Korea
At the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, Korea was annexed by Japan. After the end of World War II, Korea was divided into the North and South zones. The north zone was allied with the Soviet Union and its ideology and the south zone was allied with the United Staes and its ideology. However, each zone claimed sovereignty over the entire Korean Peninsula. The conflicting claims of sovereignty lead to the Korean War of 1950-1953, which was started by North Korea invading South Korea on June 25, 1950. Although the Armistice Agreement of 1953 ended the fighting, the North and South zones, now considered as two separate countries by the rest of the world, remain officially at war with each other.
Officially, North Korea, whose formal name is Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is a socialist republic. Democratic for North Korea is double talk in the sense of the famous 1984 book. Today it functions not as a democracy but as a totalitarian dictatorship. North Korea has one of the worst human rights records of all countries. North Korea brutalizes its own people, threatens its neighbors and has an erratic foreign policy. It is not unusual for it to act and talk belligerently. Its actions are worrisome because it has Nuclear weapons.
North Korea is a militarized nation with nearly 10,000,000 active and reserve military personel, making it have the highest number of soliders per capita. The government controls all communication and media services and is constantly putting out propaganda. Its economy is in poverty and it is the poorest Asian country. Each year North Korea depends on international food aid to keep its population from starving. But even with this international food aid, famine cause the death of over 2 million North Koreans since 1990.
The capital of North Korea is Pyongyang. It is a city of over 3 million inhabitants with two subway lines. Tourists can only travel the subway between predesignated states with a guide. Pyongyang has a tram and a trolley line. Pyongyang has train service to Beijing, taking about 25.5 hours and train service to Moscow, taking about 6 days. There are relatively few automobiles in Pyongyang. However, the government maintains a fleet of Mercedes-Benz limousines for Party bureaucrats. There is airline service to Beijing, Shenyang, Vladivostok, Macau, Bangkok, Khabarovsk, and Shenzhen.
Officially, South Korea, whose formal name is Republic of Korea, is a democratic presidential republic. Today it is fully functioning as a liberal democracy. It has a military of almost 4 million personnel and has the second highest number of soldiers per capita. Its economy is a market-oriented economy and is thriving with a healthy share of high tech industries. It stands among the high-income developed countries.
The capital of South Korea is Seoul, a city of over 10 million inhabitants and over 24 million including its surrounding subburbs. Today Seoul is ranked in the top 10 global cities of the world, having important financial and commercial centers. Seoul's subway system is the third largest in the world. It has airline service to all major cities of the world.
North Korea Propaganda
From the point of view of North Korea, it is an independent and sovereign state. By contrast, it considers South Korea to be controlled by imperialist interests and the U.S. troops. North Korean propaganda states that if any South Korean citizen tries to visit North Korea crossing the big concrete wall separating the North and South, he will be killed by the American soldiers.
Since the end of the Korean War, the leaders of North Korea, including the one they call the Great Leader Kim Il Sung and the one they call Dear Leader Kim Jong Il want the Unification of the Korean families. The Great Leader said:
To unify the divided country in this moment is the supreme national task of all the Korean people, and we cannot wait just one moment to achieve it.
The unification they want is double talk. Unification is doubletalk meaning that North Korea wants a communist takeover of South Korea. North Korea also proclaims that there is freedom of religious worship. This is also doubletalk. For anyone in North Korea who is openly seen with a Christian Bible is subject to arrest, placement in a hard labor camp, and execution. In actuallity there indeed is a sanctioned religion in atheist North Korea: the religion is a personality cult surrounding the country's founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il.
The North South Conflict
The last North Korea South Korea skirmish began on December 21, 2010 when South Korea conducted military drills on the Island of Yeonpyeong which by International agreement is part of South Korea, but contested by North Korea. Pyongyang warned the South to halt military drills in the area. When Seoul refused and began firing artillery into disputed waters, albeit away from the North Korean shore, the North retaliated by bombarding the small island of Yeonpyeong, which houses South Korean military installations and a small civilian population.
