The People Power Party on Sunday criticized President Lee Jae-myung over his remarks and handling of the Israel dispute, urging him to "exercise wise diplomatic damage control" and calling on him to "stop making impromptu SNS posts without proper review."
Floor Leader Song Eon-seok posted on Facebook, asking "Is it appropriate for the president to personally respond again to another country's foreign ministry statement using emotional language?" He questioned whether "the president's continued diplomatic clash with the Israeli government over the sensitive Middle East conflict situation truly serves our national interest."
The criticism came after President Lee posted a video on X (formerly Twitter) the previous day containing allegations of child torture and killing by Israeli forces, then engaged in a back-and-forth exchange of rebuttals with the Israeli side.
"Even the most righteous words require the right timing, place, and method," Song said. "This incident was caused by the president sharing on his SNS, without verification, fake news that misrepresented a two-year-old video as recent footage and got the facts wrong." He added that this "directly contradicts President Lee's own so-called pragmatic diplomacy line of 'xièxiè to China, xièxiè to Taiwan.'"
Chief Spokesperson Park Sung-hoon also issued a statement saying, "This case of publicly sharing a message criticizing a specific country based on a video whose timing hasn't even been verified is too serious to dismiss as a simple mistake." He added sharply, "Wielding the knife of criticism without basic fact-checking on an international conflict during wartime is nothing less than 'diplomatic self-harm.'"
Rep. Na Kyung-won wrote on Facebook that "President Lee Jae-myung's reckless remarks have escalated into a diplomatic issue." She pointed out, "As the Israeli side noted, mentioning the Jewish Holocaust in reference to an entirely different matter on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day goes beyond diplomatic discourtesy—it's a serious gaffe." She demanded that he "immediately apologize to the Israeli government and people, and to our own citizens, for this diplomatic friction."
Former PPP leader Han Dong-hoon, who was expelled from the party, also joined the criticism. "It's absurd that the president is intervening in the Middle East conflict—something we should avoid getting entangled in at all costs—as if doing domestic politics with his mouth," Han said. "Continuing to make statements that clash diplomatically with Israel, day after day as if defending his last comment online, looks more like electioneering for domestic consumption than diplomacy. The damage falls on the citizens and the national economy."
Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok also weighed in directly: "Unless the president intended this outcome from the start, we've ended up in a situation where Korea has little to gain diplomatically." He added, "We need to carefully examine how this situation developed, correct course diplomatically before it's too late, and the president needs to change his online communication style."
