[HN Gopher] An official atlas of North Korea
___________________________________________________________________
An official atlas of North Korea
Author : speckx
Score : 149 points
Date : 2025-11-17 18:07 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cartographerstale.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cartographerstale.com)
| monooso wrote:
| > According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war
| was won by the communists and since then, _the entire Korean
| peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean
| Workers' Party._
|
| (Emphasis mine)
|
| TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction works
| (or doesn't) in practice.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Clearly, we were thinking the same thing or along the same
| lines.
| yostrovs wrote:
| The book 1984 demonstrates how logical inconsistencies can
| exist and be believed in when you don't have much choice.
| s0sa wrote:
| And can in fact be a useful test of loyalty.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| said loyalty tests become a purity spiral, e.g. who can
| clap the loudest or cry the most for Dear Leader
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_spiral
| cedilla wrote:
| It's a book, not a demonstration.
|
| In any case, North Koreans are not taught that South Korea is
| just like any other part of North Korea. The idea that the
| North Korean people and leadership are all buffoons who make
| the weirdest of lies possible is already Orwellian enough.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Well they do don't they? I read a couple of books about
| life in the soviet union. 1984 is satire, but it's not so
| far off from what reality was.
| ch_123 wrote:
| I'm also curious given the rhetoric that the North Korean media
| has about the "puppet" state in the south. I can understand
| that the North Koreans want to claim sovereignty over the whole
| peninsula, but the article makes it sound like North Korea
| pretends that the ROK does not exist.
| the_af wrote:
| This is easy to resolve: North Korea doesn't believe it has
| control over the South. The article is simply wrong, a
| variant of the trope of "those crazy North Koreans believe
| all sorts of things".
|
| They believe there's only one Korea, artificially split in
| two by their enemies, and that it should all be under the
| control of the current NK government, but they don't believe
| they control all of it now.
| vkou wrote:
| > TIL. Now I'm really curious how maintaining this fiction
| works (or doesn't) in practice.
|
| Very easily. There's an official account, which 'everyone'[1]
| knows is bullshit, but if you try to assert any logical
| consequences of it, you will immediately out yourself as a
| malcontent, and will get into serious trouble. (Because despite
| having all sorts of constitutional protections for your rights
| _on paper_ , the executive has the power _in practice_ to do
| anything it wants to you at any time, with no redress. Good
| luck exercising articles 67 through 79 of that constitution. If
| you 're lucky, you'll be softly told to sit down and shut up.
| If you're unlucky, you'll be doing a few years in a camp.)
|
| It's the time-tested playbook that every authoritarian regime
| follows, and if you're interested in learning more about how it
| works in practice, just turn on Fox News. It's got the first
| half of the double-think process down, and is working hard on
| getting us to the second half.
|
| There is always a thin public justification for why rights
| don't apply to the enemies of the state, which is enough to
| convince ~half the country. (Because ~half of _any_ country
| will happily accept whatever atrocities its leaders do. You can
| observe that sort of thing on this very forum.)
|
| ---
|
| [1] Not actually everyone, some people really _are_ that
| fucking stupid, but most know there 's something off[2] about
| it.
|
| [2] In this particular case, the official Atlas says they are
| one country, but the country's Constitution (updated last year
| on this very subject) says that the ROK is a foreign, hostile
| state. Anyone who can read or has eyes to see and ears to hear
| should easily be able to tell that the latter is the more
| accurate one.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > _You can observe that sort of thing on this very forum._
|
| remember that 1) this forum skews to a very specific sort of
| person, and 2) that person notwithstanding, there is an
| incredible, shocking large amount of bots active here, owing
| to the fact that the people from 1) are also AI worshipping
| futurists (and/or techno-fascists)
| cassepipe wrote:
| Hi !
|
| I am not a AI worshiping futurist nor a (techno-)fascist
| for that matter. I don't think bots are that active on such
| a small platform but I guess by "bots" you mean people who
| offer pushback on your opinions (they are a "shocking"
| number indeed, it seems I can hardly convince more than one
| person to rally my positions from time to time and I _still
| have_ to pretend to be nuanced !)
