Israel and Korea

Looking at this Month's Wolgan Chosun, contained the interview with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. This laudatory interview can be divided into three segment. First is discussions about growing Israeli economy and his experiences on promoting Israeli export in his government career. Second was the ongoing discussion about Israel's security dilemma and lastly was the relationship between the two countries. Olmert noted that South Korea and Israel must remain friendly and that the two countries had long ties going back to the 1960s and that we shared many similarities.

Do we? True, both countries attained Independence in 1945 (de-facto)and 1948 (de-jure), and both countries endured war. it is true that the Talmud is among the fairly widely read books in Korea, where there was a fad for a while that the Talmud contained the "Secret to Success." And the evangelical Christians are highly disposed favorably toward the Jewish State, more during the recent decade.

Yet, embassies were not opened until 1992, and until very recently South Korea choose to focus on the Arab nations as the target markets. While the trade between two nations have increased significantly during the decade, with South Korea exporting US $1.1 Billion in 2011, it s a recent development. Looking back, there is little evidence that the two countries were close.

Olmert's word is the word of career politician, he can hardly say that the he does not want closer relationship between two countries. And it makes sense for the South Korea to be close to Israel considering America and Israel's relationship. But I have not been able to find prominent Palestinians giving interview to South Korean media in last 3 years. And its that lack of balance that worries me. Who gave up on who?

By the way, North Korea considers Hamas the legitimate government of the Israel.