South Korea’s president draws Israeli anger by using old video to make point about human suffering

Seoul — 

South Korea’s president has angered the Israeli government by sharing video on social media from 2024 that shows Israeli soldiers pushing a body off a building in the occupied West Bank.

“We need to check if this is true, and if it is, we should find out what measures were taken,” President Lee Jae Myung said in the post on X on Friday that triggered a rare public spat between two nations with diplomatic relations spanning 60 years.

In his post, Lee said there was “no difference” between wartime killings, the Holocaust and the sexual slavery of women under Japan’s colonial rule of Korea between 1910 to 1945.

It was the reference to the Holocaust that appeared to anger the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which responded in an X post on Saturday, calling Lee’s remarks “unacceptable.”

“The remarks by the President of Korea, Lee Jae Myung, including the trivialization of the massacre of Jews on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, are unacceptable and warrant strong condemnation,” the Israeli post said.

The Foreign Ministry post added that “for some strange reason,” Lee had chosen to “dig up a story from 2024 and to cite a fake account that falsely presented it as a current event.”

The incident involving the soldiers occurred during an operation “at a time when Israeli soldiers were facing direct and immediate threats to their lives” and had been “thoroughly investigated and addressed two years ago,” the post said, without elaborating on the outcome.

“Mr. President, it’s always better to check before posting,” the ministry added.

In fact, Lee had already clarified his original remarks with another post to say it was a real event from September 2024 that had been condemned by the US.

“International humanitarian law must be abided by under any circumstances, and human dignity must also be kept as an irreconcilable top priority value,” Lee added.

CNN reported in 2024 that residents of Qabatya, near Jenin in the occupied West Bank, had filmed Israeli soldiers throwing apparently lifeless bodies off a building on September 19 of that year.

The same day, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it had killed four militants in a “counterterrorism operation” in the area.

Asked about the video at the time, the Israeli military said it showed a “serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers.” The incident was being reviewed, it added.

Under international law, militaries are required to treat the bodies of enemy soldiers with respect and return them to the deceased’s family. A Palestinian politician had called the treatment of the bodies “barbaric.”

Israel has faced growing international criticism over the war in Gaza and its bombardment of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. European nations have been particularly outspoken. But it is far less common for an East Asian leader to be so public in criticism, and South Korea has tended to maintain good relations with Israel.

This weekend, Lee appeared to double down on his original tweet – sharing a story on Saturday about the Israel’s Foreign Ministry’s response to his comment, without referring to them directly.

“It’s disappointing that one does not even once reflect on the criticisms from the people around the world who are suffering and struggling from constant anti-human rights and anti-international law actions,” said Lee. “When I am in pain, others feel that pain just as deeply.”

In an apparent attempt to lower the temperature, the South Korean Foreign Ministry weighed into the spat a couple of hours later, expressing regret that the Israeli government had “misunderstood the intent” of he president’s remarks.

Lee’s comments were “an expression of his convictions regarding universal human rights rather than an opinion on any specific issue,” the post read.

It ended by reiterating the ministry’s “profound condolences” to the victims of the Holocaust.

But on Sunday, Lee seemed to underscore his original message in another post.

“The sovereignty of each country and universal human rights must be respected, and aggressive war must be denied,” Lee wrote on X.

“Respect must be earned through respect,” he added.

Israel has yet to respond to that latest post.