|
| I also believe that "platform is skewed against X"
| (generally your own opinions) are utterly useless comments.
| You are just pretending everyone is against you so you
| don't have to take criticism addressed to you seriously.
|
| Now you can enjoy the ego boost of feeling like the
| virtuous online warrior against a world of techno-fascists
| that are ganging up on you or you can reflect and try to
| take into account the fact that people have different
| viewpoints and are mostly doing their best. I eventually
| chose the latter and I have to say I feel less grandiose
| but much better overall. Join the club, we have cookies.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I mean, see American politics for a similar example.
|
| The Epstein files are simultaneously a "Democrat hoax" and full
| of prominent Dems. The Attorney General both has them on her
| desk, and they don't exist.
| Volundr wrote:
| And there's not enough in them to charge or investigate any
| 3rd parties, until some are made public and now there's
| enough to investigate Democrats.
| Terr_ wrote:
| And suddenly the unimportant records that don't exist but
| were also a hoax but also implicate the-other-guy are about
| to be made public... suddenly an "ongoing investigation" is
| the new excuse.
|
| > The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the
| convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for
| whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the
| reality of experience) and the distinction between the true
| and the false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer
| exist.
|
| -- The origins of Totalitarianism (1951), by Hannah Arendt
| sunaookami wrote:
| Is the second part actually true though? I can't find any
| sources about this, in fact the opposite seems to be true.
| North Korea recently changed their constitution and describe
| South Korea as a "hostile state" which means they officially
| recognize it as a "state" at least[1]. Before that they
| explicitly had a goal for unification in the constitution which
| implies (or can be implied) that there never was such a view
| that "the entire Korean peninsula has remained united under the
| rule of the Korean Workers' Party". There is also this
| sentence:
|
| >This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean,
| which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage
|
| This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing for
| example.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-
| repor...
| recursivecaveat wrote:
| Yeah, I'm kindof skeptical. Another example I found was Kim
| referencing the south in a TV speech. I think their official
| position might be something closer to that the war was
| victorious by virtue of holding off the Americans and/or
| removing them from the area. Then the atlas doesn't show the
| south as a separate country because it's more of a Taiwan
| situation where they don't want to legitimize it as anything
| more than a rebellious province? At least in the early 2000s
| when this atlas was made. The language at the time definitely
| seems to emphasize that the whole peninsula is just "the
| nation": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_15th_North%E2%80%
| 93South_...
| quicklime wrote:
| >> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific
| Ocean, which gives Korea a privileged position on the global
| stage
|
| > This is normal for asian maps, Japan does the same thing
| for example.
|
| This is common in Australia too.
| bad_haircut72 wrote:
| As a map of Australia sure but not a world map
| lIl-IIIl wrote:
| The second search result for "Australian world map" shows
| a world map that is designed for Australian schools and
| it centers on Pacific Ocean:
|
| https://www.australianteachingaids.com.au/the-world-map
|
| The first search result for "Australian world map" was
| for one of those novelty south-side up maps.
| onraglanroad wrote:
| So you're saying North Korea, Japan and Australia are
| engaged in a leftist plot to take a privileged position in
| the world?
|
| All we need is some TikTok, YouTube shorts and some
| gullible right wingers, and I think we've got ourselves a
| product!
| hk1337 wrote:
| > the war was won by the communists and since then, the entire
| Korean peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean
| Workers' Party.
|
| This makes me wonder what the reasoning is, or even if they
| officially do, for preventing North Korean citizens from
| migrating south? If it's all united as one country then why would
| someone be prevented from moving there?
| alibarber wrote:
| From what I understand about North Korea - simply moving within
| (actual) NK itself is not really on the cards for a lot of
| people, so they might as well claim sovereignty over the whole
| peninsular.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Yeah, my initial thought was something along the lines of all
| actions are subject to the approval of the party.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'd presume it's like the Soviets, where moving cities required
| permission.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propiska_in_the_Soviet_Union
| rzerowan wrote:
| Id think this being the 'official' political position , it
| would be referring to the end of hostilities when the armistice
| was signed.Legally there was no ceasefire/capitulation etc and
| i would suggest as far as the North are concerned barring
| outside interference they would have prevailed. Hence the
| stressing of the position that they are one entity
| 'politically' - certainly not that 'physically' they are one
| untit , also why they would hold/reunification talks from time
| to time and family relatives exchanges between the two.
