Posted on 12/06/2005 1:49:57 PM PST by SJackson
GAZA, Dec. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- The United States is considering the possibility of releasing a Jewish spy in return for the release of jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, Israeli media reported Monday.
The website of Israeli Ha'aretz daily said the idea of exchanging Jonathan Pollard for Barghouti came after international requests to release Barghouti to race in the Palestinian legislative elections due on Jan. 25, 2006.
Barghouti, 46, is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison after he was arrested in 2002 during the Israeli Defensive Shield operation in the West Bank.
The jailed Fatah leader won an overwhelming victory in the latest Fatah primaries last month, which prompted several Israeli political and security leaders to mull over his release.
Pollard, an American Jewish citizen, has been imprisoned in the United States since 25 years ago under a life sentence for spying for Israel.
Washington has rejected some Israeli and Jewish attempts to release him. Enditem
Substitute "some State Dept. officials" for "the U.S." and we may be on the trail.
A more equitable agreement: Shoot Pollard, hang Barghouti.
Pollard is a Great Hero to Isreal and Zionist around the world.
He did more damage to our security than anyone else who has ever walked this planet.
If he was not Jewish, he would be 6 feet under as we speak. Instead, he has a chance to live out rest of his life as a Hero.
All you can do is tip your hat to power of Jewish Lobby!
This would be stupid.
Nah. We can just let him off in Mexico and he can cross on over the border and get his 'guest terrorist' green card at the nearest Social Security office in any city. Then when that bunch of traitors in DC passes the 'guest worker'program, he can be given amnesty with the rest of the terrorists already in the country.
Stupid and insane.
Agreed
Canuck, what is your motivation in creating your fabrications about why Pollard was jailed?
You don't execute spies in peacetime, because captured spies are pawns in the Great Game.
They are no longer of any worth as spies, but there are often folks attached to them in their home countries, with bad consciences, etc.
Pollard got a lot of information for Israel, Israel's admitted it, and there is an immoderate desire on the part of the Jewish state to get him out of the hole in which the Americans have sent him to rot.
He's of no greater danger to the US, and doesn't cost anything significant to us to just let him rot in a sunless cell until he dies.
On the other hand, if he can be traded for something valuable that Israel has that we want, well, then he's a bargaining chip that can be tossed out there.
Many Israelis have chosen to make him a national hero of Israel. Some American Jews agree. This is a vulnerability of Israel, and very probably it's the AMERICANS who are floating this idea, because the Israeli government probably correctly values Pollard as worthless, other than as a symbol. Jerusalem doesn't want to let the terrorist go.
But if the Israeli public understands that Pollard's calvary can finally end, in exchange for some bedouin who's just another terrorist anyway (and who can presumably be tracked once he's released), they may force their government's hand into making a deal that the government doesn't want to make.
Of course, the wisdom of the USA playing the Pollard chip in order to get a terrorist released is open to severe question. But that is quite independent of the actual game of the exchange.
It seems to me that the Americans are playing a tough came of poker here with the Israelis. The Americans want the more valuable man - the Palestinian is an active leader with a following, but Pollard's just an aging spy flunkie.
However, emotions in Israel and among many American Jews are such that, properly played, Pollard's emotional value is too great for his government to resist, and they have to give up a strategically dangerous person in exchange for an old, useless, middle aged prisoner.
And, of course, once the Palestinian is released, he won't be in custody anymore and can be quickly assassinated. Pollard could be easily assassinated too, but it's better, from the American perspective, that he be allowed to live in Israel as a permanent source of embarrassment to the Israeli government (whenever it is necessary to distance one's self from Israel, one can always refer to the Liberty Incident and to Pollard, the hateful ex-spy, openly and notoriously living in Israel).
It will be interesting to see if the Americans will succeed in getting the Pollard sympathy pressure so high that Israel will be forced to accede to a very unfavorable deal, essentially trading a used-up pawn for a Palestinian rook.
Also, it removes a source of tension in American-Israeli relations, since we will no longer be holding their spy in cruel conditions. But the fact of his espionage and hero's status in Israel will allow the US government to anger the American populace at Israel sufficiently, whenever necessary, to allow for policies that otherwise will pinch the Jewish state.
