander into another foreign policy announcement such as this?
03:07We know what's going on in Gaza, how difficult that is.
03:10We see what's happening in the West Bank.
03:12Problems of a Palestinian state.
03:13Interesting that they won't recognise a Palestinian state, but happen to recognise something else.
03:18And then, of course, the challenge with Iran.
03:20So Israel's things coming over the hill, affecting them, are enormous.
03:26Yet here they are, making a decision, thrown out there, just to keep us busy and, I think, distracted from what is actually going on in Israel, in Gaza, West Bank and so on.
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