|
| They are cognizant that there is a DMZ , and that theere exists
| a polity on the south that keeps sending usb filled baloons ,
| propaganda loudspeakes blaring on the Border. So mostly a
| poltical position being staked out , which is also why the maps
| only have Palestine and Western Sahara.Not because they are
| unaware of the situation insitu but geopilitically they are
| staking their claims.
| hk1337 wrote:
| That's true. Technically, they're still at war so it could be
| something to the effect of, "don't go down there where the
| war is".
| nielsbot wrote:
| I found this interesting too:
|
| > In the one [map] for Jordan, it is also clarified that
| Palestine is a territory under Israeli occupation.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Isn't it great that the west is slowly catching up to North
| Korea.
| some_random wrote:
| It's more than that, it's probably a ideological thing from the
| very top. Just like how the PRC insists that Taiwan is just
| another weird territory like HK or Macau.
| macintux wrote:
| My small-town public library growing up had a great resource that
| I did not appreciate at the time: an English translation of the
| Great Soviet Encyclopedia[0].
|
| I really wish I had spent time with it. If nothing else it would
| have given me some questions to ask my history teachers.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Soviet_Encyclopedia
| nocoiner wrote:
| Wow! I would have been absolutely fascinated by this when I was
| a kid.
|
| I remember once wandering around my college library and finding
| the book "The Soviet Economy Through the Year 2000." This
| occurred during the current millennium.
| man8alexd wrote:
| My grandpa had the full 50-volume edition of the encyclopedia
| published in the 1950s. I spent a lot of time digging through
| it in my pre-teen years.
| greenavocado wrote:
| Anna has it in her archive
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Where is the Josun Encyclopedia? I would like to read it.
| Thanks
| MiiMe19 wrote:
| I wish there was a CD rip of the encyclopedia available so I
| could comb through the rest.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I'm wondering what the infrastructure shown in red on the maps
| is. Railways? Roads? It's obviously very rough, whatever it is.
| I'm looking at the UK and it looks like Ipswich and Great
| Yarmouth (or Lowestoft) or on there, but not Norwich. It's
| interesting to see what is considered significant or strategic
| from their point of view.
| retrac wrote:
| Since no one else has noted it: they show rail lines and only
| rail. No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure
| ones like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec. (It
| has almost no traffic and it serves a small town and a mine and
| it's not connected to the rest of the North American system.)
| Similarly they depict sections of rail in Canada that were out of
| service many years before this map was published. So they're
| quite out of date. To not show that Canada is linked by rail with
| the USA at Detroit is a definite oversight, too.
|
| Seeing through the lens of railroads is probably an artifact of
| both ideology and the economic reality in North Korea. And maybe
| also the implicitly military purpose of these maps.
| zippothrowaway wrote:
| I thought that too, but the map for the UK is very weird -
| there is no direct connection between what looks like
| Birmingham and what looks like Manchester or anywhere in the
| North West of England. So, no West Coast Main Line? Instead
| they have the rail line veering off towards the peak district.
|
| I don't know whether they're decades out of date or just plain
| wrong - the West Coast Main Line was "opened between 1837 and
| 1881" according to Wikipedia.
| dgl wrote:
| Also the UK seems to include the Grand Union canal and River
| Severn but not the River Thames. It seems quite random.
| mig39 wrote:
| > No roads on those maps. This includes some quite obscure ones
| like the railway between Labrador and Sept-Iles, Quebec.
|
| I guess the maps are old, because they show the Newfoundland
| Railway, which was removed in the 80s.
| Digory wrote:
| Yes,I noticed Kansas City is prominently featured on all the
| maps, which makes sense for rail hubs.
|
| But strange, then, that the north/south line (Kansas City
| Southern / Canadian Pacific) is not there.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| Hmm, if those red lines are meant to be rail lines than
| someone's definitely made some errors. E.g. the Europe map
| shows a red line in Iceland, perhaps between Reykjavik and
| Akureyri. But there's no railway between Reykjavik and Akureyri
| and in fact there's no rail in Iceland at all.
