The Tigrinya Nation & Eritrea: The Anchor Israel Needs in the Red Sea, the Gateway to Africa.
Marco Mancini, Italy’s Ambassador to Eritrea, in his interview, said, “Eritrea is the only stable country in the horn of Africa”. He is right: Eritrea is indeed the most stable and peaceful country in the region. Eritrea is the de facto nation-state of the indigenous, overwhelming majority Tigrinya people, with no internal or external threats.
Eritrea’s stability comes from the highly homogeneous Tigrinya nation, which has no tribal or clan structure. The Tigrinya possess an ancient Judeo-Christian civilization, the written Ge’ez language, over 400 years of codified law, a thousand-year state history, and naturally defensible geography: the Siem Mountains in the south, the Denaklia Desert, the Nubia Desert in the west, and the Red Sea.
The Tigrinya have long been the organic and original outpost of the West in the Red Sea. We fought alongside the Romans to defeat the Persians and their Chinese allies in the 6th century, securing the Bab el-Mandab trade route. Since the 7th century, we have resisted and repelled repeated Islamic and jihadist invasions—never conquered by Islam.
In the 16th century, we fought with the Portuguese to defeat the Ottoman Turks and their Somali proxy, Mohammed Grange. In the 20th century, we allied with the British to defeat Egyptian jihadists, crushed the Mahdist Sudanese jihadists, and overcame the Islamist Arabist Jebha, supported by Arab and Muslim states including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.
Despite the collapsed economy caused by the dictator’s attempts to unify Eritrea with Ethiopia—continuing the legacy of his father and grandfather under the false premise that Eritrea cannot sustain its own economy—Eritrea remains the only country in the region with an independent foreign policy, free of foreign aid.
Yet, the dictator has exploited this stability to destabilize fragile neighbors mired in tribal, clan, and ethnic conflicts, turning them into proxies for Iran, Turkey, China, and Russia; undermining our strategic and historic role as guardian of the Red Sea. At the same time, he has been committing ethnic cleansing of the industrious Tigrinya nation through slavery disguised as national service.
In a post-Isaias era, Eritrea—already the de facto nation-state—will become the official nation-state of the Tigrinya people. Its priority will be rebuilding the economy to overcome abject poverty and confront climate change, our greatest existential threat, by industrializing, urbanizing, and digitizing the coastal areas, restoring dignity, pride, and prosperity.
To achieve this, Eritrea will need Israel, the U.S., and the West for technology, capital, markets, and know-how. There is no free lunch—we will support Israel, the U.S., and the West in the Red Sea to gain what we need in return.
Eritrea will then be a force for stability in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea, and as a strong, reliable partner of Israel, the U.S., and the West in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea.
The Tigrinya nation and its de facto nation-state, Eritrea, is what Israel needs not only to defeat the Houthis but also to build a genuine people-to-people relationship, have a reliable anchor in the Red Sea, a gateway to Africa, and a hub of abundant investment opportunities, less than a two-hour flight away.