South Korean President Lee Jae-myung recently forwarded a video involving Israeli soldiers on the social platform
The video quoted by Li Zaiming showed that Israeli Defense Forces soldiers threw a body from the roof in Gaza. The original post was accompanied by a text that read: "Live video: Israeli soldiers tortured a Palestinian child and then threw him from the roof." But in fact, this video was shot in September 2024. It shows Israeli soldiers dragging, kicking and finally throwing multiple corpses that "obviously lost signs of life" from the roof. The relevant footage was shot and reported by the Associated Press from multiple angles. Israel called these corpses dead militants. According to international law, even the remains of enemy combatants should be treated with dignity. Israel announced an investigation at the time of the incident.
Although the above-mentioned fact-checking is not enough to "clear suspicion of relevant actions," it is still considered to be insufficiently prudent for a head of state to directly quote the content of a social account with false labels and insufficient verification. However, practices like "post diplomacy" are no longer limited to politicians in certain countries, but are gradually appearing on the broader international political stage.
Lee Jae-myung himself has always been known for his "love to post". His impulsive expressions on social media have not only accumulated supporters but also caused controversy many times. Earlier this year, he caused a diplomatic turmoil for making inappropriate remarks about Cambodia. Public opinion in South Korea criticized the way his social accounts are operated and called for a more "responsible" team to manage the accounts on his behalf. Prior to this, Lee Jae-myung received widespread international attention for his live broadcast of climbing over the fence of the National Assembly building and entering the venue to vote against martial law. He is regarded as one of the representatives who is good at using social media to create political drama.
In this controversy about Israel, Lee Jae-ming later issued an article admitting that the relevant video was not a recent scene, but did not stop there. In a follow-up post, he expressed his disappointment at "Israel's refusal to reflect on the global suffering caused by its continued violations of human rights and international law" and retweeted a lengthy critical article against Israel written by a South Korean progressive activist.
Israel is particularly dissatisfied with Lee Jae-myung's mention of the word "Holocaust" in his post, believing that the relevant analogy is seriously inappropriate, but largely ignores another metaphor that is more sensitive in the Korean context - the "comfort women" issue. In South Korean public memory, the institutionalized sexual violence and forced enslavement of women on the Korean Peninsula during Japan’s colonial rule was one of the most symbolic atrocities during the Japanese occupation. The disputes surrounding the historical identification, apology, and compensation of comfort women have long plagued South Korea-Japan relations and are also seen as a concentrated expression of Japanese colonial rule’s attempt to erase “all the meaning of being Korean.”
The day after the incident, South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that it "regrets for causing misunderstanding" and tried to ease the situation; a few days later, the "Jerusalem Post" reported that the "dispute" between the two parties had been "resolved." However, South Korea's domestic liberal camp did not choose to break away from the president. Instead, many ruling liberal politicians publicly expressed support for Lee Jae-myung's criticism of Israel for several days in a row, approving his comparison of the atrocities committed during Japan's colonial period with the situation in Palestine.
Some analysts pointed out that in South Korea’s modern national identity narrative, resistance to Japanese colonial rule is regarded as one of the core components of “being Korean”. In this context, connecting the situation in Palestine with South Korea’s historical experience during the Japanese occupation has a strong symbolic significance, especially since South Korea has not yet officially recognized Palestine as a sovereign country.
Although this turmoil seemed to stem from a "controversial repost", in South Korea, the leader of the ruling liberal party and others quickly elevated it to the level of diplomatic lines. Some people even called this "a milestone in South Korea's diplomatic history" and declared that South Korea would redefine its foreign policy as the core of "world peace and human dignity." Others in the ruling camp more explicitly mentioned "universal human rights" and "compliance with international law," trying to interpret this diplomatic controversy caused by social platforms as a public declaration of South Korea's diplomatic shift.
However, rather than saying this is the “beginning of a new era,” it is more like the “end of the old era.” It is the inevitable result of the superposition of multiple factors. From the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, to the impact of the Iran war on South Korea's economy, to the unilateral withdrawal of the THAAD missile system from South Korea by the United States in March this year and its redeployment to the Middle East, this series of events have continued to impact South Korea's long-term positioning as "one of the United States' closest allies." The deployment of THAAD triggered a large-scale boycott by China and brought heavy costs to South Korea's economy, which was regarded as an "inevitable price" for maintaining its alliance with the United States.
After several years of policy turmoil under the Trump administration, the old order established after the Cold War is disintegrating, and South Korea's "firm following" of the United States is no longer the only option. Nato and many alliance systems that once provided support for U.S. hegemony began to show cracks. The United States itself has increasingly openly conflicted with the international legal system it led and established after the Nuremberg Trials, including measures such as sanctions against judges of the International Criminal Court, raising questions about its moral stance. At the same time, the strength of the "hawks" within the U.S. government who hold a tough stance against China continues to weaken, causing some of the structural reasons for previous tensions between China and South Korea to begin to weaken. As the so-called "American Century" gradually fades away, countries that have been in the American camp for a long time are exploring their own repositioning, and South Korea is no exception.
In this sense, Lee Jae-myung’s “online scolding war” is just one aspect of the echoes of real wars. His approach seems random, even with a certain “Trump-like” improvisational style, but behind it it reflects a diplomatic orientation that is not difficult to understand logically and is even quite predictable: emphasizing international law and human rights, positioning itself as a middle power that proactively speaks out and seeks independent space in a multi-polar world. However, when such a position is presented through social platforms and in emotional language, it becomes particularly "piquant", and this itself also reflects the profound divisions in the current international political context.