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The Palestinian-North Korean Connection

A thorough examination of the track record of the Palestinian Authority, the PLO, Fatah (all three headed by Mahmoud Abbas) and Hamas is a prerequisite for a realistic assessment of the nature of the proposed Palestinian state and its potential impact upon vital US interests in the Middle East.


North Korea has scrutinized these terror organizations since their inception, in 1959 (Fatah), and has identified the significant, long-term, geo-political synergies between them and Pyongyang. Hence, the systematic and elaborate geo-strategic cooperation, since 1966, between one of the most repressive, terroristic and anti-US regimes in the world and the Palestinian terror organizations, which have been systematically anti-American, role-models of international and intra-Arab terrorism, subversion and treachery.  Similarly to North Korea, they forged alliances with the USSR and the ruthless East European communist regimes, collaborated with Iran’s Ayatollahs, fomenting egregious systems of hate-education, incitement and repression.

Furthermore, Pyongyang is aware of the Palestinian trail of anti-Jewish and (mostly) intra-Arab terrorism during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, their collaboration with the Nazis, and their 1951 murder of Jordan’s King Abdullah, while the monarch prayed in Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque. The ruthless totalitarian Kim Jong-un sympathizes with the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas’ twelfth year of his first four-year-term, refusing to hold an election.

North Korea considers its ties with the Palestinians compatible with its paramount strategic goal: the erosion of the US power projection in the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East and throughout the globe. Therefore, Pyongyang has attempted to destabilize pro-US regimes, while forging cooperation with regimes, which are rivals of – or hostile to – the US and its allies, such as Israel.  

North Korea has supported terror organizations – which have targeted the US and its allies – providing them with training, military supplies, communications technologies, and expertise on the construction of tunnels and fortifications.

North Korea has considered Iran and Syria its senior partners in the Middle East, but has also provided the Palestinian terror machine critical assistance.

Moreover, Pyongyang has leveraged the unique Palestinian “terror startup” – developed ever since the 1960s – when Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas established the “Palestinian Academy for Higher Terrorism” in PLO camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen, training anti-Western terrorists from Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America.  

The Palestinians have participated in the North Korean semi-proxy-terrorist-network, stretching from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela, through South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Western Sahara, Europe, Syria and Iran all the way to Sri Lanka and Japan.

While Israel’s security control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) precludes substantial North Korean military assistance to the Palestinian Authority, such assistance has been extended to Hamas in Gaza. 35 tons of arms 
destined for Gaza via Teheran – including rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and rocket launchers, missile tubes, surface-to-air missile launchers and spare parts – were seized when a North Korean cargo plane made an emergency landing in Bangkok. In addition, during 2009, five North Korean vessels were interdicted while carrying weapons intended for Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah. Recently, Palestinian terrorists in Gaza received North Korean shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles and anti-tank missiles.

North Korea has been implicated in notorious precedents of Palestinian terrorism, such as the 
1972 attack (in conjunction with the Japanese Red Army) on Israel’s only international airport, murdering 26 persons, most of them Christian pilgrims from Puerto Rico. In 2010, a US Federal Judge ordered North Korea to pay $378mn in compensation to the families of the victims.

According to 
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North Korean Workers’ Party, the Palestinian Embassy to North Korea (one of only 24 embassies in the country) issued a Mahmoud Abbas’ praise of the current and previous tyrants for “devoting [themselves] to freedom and people’s happiness.”  Such praise reflects Mahmoud Abbas’ own track record of hate-education, terrorism and violation of civil liberties, providing another evidence of the nature of the proposed Palestinian state. 



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Open letter to Prime Minister Bennett ahead of visit to USA

(Hebrew edition in “Israel Hayom,” Israel’s largest circulation daily)

During your first official visit to Washington, DC, you’ll have to choose between two options:

*Blurring your deeply-rooted, assertive Israeli positions on the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), which would be welcome by the Biden Administration, yielding to short-term political convenience and popularity inside the beltway;

or

*Tenaciously advocating your deeply-rooted, principle-driven positions, which would underscore a profound disagreement with the Biden Administration and the “elite” US media, while granting you and Israel long-term strategic respect, as demonstrated by some of your predecessors.