|
| I just assumed the red lines were "major routes" of some sort,
| maybe rail, maybe roads.
| whartung wrote:
| There's the San Bernardino Museum located at the train station
| in SB. Its next to the ATSF yards, so its sort of a combined SB
| and ATSF museum. On the wall there was a map of the US with all
| sorts of lines on it.
|
| Under closer scrutiny, all of the lines were railroads, and not
| highways. In fact, (I don't think) there were no highways at
| all. And it was all railroads, not just ATSF. I don't recall
| the date on the map.
|
| Just a fascinating "other view" of the world to look at the US
| through that lens.
| Symbiote wrote:
| You can look at https://openrailwaymap.org/ for an up-to-date
| rail-only map of the world.
|
| Note it's infrastructure: lines may be freight-only, or only
| used occasionally.
|
| https://www.xn--pnvkarte-m4a.de/ is an equivalent for public
| transport routes.
| femto wrote:
| For Australia, at least, the rail lines are shown in red and
| major roads are shown in maroon. The lines for the roads are
| mostly thinner than for the rail, but not consistently so. At
| first glance, it's difficult to determine which lines are road
| and rail, unless you already know which is which.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war
| was won by the communists.
|
| Well - it depends on how one wants to call the result of the war.
|
| I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a
| stalemate/truce, with China guaranteeing North Korea to not lose,
| but not necessarily win either. That does not mean North Korea
| won, but I don't think one can necessarily say that they lost the
| war either.
|
| I am fully aware of how the propaganda in North Korea works, but
| some articles are also heavily biased. The biggest danger to
| North Korea actually comes from the success model in South Korea,
| as well as the internet. The internet kind of nerfed Scientology
| (see what Ron Miscavige said and described how Scientology
| changed over the years, so if one of the big guys can quit, the
| whole business model they established decades ago, is dead and
| decaying). Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the
| internet. You can not permanently cut off million of people, with
| the assumption they won't be able to understand how strategic
| lies work. It also does not work in Russia either, though Russia
| is of course nowhere near as isolated as North Korea right now.
| ronsor wrote:
| > Sooner or later Kim Jong Fat will also lose out to the
| internet.
|
| North Koreans do not have _any_ Internet, save for through
| computers at a few government-controlled and strictly monitored
| libraries, as well as through illegal imported Chinese
| smartphones if they live near the border.
| HeinzStuckeIt wrote:
| None of what you are saying holds water. Scientology's old
| business model became less effective, but the cult segued into
| a real-estate empire and still has several mega-wealthy members
| (so-called "whales") it can milk for donations.
|
| And North Korea could see greater internet uptake but still
| remain a stable dictatorship, precisely on the model of Russia
| where, even if the population "sees through the lies", that
| doesn't challenge the regime itself; people who dislike the
| regime largely simply accept it as a fact of life, and might
| even disapprove of those people who make the effort to
| challenge it.
| goranmoomin wrote:
| > According to the prevalent narrative in North Korea, the war
| was won by the communists.
|
| According to the North Korean govt, the Korean war was started
| by the South who wanted to invade North (it was not, based on
| extensive studies). Therefore in their view (or at least from
| their propaganda), the communists "won" by successfully
| defending their part of the peninsula.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > I think there was not necessarily a winner; there was a
| stalemate/truce
|
| Well yeah, basically everyone agrees on that. Everyone who's
| not insane anyway.
|
| Like, North Korea invaded and made it really far, UN (mostly
| US) forces pushed them way the hell back, then China helped NK
| push _that_ offensive back, and they ended up settling real
| close to the original dividing line. Pretty obvious draw as far
| as wars go I think.
| goranmoomin wrote:
| (I'm a South Korean.)
|
| > According to the prevailing narrative in North Korea, the war
| was won by the communists and since then, the entire Korean
| peninsula has remained united under the rule of the Korean
| Workers' Party.
