by PAUL IDDON

The Israeli government is staunchly opposed to the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that the agreement — which removes sanctions in exchange for Iran scaling back its nuclear program — will prove to be futile.

Further, removing the sanctions will only embolden and empower Tehran to redouble its efforts at building a bomb, Israeli officials insist. Another major source of controversy is that the deal will end a United Nations arms embargo prohibiting ballistic missile sales to Iran.

But two decades ago, and in a historic irony, Israel once contemplated a deal with North Korea aimed at preventing ballistic missile proliferation in the Middle East.

It was a deal which would have seen Israel help North Korea mitigate its dire economic situation in return for guarantees that Pyongyang would not sell missile technology. And those negotiations might have yielded positive results had it not been for Washington’s disapproval.

Flashback to 1993.

Iran wasn’t quite the looming threat the Israeli government claims it is today, but it was certainly a country to be concerned about. Then as now, Israel opposed Iran acquiring more missiles.

In the early 1990s, North Korea — which had suddenly found itself isolated following the collapse of the Soviet Union, its chief ally — began to negotiate the sale of Rodong 1 missiles, a Scud-D missile variant, to Iran.

North Korea reached out to Israel and offered to halt the arms sales in return for economic aid. Jerusalem responded, but the United States wasn’t pleased.

“The Americans position is certainly one of dissatisfaction and reservations regarding the [Israeli] contacts with North Korea,” Eytan Bentsur, a senior director general in Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said according to an August 1993 report in the New York Times. “But this is coupled with the recognition that the supply of Rodong missiles to Iran presents a most serious danger.”

North Korea reached out to Israel through a South Korean businessman acting as an intermediary the year before. The businessman explained to Bentsur that the North Koreans sought an investment agreement with Israel involving a gold mine. The total Israeli investment, along with the purchase of the mine, would have amounted to $1 billion.

“They are looking for someone to buy it and start it up,” the businessman told Bentsur. “They need the money. Their economy is on the ropes.”