For example, the late Prime Minister Shamir honed the second option, bluntly introduced his assertive Israeli positions on Judea and Samaria, rebuffed heavy US pressure – including a mudslinging campaign by President Bush and Secretary of State Baker – suffered a popularity setback, but produced unprecedented expansion of US-Israel strategic cooperation. When it comes to facing the intensified threats of rogue regimes and Islamic terrorism, the US prefers principle-driven, reliable, patriotic, pressure-defying partners, irrespective of disagreements on the Palestinian issue.

Assuming that you shall not budge on the historical and national security centrality of Judea and Samaria, it behooves you to highlight the following matters during your meetings with President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Advisor Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Austin and Congressional leaders (especially the members of the Appropriations Committees):

  1. The 1,400-year-old track record of the stormy, unpredictable, violent and anti-“infidel” Middle East, which has yet to experience intra-Arab peaceful-coexistence, along with the 100-year-old Palestinian track record (including the systematic collaboration with anti-US entities, hate-education and anti-Arab and anti-Jewish terrorism) demonstrates that the proposed Palestinian state would be a Mini-Afghanistan or a Mega-Gaza on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria.

It would dominate 80% of Israel’s population and infrastructures in the 9-15-mile sliver between Judea and Samaria and the Mediterranean, which is shorter than the distance between RFK Stadium and the Kennedy Center.

Thus, a Palestinian state would pose a clear and present existential threat to Israel; and therefore, Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria is a prerequisite for its survival.

  1. The proposed Palestinian state would undermine US interests, as concluded from the Palestinian intra-Arab track record, which has transformed the Palestinians into a role-model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism and ingratitude. Arabs are aware that a Palestinian state would add fuel to the Middle East fire, teaming up with their enemies (e.g., Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Erdogan) and providing a strategic foothold to Russia and China. Consequently, Arabs shower Palestinians with favorable talk, but with cold and negative walk.

Hence, during the October, 1994 Israel-Jordan peace treaty ceremony, Jordan’s military leaders asserted to their Israeli colleagues that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, and lead, subsequently, to the toppling of all pro-US Arab Peninsula regimes.

  1. There is no foundation for the contention that Israel’s retreat from the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria – which are the cradle of Jewish history, religion and culture – is required in order to sustain Israel’s Jewish majority. In reality, there is unprecedented Jewish demographic momentum, while Arab demography – throughout the Middle East – has Westernized dramatically. The Jewish majority in the combined area of Judea, Samaria and pre-1967 Israel benefits from a robust tailwind of fertility and migration.
  2. Israel’s control of the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights, bolsters its posture of deterrence, which has daunted rogue regimes, reduced regional instability, enhanced the national security of all pro-US Arab regimes, and has advanced Israel’s role as a unique force-multiplier for the US. An Israeli retreat from Judea and Samaria would transform Israel from a strategic asset – to a strategic liability – for the US.
  3. As the US reduces its military presence in the Middle East – which is a global epicenter of oil production, global trade (Asia-Africa), international Islamic terrorism and proliferation of non-conventional military technologies – Israel’s posture of deterrence becomes increasingly critical for the pro-US Arab countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan), who consider Israel to be the most reliable “life insurance agent” in the region.

Contrary to NATO, South Korea and Japan, Israel’s defense does not require the presence of US troops on its soil.

  1. Sustaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge is a mutual interest for the US and Israel, which serves as the most cost-effective battle-tested laboratory for the US defense industries and armed forces. Thus, Israel’s use of hundreds of US military systems has yielded thousands of lessons (operation, maintenance and repairs), which have been integrated, by the US manufacturers, into the next generation of the military systems, saving the US many years of research and development, increasing US exports and expanding the US employment base – a mega billion dollar bonanza for the US. At the same time, the US armed forces have benefitted from Israel’s military intelligence and battle experience, as well as joint training maneuvers with Israel’s defense forces, which has improved the US formulation of battle tactics.

Prime Minister Bennett, your visit to Washington, is an opportunity to demonstrate your adherence to your deeply-rooted strong Israeli positions, rejecting the ill-advised appeals and temptations to sacrifice Israel’s national security on the altar of convenience and popularity.

Yours truly,

Yoram Ettinger, expert on US-Israel relations and Middle East affairs

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