|
| This is either not true at all or the writer phrased strangely --
| both of the governments (South & North) recognize that the war is
| still on-going and they have an enemy that is controlling the
| other half of the peninsula that they do not control. However,
| both of the governments also argue that they are the only legal
| government that is ought to control the whole peninsula and does
| not recognize each other's legitimacy. For example, ROK(Republic
| of Korea, the government that controls the southern part of the
| peninsula)'s constitution writes that it's government governs the
| whole peninsula and it's islands. It's like how both PRC(People's
| Republic of China, i.e. China) and ROC(Republic of China, i.e.
| Taiwan) both argue that they are the only legal government over
| all of China (i.e. Mainland China and Taiwan combined).
|
| > Therefore, when looking at the maps in this atlas, it should
| come as no surprise that Korea is always shown as one country,
| with no reference to the other country that exists at the
| southern tip of the peninsula.
|
| It is universally agreed between the two governments (and their
| citizens) that a unification should happen at some point, so it
| is obvious that we should be using a map that covers the whole
| peninsula. We (as South Koreans) also learn 'our country' as the
| whole peninsula.
|
| > This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean,
| which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage.
|
| Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the Westerners
| act like that they don't even think of the remote possibility
| that they might not be the center of the world...?
|
| South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps do
| this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do this,
| it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about having
| the Pacific Ocean centered.
| AndriyKunitsyn wrote:
| Yes, that's complete nonsence.
|
| My friend was on a guided tour to North Korea, and they aware
| of a lot of things. For example, the population of the North
| and the South was somehow accurately described to the tourists
| as 25 and 50 million, and they don't question that fact.
| drdec wrote:
| >> This North Korean world map is centred on the Pacific Ocean,
| which gives Korea a privileged position on the global stage.
|
| > Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the
| Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote
| possibility that they might not be the center of the world...?
|
| Westerner who also thought this was a strange comment and that
| the centering of the Korean peninsula was a totally natural
| decision for this atlas
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| The North has officially rejected unification, and regards
| South Korea as a separate, enemy country.
| edm0nd wrote:
| >It is universally agreed between the two governments (and
| their citizens) that a unification should happen at some point
|
| South Koreans don't seriously believe this would ever be
| possible do they?
| garciasn wrote:
| All Koreans hope for it to happen, especially those who
| aren't part of the very upper echelons of the DPRK. Just
| because folks live in DPRK and are bombarded with bullshit
| doesn't mean they aren't very well aware of what their
| realities are like when compared to that of the South.
|
| Sneakernet is (was?) alive and well in DPRK and most of the
| population knows they're living nowhere near the levels that
| those in the South are. They just are fucking terrified of
| them and their families being killed by hard labor if they
| say otherwise.
|
| So; sure; it's /possible/, but until something big changes,
| it won't happen. The only reason it's not actually happening
| is because of the humanitarian crisis it would create. No one
| wants to deal w/the fallout.
| ForOldHack wrote:
| ( I lived in South Korea, and I read Korean rather well, and
| have traveled very extensively in South Korea. I have seen
| North Korean across the borders from 4 sites. )
|
| The prevailing narrative in North Korea is utter propaganda:
| You cannot win a war that is still not over.
|
| Korea should reunite as some point, when the North has a
| moderate leader or falls like East Germany. Until then all the
| wishful thinking of a deranged leader in the North, will amount
| to cold, cold air. The North Koreans starved millions of their
| own citizens. Millions, and continue to do so.
|
| "Government Policies: The state's rigid public distribution
| system failed, disproportionately affecting the urban
| population and rural areas, while prioritizing food for the
| military and political elite. The government was slow to seek
| international aid and restricted the access of foreign relief
| agencies, diverting much of the aid that did arrive. "
|
| Westerners who are not traveled, do believe themselves to be
| the center of the universe, its why they are almost universally
| known as 'Ugly Americans.' Loads of those in South Korea.
|
| An honest map of korea would be east west centered on the China
| sea, looking over the plains, and with the mountains at the
| top... ( I am getting emotional now at the thought of the
| mountains... so incredibly beautiful, and... amazingly clean. )
| My wish for Korean Unification is to see the Golden Mountain.
| (Jin Gang Shan ), and for the long separated families to see
| each other.
|
| Rotate all these maps 90 degrees counter clockwise.