Seoul responded by unleashing its own barrage from K-9 155mm self-propelled howitzers and scrambling fighter jets. Two South Korean marines were killed in the shelling that also injured 15 troops and three civilians.
Officials in Seoul said there could be considerable North Korean casualties. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak did not order a complete counterattack but vowed enormous retaliation should the Yeonpyeong attack be followed by another action.
North Korea's defense chief threatened recently to launch a sacred nuclear war against the South.
Since the armistice agreement in 1953, North Korea has repeatedly provoked South Korea. Among the notable of these provocations are when in 1968 North Korean commandoes staged an attack on the Blue House, the South Korean president's office and residence, in an assassination attempt against South Korean President Park Chung Hee. In 1983, North Korean special agents killed four members of the South Korean Cabinet who were on a visit to Myanmar, and in 1987 they caused an explosion on a South Korean airplane that killed 115 people. In 1996, there was running gunbattles in the hills of South Korea as the South Korea pursued North Korean commandoes that had infiltrated the South via a submarine.
It is not uncommon for small arms fire and even artillery fire to be routinely exchanged between the North and the South, particularly in the disputed waters west of the Demilitarized Zone. Naval skirmishes occurred there in 1999, 2002 and 2009, and it was in these same waters that the South Korean corvette Cheonan was sunk by a North Korean torpedo on March 26th of 2010.
White House spokesman has stated that North Korea has a pattern of doing things that are provocative. Indeed, North Korea employs systematic provocation using military force as an instrument to achieve its political goals. The provocations are usually timed to obtain some concessions in negotiations with Western countries. As long as western diplomatic policy rewards such behavior, North Korea will continue its provocations. The danger of the continued provocations is the possibility that the tinder box will turn into a full blown war.
A history of these provocations, through 2003, can be read in a complete the chronology report.
A report released by the International Crisis Group, states that the Koreas' disputed maritime boundary and the volatility of North Korea's internal politics have
created a serious risk that any further provocation might turn into a wider conflict
Victor Cha, a Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington stated that
The provocations are getting more serious. These are basically acts of war.
Particularly worrisome is that North Korea has nuclear weapons and missiles that can carry them. North Korea's defense minister Kim Yong Chun, stated that
North Korea is fully prepared to launch a sacred war of justice of Korean style based on the nuclear deterrent at anytime necessary.
If North Korea continues to become increasingly belligerent to South Korea, their provocations can turn into war. And once in war, North Korea would not hesitate to use its nuclear weapons on South Korea. If that happens, the United States would be dragged into the war.
Furthermore, since 2007, North Korea has been sharing its technology with Iran. When North Korea tested an atomic bomb, an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests. Mohammed Reza Heydan, a former Iranian envoy to Norway has stated that Iran has obtained help from North Korean scientists for its nuclear weapon's development and for help in increasing its ballistic missile range. Former U.S. Defense Department advisor Christina Lin stated that Iran finances North Korea's missile program in exchange for access to missile and nuclear technologies. Also from other channels it is known that North Korea has sent technology and scientists to Iran in exchange for Iranian money and testing facilities.
Iran has two uses for missiles and nuclear weapons. One use is to explode a nuclear weapon over Israel. The other is to explode a nuclear weapon over a U.S aircraft carrier in order to neutralize US seapower that could be projected into Iran. And Iran would not hesitate to do both, either one of which would draw the United States into a war with Iran.
It is interesting that the Kabbalist Rabbi Levi Saadya Nachmani in a talk given in 1994 told of the danger Korea represents to Israel.
Rav Levi Saadya Nachmani
The tzadik, renowned mekubal and miracle-worker, Rav Levi Saadya Nachmani, made a public speech on December 1, 1994, which has now been picked up by several Jewish sites. Known for his accurate predictions, Rav Nachmani had spoken of North Korea endangering the residents in Israel, a development that was unimaginable at the time. But at this time in history the chain of events of North Korea's nuclear weapons and missiles to Iran and from Iran to its use on Israel is clear.
