Posted on 05/21/2007 4:13:41 PM PDT by Nachum
(IsraelNN.com) Pollard supporters are enraged at US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones for his remarks Monday morning, implying that Jonathan Pollard committed treason or sold US secrets to Israel.
Speaking at a conference at Bar Ilan University on Israeli-American relations, Jones said, "Pollard took money and sold out his country... The fact that he wasn't executed shows that he was treated mercifully."
"Malicious incitement against both Jonathan and Israel" is how an infuriated Esther Pollard, Jonathan's wife, described it.
"For one thing," she told Arutz-7, "the U.S. has no death penalty for the charge on which Jonathan was accused or convicted. It has a death penalty only for treason - and Jones knows that Jonathan was never accused of treason. It is merely because Israel seems to have abandoned its agent in the field that the American Ambassador feels he can get away with talking like this."
"And where is Israel?!" she asked. "How can it be that the US Ambassador says that an Israeli agent deserved to be executed, and Israel is silent?!"
Arutz-7 contacted the Foreign Ministry for its response, and was told that the matter would be checked. The Ministry later issued a statement to the effect that Ambassador Yoram Ben-Ze'ev, the head of the North American Division of the Foreign Ministry, had asked for a meeting with Jones, "in which Ben-Ze'ev reiterated the Ministry's well-known policy on Pollard." Asked to elaborate on the details of this policy, the Ministry spokesman told Arutz-7, "It is well-known."
Such a reaction did not mollify MK Uri Ariel, the head of the Knesset lobby for Pollard. MK Ariel demanded that Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni herself demand an immediate apology from Jones. "For spying for a friendly country," Ariel wrote to Livni, "no one has ever received a sentence even close to the sentence that Pollard has served thus far - 22 years! ... The remarks by Jones border on anti-Semitism and a hostile attitude towards Israel..."
"Israel was forced to employ Pollard as its agent," Ariel continued, "only because America betrayed our trust and hid critical information from us regarding chemical weapons and anti-Israeli terrorist plots in Arab nations, in blatant violation of agreements we had with the US which we kept in full... The fact that Israel does not demand his release even after 22 years is endangering an agent that Israel sent on a mission - and also paves the way for statements like those made by Jones."
Mrs. Pollard said, "The remarks by Ambassador Jones fly in the face of former CIA director James Woolsey's opinion that Jonathan should be released already. He is also contradicting former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who said that the charges against him were inflated to begin with."
New Bumper Sticker Campaign
At the same time, a new grassroots campaign is underway to "express the nation's desire" to see Jonathan Pollard home - via bumper stickers. The organizers hope to "stick" 100,000 cars.
Eliana, a 19-year-old from Be'er Sheva doing a year of national service in Raanana, is one of the driving forces behind the new campaign. "It's only been about a week, and we estimate that some 5,000 cars already have the new sticker. We have been shocked at the amount of people calling in or emailing us, asking for the stickers. And it's not just high schoolers who have free time and can give them out at intersections - there have also been many office workers asking us for 50 or more that they can give out to their fellow employees. People really want Pollard home already!"
The campaign comes on the heels of reports that Pollard's health, long impaired, has deteriorated severely in recent weeks. He is simply "living on miracles," his wife summed up.
The bumper sticker campaign organizers explain that given the fact that the Israeli government shows no sign of taking any initiative to seek Pollard's release, "we ask: How can we express in the fastest, strongest, and most effective way, the will of the nation to free Jonathan Pollard?" Their answer was to "very quickly distribute and post 100,000 or more bumper stickers on cars throughout the country. With this many bumper stickers on cars traveling the length and breadth of the country, it will be impossible to ignore the message: We Want Pollard Home Now!"
And you have no interest in finding out either, do you?
You've obviously decided "my country, right or wrong," because you've had no trouble concocting condemnations even to the point of altering quotes to do it.
You would have made a "good German."
Huh? Am I missing something here?
There was no trace of remorse, not a hint of the possibility that, in retrospect, he might have been wrong when he ordered that vital information to be withheld from an ally henceforth.
His words: "In 1981, when the Iraqi nuclear reactor was bombed by Israel, I wondered where the Israelis got their targeting material. In Honoring our commitment to Israel's defense we provided satellite photography of potential direct threats, but when I checked, I found out that Israel had requisitioned data on areas that were quite a distance away - Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, etc. I made a decision to limit the process to within 250 miles."
Just like that. Period. End of issue. No need to consult the potential victim, even if it is a Jewish state whose survival is supposed to be national policy. The decision was made and that was that. He sneered at the furious protests by then Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon as he told the press conference that Caspar Weinberger supported his decision, and that Safire complained in vain about the new policy to CIA Director Casey.
Question: who is the writer referring to? As a point of history, was this kind of retaliation for the Osirac bombing diplomatically defensible, particularly when it was in violation of well established security agreements?
I will not respond to your disgusting aspersions.
I altered nothing. I cut and pasted directly. If I left something out, it was only for brevity. If I left something else out that you feel is exculpatory, by all means include it.
