Is Israel the same as North Korea?

Another young man from Saudi Arabia I met in Skypeland came from a very wealthy family. His family owned several factories in foreign countries. He wanted to know people's opinion of his family's plan to build a new hotel on a Saudi island in the Red Sea. However, he was stunned to realize that westerners would not be anxious to stay in such a hotel because of restrictions on alcohol, dress and security problems (the state department of the US warns Americans from visiting Saudi Arabia at present, and he did not even know), and also from competition by hotels in Gulf states that are more friendly to westerners. He told us some of the distinctions between various branches of Islam, mainly emphasizing how crazy the beliefs of the Shia and Sufi are (for example, asking the dead to intervene with Allah, and Imams insisting on First Night priveleges with young brides).

However, what was very enlightening was his knowledge of the outside world. He was shocked to be told that there were Muslims in the US. He thought that the US and China had the same form of government. He thought Israel and North Korea had the same form of government. He told us how his government chose new Saudi Kings, and we then read from the Saudi embassy website a completely different system. This young man at first denied this was correct, and then slowly came to realize what he had told us was probably complete nonsense. His descriptions of the functions and choice of the advisory counsel to the King were absolutely false. As we conversed, it turned out he did not know the meaning of the term "democracy" at all, or what it meant to separate the functions of government. He could not even imagine a country where religion and government were separated. He thought that the US was the only country in the world with a democratic form of government. He had no idea that France, or Canada, or Australia or Sweden, or Switzerland, or India or Japan had democracies. He had no idea that democracies and dictatorships had different forms of government. Amazing....

To compound this, he told us why he thought that young Saudis hated Americans. He said that it was they thought the US was unfair not to give lots of money to poor countries like Iran and Syria and instead support Israel. Of course, he did not know that the US gives billions of dollars a year to Turkey and Egypt. In fact, the US has long given aid to Syria, and to help Syria deal with its refugees from Iraq it will now get more money from the US, which is only fair. So I asked him how much money Saudi Arabia has given to Israel, particularly when it was a new country and poorer (Saudi Arabia declared war on Israel in 1948 and this has not been renounced). He was outraged at this suggestion, and said that Saudi Arabia cannot give money to their enemies. And so I asked him if the US should give money to their enemies. He was at a bit of a loss of words at that point.....