To help understand Rav Nachmani's talk, we must understand that Seoul, the capital of today's South Korea, has been a major city in the Korean peninsula since the city was settled in about 18BCE. It served as the capital of Korea during the Joseon Dynasty and the Korean Empire. In Hebrew, Seoul is spelled סיאול. Cognate to its sound is the Hebrew word שאול, where the ס is replaced by the ש and the explicit letter used to designate a vowel sound, י, occurs in שאול by means of a nikud, a pointed vowel that when shown explicitly occurs below the bottom side of a letter. The Hebrew word שאול means grave, pit, or abyss. It is a place of darkness through which all souls must pass after the body dies. Sometimes it is mistranslated as hell. Ravi Nachmani associates the old Korean capital, סיאול, before Korea was divided into north and south zones in 1945, with the Hebrew word שאול which in metaphorical terms he takes to mean doom.
Here is a translation of part of Rav's Nachmani's speech.
I will tell you the truth. You think there will be peace? Do you think it is going to be peaceful one day? Complete fools! About this it says in Parshas Ha'azinu,
A nation who is foolish and not wise, who is crooked and perverse. Shall you treat Hashem thus? He is your father who acquired you. (Deut. 32:5-6)
You know what will happen? God forbid. Korea? Do you know who is Korea? Seoul will come here. Not Syria, not Iran, not Iraq and not Qaddafi. Korea will come here!! God forbid, May the Lord save us, Hashem should save us. Whoever pays attention to what is happening in Korea now -- understands it's a message for us! The atom! The nukes! It will be very difficult if we do not repent, do T'shuva. Understand and realize this! Know that it will be worse than a Holocaust!!!!
For a fire has been kindled by My anger, and it shall burn until the lowest She'ol (netherworld). (Deut. 32:22)
You know what She'ol is? It is the capital city of Korea. Seoul. It will reach here.
It will devour the earth and its harvests, and set aflame the foundations of the mountains. (Deut. 32:22)
I will heap calamities upon them and spend my arrows against them. (Deut. 32:23)
What does it mean? We abandoned Hakodesh Baruch Hu, we thought we could take care of ourselves. We had a prime minister who presides and does what he wants, as if Hakodesh Baruch Hu (chas v'sholom) doesn't exist, as if Eretz Yisroel is ours and we can do what we want. As if the people belongs to us. The Torah says,
For Hashem's portion is his people.
(Deut. 32:9) You do not belong to yourself, you are His.For with a strong hand I shall rule you.
We have no conflict with the Arabs! We have a conflict with the God of Israel! If we don't listen to Him, we will only have more troubles and more troubles, and the situation will only get worse.
According to Rav Nachmani, without T'shuvah, the war is inevitable. Looking at the events now, there is no T'shuvah. Therefore, it may break out in the next few weeks and last a total of three months. In this scenario, before the broader war is over in the second month of Adar when nations who behave like Amalekites (who also aid others to destroy Israel -- give Iran technology to do so) are wiped out.
The Zohar writes that, in the Last Days, all the historic enemies of Israel such as Pharaoh to Sancherib, Haman to Nevuchadnezzar will be brought back as gilgulim (reincarnated souls) to fight Israel and be destroyed, this time forever, all in one generation, the last generation of the final and complete redemption.
Consider the final Pharoah Akhenaten (1336 B.C.E.) and his mother, who he more than likely had an incestuous relationship with given that was more the norm in Egypt and throughout the middle east. They ruled for just four years, according to Midrash Sefer Yashar, before they destroyed their own kingdom, by not listening to the advice of all those around them...and focusing their harshness solely against Israel from among all the other nations of the world. Sound familiar?The Vilna Gaon wrote that, in the end of days, when you see that all 70 nations of the world, which is simply the gematria of "GOG UMAGOG," are unified against us, (amounting to 200 countries today) that is when we will see the wars of Gog Umagog and in turn the heralding of the final redemption.