As to complex agreements between nations, I am willing to stipulate that the US and Israel engaged in a treaty which required the US to give Israel information which the Israelis knew the Americans had but needed a spy to find out what they knew they didn’t have or to know what they didn’t know that they were supposed to know.
In any case, Pollard played the spy game and he got caught. Spies don’t get diplomatic protection.
He is a spy.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t get past the first paragraph, which is the most awful prose I have ever seen in print. As to the rest, I don’t know what the hell this writer is talking about.
Could you please quote something that has a bit less of a “third grade girl’s diary” feel to it? I’m quite serious. I don’t mind learning, but even for a polemic this is the most poorly-written piece of garbage I have ever seen.
I don’t say this lightly, that is just plain terrible.
Well I'll respond to yours...
From the article:
"For spying for a friendly country," Ariel wrote to Livni, "no one has ever received a sentence even close to the sentence that Pollard has served thus far - 22 years!
Your version:
"For spying for a friendly country,"
Indeed true. However...etc.
"no one has ever received a sentence even close to the sentence that Pollard has served thus far - 22 years!
This is a lie. Many Americans have been executed for treason in history.
You made one statement into two, and by the way, what contemporary spy has been executed by our government, even working for an enemy?
I am willing to stipulate that the US and Israel engaged in a treaty which required the US to give Israel information which the Israelis knew the Americans had but needed a spy to find out what they knew they didn’t have or to know what they didn’t know that they were supposed to know.
That would be wrong. See my previous post with the long quote.
Implying???????????
The SOB was CONVICTED. He should have been executed years ago.
Talk about third grade girls...would you like me to fluff your pillow and fetch your slippers too?
Try answering the questions for a start. And don’t give me this effete crap that you can’t read it. It made it past a real editor to get published already, so if you can’t read it, you can’t read.
Because of the nature of the security clearance Pollard held, the treason charge has a much lower threshold.
Tomoya Kawakita was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. His case is interesting because he didn't really give any particular benefit to the enemy. Eisenhower commuted his sentence. The Rosenbergs were, of course, executed.
Robert Hanssen would most likely have been sentenced to death for treason but confessed and plead down to a sentence that spared his life.
Sgt. Bryan Patrick Regan's case might lead to treason charges. A very interesting article at the FoxNews website details why treason is not pursued more often. Basically, it's easier to charge them with murder.
All of these were cases in which the countries were unfriendly, but I think it's clear that if the Rosenbergs gave the secret of the bomb to, say, Canada, they still would have been executed.
A junior high school doesn't count. You didn't provide even a source or a link. Please do me a favor, read it out loud. With a straight face.
Irrelevant. You altered the quote to call the Minister a liar: he was not.
And you have shown nothing to validate your assertion the friendliness of the country doesn't matter. Cite me some case law. Your gratuitous assertions are just as gratuitously denied.
That was kind of the point of asking who was being discussed. The larger point is if you don't know who, you don't know enough.
This guy knew the rules, played the game, and lost. He is a liar and betrayer of the deepest trust that a government can grant a citizen. No sympathy here, none at all.
Please return the favor. I would like very much to know the specific treaty obligation that required that every bit of information that Pollard passed on be passed on. You know, paragraphs, sections, etc.
I don't think so.
I have no intention of playing the foil for your little $h!thouse lawyer routine. Once you lose the moral high ground, you can't litigate it back.
Bobby Ray Inman unilaterally changed the foreign policy of this country, potentially threatening the very existence of Israel, and nobody did squat about it: except Pollard.
That being said, I have very little tolerance for the belligerent crying about how he got punched in the nose when all he did was spit in the other guy's face.
So they admit that they had an agent in the field? What's the problem then? He belongs in jail, period.
Actually, that's not true. In all of US history, there have been less than 40 treason prosecutions, fewer convictions, and even fewer executions. Many of those prosecutions are related to the Whiskey Rebellion, Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act, and the Aaron Burr conspiracy. The Rosenbergs, for instance, were convicted and executed on espionage charges, not treason charges.
Of course, I asked the question because I knew the answer.
Furthermore, you’ve making a moral argument, but this is a legal question and, at every opportunity, Pollard’s case has been reviewed and clemency has been rejected at all levels. Particularly, when it would have been for easier to let an old man go off to Israel and forget it all.
The data I’ve been able to find suggests that intelligence people strongly believe that Pollard leaked huge swaths of classified info, far beyond the reactor. Codes, etc.
Most spies in America don’t get executed and the punishment has more to do with the nature of the information taken, the intent of the spy (mishandled vs. purposeful) and the level of cooperation. Pollard released very sensitive information, purposefully and was unrepentant and unhelpful, according to national security people in all subsequent administrations. Clearly, they view him as second only to Ames.
What must it say about Jonathan Pollard that Clinton would release Marc Rich but not Pollard? I fully expected it to bealast-minute pardon, at least.
As to you, you are at best ajerk and a bully and I have had it with your invective, abusive language and cherry-picking.
Clinton was willing to let him go initially, but others pressured him to keep in prison. Netanyahu was trying to make a deal during the Wye River accords. Israel has never tried since.
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