Israel has no ties, diplomatic or otherwise, with North Korea, but some Israelis
dream of a warm relationship between the two countries.
The Korean
Friendship Association, a North Korean government- affiliated organization
dedicated to improving the Hermit Kingdom’s foreign relations, established a
branch in Israel last year, administered by Beersheba resident and Marxist-
Leninist Shmuel Yerushalmi.
Alejandro Cao de Benos, a Spanish national
who serves as international KFA president and special delegate to the North
Korean government’s Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries,
said that the KFA’s Israeli branch, which operates a Hebrew section of the KFA’s
website and has a mailing list of about 60 people, has two major
responsibilities: translating information about North Korea into Hebrew and
creating an Israeli support base that can lead to cultural
exchanges.
Although he does not stand by the actions of North Korea’s
government, Yerushalmi told
The Jerusalem Post this week that he expressed
solidarity with that country because it was “under permanent attacks [from]
world imperialism.”
He said the Israeli KFA affiliate’s activities, which
are currently Internet-based, are part of his efforts to “organize solidarity
with victims of world imperialism” and create an “anti-imperialist front” in
Israel.
Yerushalmi, who made aliya from Ukraine in 1988, said he wanted
to see the establishment of “one socialist country on all territory of
Palestine” to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict, and felt that the “true dictators
of the modern world” were not Kim Jong-Il of North Korea, Muammar Gaddafi of
Libya or Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, but the leaders of the US and “Western
empires.”
De Benos, meanwhile, revealed Tuesday that he planned to travel
to Pyongyang within a few days with American Jewish lobbyists linked to Israel,
some of whom live in Tel Aviv. However, he declined to provide the names of the
lobbying organizations or any delegation members.
According to de Benos,
Israelis can travel to North Korea via Beijing. Yerushalmi said he had not
visited yet.
“This seems a particularly misplaced form of friendship
expression,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
“But it’s not
illegal and not something we are going to interfere with.”
Israeli law
defines enemy states as countries that waged war against Israel in 1948; Egypt
and Jordan were removed from that list when they signed peace treaties with
Israel. While contacts with countries such as Iran and Libya are restricted,
they are not legally considered enemy states, and the same is true of North
Korea, despite its support for nations and terror groups at war with
Israel.
“Israel is bound and abides by international sanctions on North
Korea, but it is not illegal as such to create a friendship group,” said
Palmor.
Despite the KFA’s pronouncements, some doubt its ability to sew
closer relations between North Korea and other countries, including
Israel.
“They have no influence on any governments abroad or on the North
Korean government, and they’re so extreme that they’re not able to do solidarity
work for North Korea,” said Hazel Smith, a professor of resilience and security
at Cranfield University in the UK, who lived in North Korea for two years while
working with the UN World Food Program.
“They are a bunch of individuals
who are a mixture of the curious, the naive and those who just want a free trip
somewhere,” she said Thursday.
International solidarity organizations
like the KFA were more important to North Korea in the past, but they are
unnecessary today, Smith went on.
For example, North Korean officials
frequently meet with senior US counterparts at North Korea’s UN mission in New
York.
From Israel’s perspective, North Korea, officially known as the
Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), constitutes a security
threat.
Pyongyang continues to support countries and terror organizations
that are at war with Israel by transferring missiles and nuclear technology to
Iran and Syria. North Korea was believed to have been helping Syria construct
the secret nuclear reactor in the Syrian desert that Israel destroyed in
September 2007.
In Yerushalmi’s opinion, Iran and Syria should not have
nuclear weapons and North Korea should not have assisted Syria with building the
reactor.
However, he feels that the international community displays
double standards when criticizing those countries’ nuclear weapons programs
without decrying the programs of the US and its allies.
De Benos denied
that North Korea had proliferated nuclear technology to Syria, Iran and other
countries, and also denied any North Korean involvement with the Syrian
reactor.
“We absolutely never helped with nuclear technology or any
high-technology weapons system; we never share this information with other
countries,” he asserted. “This is kept strictly in the DPRK, especially nuclear
technology and intercontinental missiles.”
De Benos also denied North
Korean support for terrorists, saying the country “doesn’t agree with any terror
attack of any kind, [whether it’s] radical [Muslims] killing innocent civilians
in Israel or bombings by Israel [that kill] civilians in Palestine.”
He
acknowledged that North Korea had a long history of friendship with Egypt and
Syria and had assisted Egypt in the Yom Kippur War, but “we are always open to
friendship with anyone. We have full diplomatic relations with the UK, even
though the UK fought us in the Korean War.”
North Korea has no problems
with Israel or Jews, and would welcome diplomatic relations with the Jewish
state, said de Benos.
“We have no religious policy or anything against
Israel; indeed, Israel is a member of the UN, and we talk [to them] as [we do]
any other country,” he said. “The problem from Israel’s side is [it is]
influenced by US foreign policies.”
However, Palmor said there had been
no talks between Israeli and North Korean representatives at the UN.
“The
question of relations with North Korea isn’t even on the agenda, and you can’t
consider marriage if the bride is not only not consenting, but does not even
consent to be asked,” he added.
According to Smith, North Korea has no
guiding ideology regarding its foreign relations, and besides national security,
its main objective is to obtain economic assistance from other countries –
something Israel likely would not be able to provide.
Nevertheless, she
suggested, North Korea would not automatically discount relations with
Israel.
“From the 1970s onward, it’s had links with all sorts of
countries that were neither socialist or communist,” Smith said.
In the
early 1990s, Mossad and Foreign Ministry officials traveled to Pyongyang to try
to convince North Korea to end its support for Israel’s enemies.
Israel
and South Korea established diplomatic relations in April 1962.
Besides
Israel, the KFA has affiliates in countries such as the UK, Italy, Switzerland,
Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, Venezuela, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Thailand,
China and Bangladesh.