Al Jazeera Podcasts.

Today, Israel is recognizing the self-declared state of Somaliland.

Somalia called on Israel to rescind its recognition of its breakaway region of Somaliland

during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

Will aligning itself with Israel help or hurt the breakaway region's case for independent statehood?

I'm Kevin Horton, and this is The Take.

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My name is Faisaliy. I'm a reporter who works primarily on East Africa with a focus on Somalia.

I'm joining you today from Cairo after a week of reporting on probably the most consequential diplomatic development in East Africa in a generation.

Faisal, welcome to the take. So we are talking in the wake of Israel's surprise announcement in December to formally recognize Somaliland, which is a breakaway region in the

northwest of Somalia, which is home to more than six million people. So Israel is the first

country to do so, and we'll get into some of the history in just a minute, but on

its face, Israel and Somaliland seem like strange bedfellows.

So what is Israel up to here?

Why the sudden interest in this relatively small part of East Africa?

I think obviously the geography kind of speaks for itself in many ways.

The Red Sea is a crucial artery between, on the one side, Europe and East Mediterranean,

and then on the other side obviously opens up into the Indian Ocean, and then East Asia,

where you have some of the most dynamic markets and largest economies in the world,

...