The ideal solution is to drug Bagoudi, implant a chip unbeknownst to him to be able to track him, trade for Pollard, let Bagoudi get out there and stir up the rabble, and then at an appropriate time when leaders are concentrated, send in Hellfires from a Predator drone. You let him go out and lead everyone straight into his lair.
Give us Bar Abbas
John 18:40 They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now
Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.
Pollard saved lives. Iran's nuclear reactor was destroyed as a result of the information that Pollard shared. His act was a crucial positive for the free world.
By contrast, Barghouti is a terrorist leader. They are not equivalent. Pollard has served a longer term than any of those who have shared information with enemies of the U.S. Pollard shared information not with a U.S. enemy, but with a U.S. ally, Israel, which supports the U.S. enthusiastically because of a shared set of democratic, freedom-loving values. Barghouti represents values that bring the world woe and destruction.
"...creating your fabrications.."
Please tell me which part isn't true: are you saying
- there wasn't a mole software program? or
- Pollard didn't install it? or
- Israel didn't steal virtally every secret the US had?
Please clarify.
I am a completely unhyphenated American and I prefer that he live as a source of embarrassment to the Israeli gov't in a US JAIL CELL.
Until the day he dies.
Was it positive for the US, the country that provides for Israel's freedom?
His act was a crucial positive for the free world
Was it positive for the US, the country that provides for Israel's freedom?
Absolutely so. That was my point. Not only the U.S., but the world as whole benefits from Israel.
Of course.
And if Israel doesn't want him badly enough to give up something really valuable that the Americans want, then that is indeed what will happen to Pollard: he'll sit in a US jail cell until he dies.
However, if Pollard, as a convicted, aging spy can be of greater use to the US as a chip in a trade for something, then it does not serve America's interests well to be foolishly vindictive about one guy who can do no more damage.
That's why you don't execute spies. Other nations want them back, and can be made to pay for them. Israel may well release this Bagoudi terrorist fellow, whom they know will actually go out there and try to kill Jews again, if that's the price the Americans place on letting Pollard go.
Now, whether this trade makes any sense or not depends on what the Americans are intending to do with Bagoudi, and the extent to which they need him for their plans.
Pollard's of no use to anyone as a spy, and of no use to Israel anymore. He's of no use to the US sitting in a sell. But if he can be sold in exchange for something of critical use to American policy now, then it would be unwise to simply squander a valuable pawn out of vindictiveness. Besides, you can always hit him with a burst of radiation on the way out so that he dies of cancer within a year anyway, if you really want to get him.
Until the document he was sentenced on is declassified, none of us know what he did. But in no way is espionage a positive for the US.
"Please tell me which part isn't true"
As I observed in my earlier post to you, the biggest complaints about US intelligence has been that (a) the information is SOMEWHERE, but it is usually stored in a fashion that either prevents quick retrieval of that one piece of information or prevents quick fusion of that information with other relevant data (said sata being stored on other computer systems, using data formats that cannot be read except by the originating agency), and (b) that nobody's really doing anything to address the problem.
The notion that there is one great big master database with all of our secrets in it is thus not actually correct.
The notion that could exist a "mole program" that would access this nonexistent master database with all of our secrets is thus also not correct.
This, in turn, implies that Pollard could not have installed this nonexistent mole program that would access the aforementioned nonexistent master databse with all of our secrets is thus also not correct.
And this, in turn, implies that Israel would not be able to steal "virtually every secret the US had," as they would not have any automated means to do so, and the total population of Israel would not be sufficient to steal all of those secrets by hand.
Always nice to hear from a Jewish Lobby Expert, the ZOG and all.
Were you as familiar with the Pollard case, as opposed to ZOG, as you purport to be, you'd know one of the greatest complaints of Johnathan and Esther, and their supporters, is the fact that Israel hasn't gone to bat for him as they do for true "Prisoners of Zion". Surpassed only by their complaint that American Jews have supported him even less.
My opinion only, you can take your "Jewish Lobby" ZOG *rap and stuff it back were it came from.
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