The unseen conflict: North Korea’s discreet war with Israel - opinion

In January 2024, South Korean intelligence reports claimed that Hamas had been using North Korean weapons in its ongoing conflict with Israel in Gaza.

 Even though Pyongyang denied the allegations, there is strong reason to believe that Seoul’s claim might be true.

North Korea and Israel have no diplomatic ties. Pyongyang acknowledges Palestinian authority over the entire Israeli territory. 

North Korea’s relationship with Palestine dates to the 1960s, when it started training the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Over the last six decades, military forces of the two states came face to face on several occasions, even though they have no direct territorial conflict or ideological differences. 

North Korea saw Israel as an imperialist state in the Mediterranean. Their lingering rivalry is largely accrued to their contrasting relations with US and their bilateral relations continue to carry the nostalgia of the cold-war era.

In the 1960s, Kim II Sung intervened actively in the Arab-Israeli conflict by deploying his military and intelligence against Israeli forces. 

During the 1970s, Pyongyang began offering financial support and training to Palestinian terrorist groups. 

In 1972, radical Marxist operatives from the Japanese Red Army, trained and funded by North Korea, stormed Israel’s international Airport in Lod. 

Israel-North Korea relations in history 

Twenty-six people were killed and over 80 were wounded. The majority of those killed were Puerto Rican Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Two years prior, George Habash, the commander of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) had visited Pyongyang to plan and coordinate the attack. 

Subsequently, the Japanese militants received training from PFLP fighters In Lebanon’s Bekaa valley.

Pyongyang’s military forces worked hand-in-glove with the Egyptian forces during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. 

Then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat had severed Cairo’s military ties with Moscow. North Koreans therefore found a strategic opportunity to step in. 

Sadat and his army chief Hosni Mubarak were well-familiar with North Korea’s military prowess and welcomed their forces to participate. 

Sadat formally welcomed North Korean military advisors to Egypt in June 1973. As war with Israel seemed inevitable, Pyongyang reportedly dispatched about 1,500 soldiers (disguised as laborers) to assist the Egyptians in operating their Soviet-made surface-to-air missile systems. 

These wars exposed Pyongyang’s intention, interest, and ability to get involved in theater of Arab-Israeli conflict.

Besides direct involvement in conflicts, North Korea allied itself with Iran after the Islamic revolution in 1979 that toppled the US-backed shah. Sung started forging closer diplomatic and commercial ties with Iran. 

During the Iran-Iraq war of 1980s, a US-led arms embargo made it extremely difficult for Tehran’s new administration to get weapons to oppose Saddam Hussein’s army. Thus, Sung supported Iran militarily throughout the war. 

After the war, the two nations started working closely to build strategic missile systems. This collaboration was instrumental in designating Iran as a potent regional threat, giving it the ability to strike its enemies in the Arab world. Reaching out to Iran was also a way of bolstering the anti-US axis.

Tables turned in the 1990s. With the fall of Soviet Union, Moscow’s coffers went dry and its financial support for Pyongyang went down. 

As its economy began to contract, it started seeing Israel as a possible economic partner and as a means for reaching out to Washington. In 1992, amid political unrest, North Korea discreetly reached out to Israel via a Korean American businessman. 

They arranged a first encounter in midtown Manhattan.

Initially, Pyongyang asked for technical assistance to restore a gold mine destroyed by the US Air Force during the Korean War, along with $30 million investment. In return, Tel Aviv asked Kim to stop trading weapons around the Middle East. 

After subsequent meetings in Beijing and Pyongyang in 1992 and 1993, North Korea asked for an additional investment of $1 billion or more in the nation, to compensate for loss of revenues from stopping arms sales. 

According to rumors, Israel was prepared to establish a diplomatic mission in North Korea’s capital. This was the closest Israel came to fostering economic ties with North Korea in return of an assurance of non-proliferation of arms sales in the region. However, Israel reneged, and the agreement never materialized.

Some believe that the deal was called off under US pressure after the UN nuclear inspectors accused North Korea of diverting plutonium from its Yonabyon Reactor, potentially for weapons use. 

Although some Israeli leaders lamented the failure of talks, it made more sense for Israel to show a clear allegiance to the US rather than tilting towards the anti-US bloc. 

Albeit, North Koreans and Israelis carried on their covert communications in the interim. 

Israeli diplomats covertly considered a similar proposal from North Korea in 1999, sent to them via diplomatic mission in Stockholm. Pyongyang proposed to cease its advanced missile systems exports to Syria and Iran in exchange for US$1 billion. 

Israel retorted that it could not pay the North such sums of money without US approval. On both occasions, negotiations failed largely due to Israel’s incapacity to act independently of Washington.

As of 2024, Pyongyang has two justifications for selling military hardware and technology in the region: Under pressure of international sanctions, the primary motivation for the North has been money. 

By selling weapons to Iran and non-state actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah, the North has been raising money for its own weapons program. 

Second, and more fundamental, is North Korea’s commitment to the anti-American Axis of Resistance alongside Russia, China, and Iran.

To that end, North Korea views Israel as a satellite state of the US. Israel therefore remains a collateral damage in Pyongyang-Washington strategic rivalry.

The writer is a Delhi-based researcher. She has been associated with India’s National Security Advisory Board. The views expressed here are her own.