Briefly: Israeli Spy Scandal

Israeli sources are reporting the arrest of seven Israelis, charged with spying for Iran. The Israelis in the reports I’ve seen are said to be “Jewish”, however I’ve also seen references to unverified reports that they’re Azerbaijani—of Azerbaijani Jewish origin?

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

7 Israelis have been arrested for "allegedly" carrying out spying tasks for Iran, including taking photos and gathering information on Israeli army bases, the Israeli Justice Ministry said.

They gathered information on the Nevatim and Ramat David airbases, the Israeli army HQ in Tel Aviv, Iron Dome batteries, the Golani training base, and other sites, per the instructions of their Iranian operators.

6:23 AM · Oct 21, 2024

Israeli reports identify one as a “deserter”. No doubt we’ll learn more:

MenchOsint @MenchOsint

No mention of them being from Azerbaijan as some other sources say

Quote

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian @manniefabian [@TimesOfIsrael military correspondent]

Seven Jewish Israelis have been arrested for allegedly carrying out tasks for Iran, including taking photos and gathering information on IDF bases, the Justice Ministry says.

According to a statement from the State Attorney's Office, the seven, from Haifa and other northern towns, include a deserter soldier and two minors.

The seven allegedly gathered information on the Nevatim and Ramat David airbases, the IDF HQ in Tel Aviv, Iron Dome batteries, the Golani training base, and other sites, per the instructions of their Iranian operators.

Indictments are expected to be filed against the suspects on Friday, the ministry adds.

6:25 AM · Oct 21, 2024

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On an unrelated matter, while writing I’m listening to a new Ron Unz article, The Total Madness of the State of Israel. This article contains a paragraph that illustrates why I have reservations about Unz, although acknowledging that he’s generally well informed and interesting. However, he sometimes allows his penchant for revisionist history—which I share—get out of hand. This paragraph, while it may seem tangential, is actually a key part of the case that some people advance to claim that WW2 was started by Polish intransigence in the face of Hitler’s purely reasonable attempts to settle border disputes peacefully. That is then used as a basis for sweeping revisionism about Hitler and his aims. Here’s that paragraph:

I’m sure that many brainwashed Westerners would ascribe such statements to Adolf Hitler, believing that exactly such bold public plans of conquest had justified the formation of the global alliance that defeated and destroyed Nazi Germany, but this is total nonsense. During Germany’s period of weakness, Poland had illegally gained control of the 95% German city of Danzig, and after Hitler had peacefully settled all of Germany’s other border disputes, his only remaining demand was that the city be returned to Germany, with that small spark igniting World War II. This important history was discussed at length in 1939 – The War That Had Many Fathers published in 2011 by Gerd Schultze-Rhonhof, a very mainstream German military expert and historian.

I submit that Unz has swallowed German special pleading and revisionism, championed by such as Pat Buchanan. These people regard the Polish Corridor (this article contains useful historical maps) to the Baltic as some sort of injustice to Germany, by separating East Prussia from the rest of Germany. In fact, anyone can consult historical maps to learn that this corridor—inhabited by ethnic Poles and other Slavs—existed for centuries and that this corridor represented the remains of the original Slavic population that had stretched west to the Elbe during the Middle Ages. The German Drang nach Osten over the centuries Germanized that Slavic population, although the remains can be perceived in the remaining Sorb population in East Germany and the fact that DNA studies show that the East German population (I refer to Cold War era East Germany) remains approximately 25% Slavic in origin (also evidenced by the common occurence of Slavic names among East Germans). Even after WW1 the Polish Corridor remained Slavic in origin and language (Polish, with a substantial Kashub minority), although the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) was undoubtedly dominantly German.

Now, regarding Unz’s claim that “Poland had illegally gained control of the 95% German city of Danzig,” that is simply untrue. The true state of affairs can be easily ascertained at Free City of Danzig and World War II. This is a section of a longer article, but here is the first paragraph of this section:

When Poland regained its independence after World War I with access to the sea as promised by the Allies on the basis of Woodrow Wilson's "Fourteen Points" (point 13 called for "an independent Polish state", "which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea"), the Poles hoped the city's harbour would also become part of Poland.[87] However, in the end – since Germans formed a majority in the city, with Poles being a minority (in the 1923 census 7,896 people out of 335,921 gave Polish, Kashubian, or Masurian as their native language)[88] – the city was not placed under Polish sovereignty. Instead, in accordance with the terms of the Versailles Treaty, it became the Free City of Danzig, an independent quasi-state under the auspices of the League of Nations with its external affairs largely under Polish control.[89] Poland's rights also included free use of the harbour, a Polish post office, a Polish garrison in Westerplatte district, and customs union with Poland.[89] The Free City had its own constitution, national anthem, parliament, and government (Senat). It issued its own stamps as well as its currency, the Danzig gulden.[87]

No doubt Germany and the German population of Danzig were unhappy with this situation, but it’s a far cry—as a matter of history—from Unz’s claim that Poland “illegally gained control” of the city. In fact, the article goes on to document the domination of the city by its German population and the many abuses against its Slavic and Jewish populations, in violation of the treaty.

The existence of the Polish Corridor was not an infringement on German sovereignty and posed no security threat to Germany—the events of 1939 are ample proof. The German population of Danzig was not persecuted—to the contrary. Polish unwillingness to give up access to the Baltic Sea under the Versailles terms—through a heavily Slavic “corridor”—except under hostile German control was hardly unreasonable. Total German control over Danzig represented a chokehold over the Polish economy by a far more powerful nation that had historically been quite hostile to Poland and Poles.

Finally, Hitler’s settlement of border disputes with Czechoslovakia can hardly be termed “peaceful” in a meaningful sense, especially given that Bohemia had never been part of Germany proper but had, instead, been for centuries part of the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian state. There are many issues here that could be discussed—the justice of the Treaty of Versaille, the origins of WW1 and WW2. The origins of WW2, in particular, are not at all simple—but the notion that Hitler’s Third Reich posed no threat to its neighbors is simply and transparently untrue. The national aspirations of these neighbors—largely Czechs and Poles, but Austrians as well—were legitimate and posed no threat to Germany and German dominance of most of Central Europe. German ambitions did represent an existential threat to those neighbors.

None of what I’ve written here is intended as a blanket defense of all Polish actions and policies over the last century and a half—readers will be aware that I have been extremely critical of Polish participation in the war on Russia. The long and the short is simply this. Unz presents many interesting facts and challenging interpretations, but his writings require careful and critical reading. I’m certainly open to revisionism regarding much of Great Power history, including the origins of the European world wars. However, facts, not special pleading based on ethnic bias, should be the controlling factor.