|
| The best hope for unification for Korea... was laid out by Sec
| Hillary Clinton, who before she became Secretary of state,
| basically reiterated verbatim one of the most well thought out
| assessments of unification I have ever heard. Since she is not
| exactly a professor of Far East Studies, someone in the State
| Department must have written it for her, someone who had been
| studying it for decades, like I have.
| zokier wrote:
| > Not going to lie, sometimes it feels that some of the
| Westerners act like that they don't even think of the remote
| possibility that they might not be the center of the world...?
|
| > South Korean maps do this, China maps do this, Japanese maps
| do this, I'm pretty sure South East Asia countries also do
| this, it's a normal thing to do. There's nothing special about
| having the Pacific Ocean centered.
|
| Worth noting that florence meridian (11E) is somewhat special
| because centering map on it avoids cutting any major land
| masses. The best pacific option (148E) still needs to deal with
| greenland somehow. Of course Korea is quite off from 148E, so
| the map here ends up bit wonky (Greenland is duplicated, but
| Nunavut is not?).
| bamboozled wrote:
| From every account I've read, North Koreans suffer greatly, maybe
| not holocaust level but we're totally fine to allow their
| suffering to continue unabated. If I was a North Korean I'd hope
| someone was coming to help me at some stage . Weird situation .
| man8alexd wrote:
| In the late Soviet Union, there was a joke: "We should declare
| war on Japan and immediately surrender."
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > we're totally fine to allow their suffering to continue
| unabated
|
| People aren't "fine" with it exactly, it's just that the
| alternative usually looks (potentially) much worse.
|
| Regime change would mean war with North Korea, and at the very
| least that'd be a ton of artillery shells landing on Seoul and
| killing a ton of civilians at the outset of the war.
|
| North Korea by itself would obviously be much weaker than a
| presumed SK+US force, but then you have to worry about China
| potentially getting drawn in, and now you have two nuclear
| superpowers fighting each other in all-out war. Nobody really
| wants that.
| mlmonkey wrote:
| The Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (which China claims as
| "South Tibet") is not shown as a part of India in the Indian map,
| as a hat tip to their political masters the PRC. And the Indian
| state of Jammu and Kashmir is also shown as, I imagine,
| "disputed" with a dotted line.
| widforss wrote:
| Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it disputed, with heavy
| border tensions and all? I'm not claiming India doesn't control
| it, and as a Swede I don't know much. But that's about the one
| thing I thought I knew about Kashmir.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Another interesting one is The Great Soviet Encyclopedia:
| https://bse.sci-lib.com/
| koliber wrote:
| On the map of Europe, Poland has a strange nonexistent river
| flowing through it. It enters the Baltic Sea more or less where
| the Vistula river really does. But going south it mysteriously
| veers east into Belarus.
| seanw444 wrote:
| I know sometimes cartographers leave nonexistent landmarks on
| their maps to catch plagiarists blindly copying them. Not sure
| if that's something similar here.
|
| Could also be a method of identifying information leaks. Leave
| unique imaginary landmarks on different prints associated with
| certain people or groups of people that received that print.
|
| Or just wrong info. Who knows.
| sequoia wrote:
| What's the source of the particular singling out of Israel here?
| Is it because they're a US ally, or is there some other history
| between the countries?
|
| It looks like a singular designation in their atlas that Israel
| is referred to not as an enemy, but as "nonexistent." Anti-
| Israeli sentiment certainly creates strange bedfellows.
| tkel wrote:
| It's anti-imperialism. It's not that complicated.
|
| There's many Israelis who will also claim that Palestine does
| not exist.
|
| It's colonization, and war. Israelis claim the land.
| Palestinians also claim the land.
|
| NK is united with Palestine via their anti-imperialist stance.
|
| There are many other countries that also do not recognize
| Israel:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_I...
| xg15 wrote:
| I think the Soviet Union had sided with Palestine (and also
| lots of other countries in what today is called the Global
| South) for most of the cold war, and this is a remnant of that.
|
| Another effect of that is that a number of ex-soviet republics,
| like Poland, have recognition of Palestine "grandfathered in"
| even if they're part of the West and generally pro-Israel
| today.
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