Analysis: The Pyongyang-Tehran-Gaza City axis

A false tweet, purportedly belonging to the account of North Korea’s foreign minister, nevertheless had the effect of pointing out a striking commonality shared by Iran, North Korea and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.  

By: Mati Wagner, World Israel News

As US President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong UN prepare for their historic meeting in Singapore, scheduled for Tuesday, a strange tweet went viral that purportedly belonged to the account of the North’s foreign minister.

“Stinking #Zionist @netanyahu offer water to @Iran,” Ri Yong Ho allegedly tweeted. “He’s criminal/liar so wouldn’t deliver. Meanwhile he can’t be bothered giving water to #Gaza; he kills them instead.”

The tweet was initially taken seriously enough by the Foreign Ministry to illicit a response. Internet news sites reported it as real news. That’s  because it could have conceivably been true.

The tweet was referring to an Israeli initiative to provide Iranians with Persian-language information on Israeli water management technologies. The information will be made available on a Persian-language website being created by Israel.

The Israeli initiative is in response to reports from within Iran from the Iranian Meteorological Institute and a former Iranian agriculture minister that large swathes of Iran suffer from drought and that tens of millions of Iranians are in danger.

Human suffering under all 3 regimes

The tweet might have been fake. But it shed light on real problems in Iran, North Korea and Gaza.

In addition to its water shortages, Iran has been wracked by widespread socioeconomic demonstrations organized by workers protesting substandard working conditions, often at state-owned industries.

Though economic data about North Korea is considered a national secret and is, therefore, carefully kept under cover by the Kim regime, it is thought to be one of the world’s most impoverished countries. The vast majority of its resources goes to bolstering its nuclear capabilities and its military.

According to the Borgen Project, a campaign against poverty, most North Koreans earn between $2 and $3 per month. A 2017 study by the United Nations revealed that 18 million people in North Korea are not getting enough food, and North Korean women are especially at risk of suffering from malnutrition.

“Malnutrition among children and women of reproductive age remains a nationwide problem. The majority of children under 24 months and 50 percent of pregnant and breastfeeding women have insufficient dietary diversity leading to micronutrient deficiencies and unacceptably high prevalence of chronic and acute malnutrition,” the UN report reads.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas’s rule has brought ruin to the residents. Like in Iran and North Korea, most resources are channeled into preparing to waging another war against Israel that would bring death and destruction to Gaza’s populace. After 11 years under Hamas rule, Gaza, which has tremendous economic potential, lacks potable water, electricity and decent sewage disposal.

Hamas’s Islamist ideology has resulted in its diplomatic isolation not only from Israel, but also from Egypt as well as the Palestinian Authority, which has imposed its own sanctions against Hamas.

The totalitarian model

The woes of Iran, North Korea and the Gaza Strip are the result of mismanagement along with an inflexible and violent ideology that disregards human life and sanctifies power.

In what turned out to be a fake tweet aimed at disparaging Israel, a free and democratic country, the unknown author pointed unwittingly to a pernicious commonality shared by North Korea, Iran and Hamas-controlled Gaza.

All three countries are willing to go to any lengths to spread fear and intimidate their opponents, even if it means causing their own people to suffer.

It is no coincidence that for all three, Israel is an enemy (North Korea was behind Syria’s nuclear program, which Israel destroyed), because all three understand that the biggest threat to the totalitarian model is a mass awakening of people to the idea that life can be better. Israel embodies human potential and a successful option to totalitarianism, which, therefore, makes it an enemy of the three regimes.

Ri Yong Ho