Posted on 06/18/2011 10:29:06 PM PDT by Eleutheria5
Morris Pollard, the father of Jonathan Pollard, has died at age 95. HIs family has sent an urgent plea to President Obama, asking him to show mercy and allow Jonathan Pollard compassionate leave to attend his father's funeral. Jonathan Pollard was convicted for passing classified information to a foreign country and has been incarcerated for 26 years Pollard's father had been hospitalized for the last several months. During this period, activists on Pollard's behalf and various well-known Israelis, attempted to no avail to obtain permission for Jonathan to visit his father on a 24 hour leave.
The refusal prompted MK Aryeh Eldad to send a message of condolence to Jonathan, saying: "The people of Israel will not forget President Obama's cruelty in ignoring all the requests to free you. A president who lacks the basic human feeling that would allow a son's visit to his dying father should not wonder that the Jewish people will make every effort to prevent his re-election."
A petition signed by a 75 israeli MK's, asking Obama to allow Pollard to visit his dying father was to have been handed to Vice President Joe Biden shortly. It came too late.
MK Nachman Shai (Kadima), initiator of the petition, said that its signers represented a broad spectrum of parties and opinions, who united for this humanitarian purpose. "I hope that we will succeed in opening President Obama's heart," he had said.
Recent efforts on the part of various persons to convince President Shimon Peres, considered by Deptury Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon the natural choice to turn to Obama on this issue, had been unsuccessful.
(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
He didn’t get the death penalty. That’s what was wrong with his sentencing.
It was Iran too, but Iran was a sort of alley to Israel at the time (with a crumbling relationship).
It’s believed Pollard revealed that the US had been double dealing, and providing arms to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war, specifically, chemicals and cluster munitions to Saddam.
“What is believed to be wrong with his sentencing?”
He never saw a trial, and his lawyers never really got the full files. So there is a believe the sentencing was mishandled to cover some behinds.
Either way - his sentence is disproportionate to others who committed similar or worse crimes. If he was sentenced fairly, compared to spies working for actual enemy states, he would be free.
Espionage is espionage, no matter what the level. It is the MOST DESPICABLE crime that there is - betraying your country.
You serve the sentence that you receive - that DOES NOT include perks such as attending your father’s funeral. I am sure that prison officials will arrange an appropriate memorial service, if Pollard so wishes ...
Pollard’s plea discussions with the Government sought both to minimize his chances of receiving a life sentence and to enable Anne Pollard to plead as well, which the Government was otherwise unwilling to let her do. In late May 1986, the Government offered him a plea agreement, which he accepted.
By the terms of that agreement, Pollard was bound to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government,which carried a maximum prison term of life, and to cooperate fully with the Government’s ongoing investigation. In return for Pollard’s plea, the Government promised not to charge him with additional crimes.
On June 4, 1986 Jonathan Pollard pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national defense information to a foreign government. Pollard was sentenced to life in prison on one count of espionage on March 4, 1987. The prosecutor complied with the plea agreement and asked for “only a substantial number of years in prison”; Judge Aubrey Robinson, Jr., not being obligated to follow the recommendation of the prosecutor, and after hearing a “damage-assessment memorandum” from the Secretary of Defense, imposed a life sentence. In 1987, Pollard began his life sentence, which he is still serving.
Pollard’s wife, Anne, was sentenced to five years in prison but was paroled after three and a half years because of health problems. Following the end of Anne’s parole, she emigrated to Israel. Jonathan divorced Anne, citing that he believed he was going to be jailed for the remainder of his life and did not want Anne to be bound to him.
Pollard was eligible to apply for parole after eight years and six months, though he has never done so. At the time of Pollard’s sentencing there was a rule that mandated parole at thirty years for prisoners like him if they had maintained a clean record in prison. His projected release date is November 21, 2015.
Before this accelerates into another “ Bash The Jew Traitor Fest”, below are the documented, facts and a link to the site with a lot more.
There a number of traitors in this case. The largest one was actually the US. We knowingly betrayed an ally, and knowingly and intentionally set up a situation in which millions of innocent Israeli civilians would have died from the chemical laced warheads that Saddam Hussein fired into Israel. They contained poison gas. That is a fact.
Pollard alerted the Israelis and saved their lives. As a result, the people of Israel had enough time to obtain gas masks from the government and to set up a “safe room” in their homes. Most of us recall the news videos of this.
He did not receive money, he did not do it for any other purpose other than to save these people.
Yes, in doing this, he betrayed the US. He voiced his concerns to
his superiors, and the response was that he was told to “mind his own business”, and that “Jews get nervous talking about poison gas; they don’t need to know.”
If you, as a US citizen, do not have a problem with this, then go put on a Nazi SS uniform and salute the Satanic forces that spawns such hatred and evil.
In governments, there are bad laws, bad intentions, and bad people. That is a sad reality. A person who believes in G-D, and fears G-D, does what is right by G-D. Sadly, that is not always right by flag.
To those who feel differently, all that can be said is that one day we will be judged by The One far greater than any of this.
Link: http://www.jonathanpollard.org/facts.htm
I don’t care what church he used to go to, all traitors need to be executed, there is nothing to discuss.
Yet we all applaud when Israel’s Mossad took action in Uganda, Chile, Syria, and Iraq. How do you think they pull it off?
It’s like wanting your cake and to eat it too, but then blame someone. I would rather be on the right side of right.
“some misguided sense of altruism and a desire to save the world from evil American troops.”
What American troops do you think were involved? If anything he indirectly *saved* countless American lives as a result of his crimes.
I beg to differ ...
Shortly after Pollard began working at the NIS, he met Aviem Sella, an Israeli Air Force combat veteran who was at the time a graduate student at New York University, on leave from his position as Colonel in order to gain a master's in computer science. Within a few days, in June 1984, Pollard started passing classified information to Sella and received, in exchange, $10,000 cash and a very expensive diamond and sapphire ring, which Pollard later used to propose marriage to his girlfriend Anne. He also agreed to receive $1,500 per month for further espionage.
Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigator Ronald Olive has alleged that Pollard passed classified information to South Africa, and attempted, through a third party, to sell classified information to Pakistan on multiple occasions. Pollard also stole classified documents related to the People's Republic of China on behalf of his wife, who used the information to advance her personal business interests and kept them around the house, where they were discovered by investigating authorities when Pollard's espionage activity came to light.
During Pollard's trial, the government's memorandum in aid of sentencing challenges "defendant's claim that he was motivated by altruism rather than greed", asserting that Pollard had "disclosed classified information in anticipation of financial gain".
The government's investigation has revealed that defendant provided to certain of his acquaintances U.S. classified documents which defendant obtained through U.S. Navy sources. The classified documents which defendant disclosed to two such acquaintances, both of whom are professional investment advisers, contained classified economic and political analyses which defendant believed would help his acquaintances render investment advice to their clients... Defendant acknowledged that, although he was not paid for his unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the above-mentioned acquaintances, he hoped to be rewarded ultimately through business opportunities that these individuals could arrange for defendant when he eventually left his position with the U.S. Navy. In fact, defendant was involved in an ongoing business venture with two of these acquaintances at the time he provided the classified information to them ...
The full extent of the information he gave to Israel has still not been officially revealed. Press reports cited a secret 46-page memorandum, which Pollard and his attorneys were allowed to view. They were provided to the judge by Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who described Pollard's spying as including, among other things, obtaining and copying the latest version of Radio-Signal Notations (RASIN), a 10-volume manual comprehensively detailing America's global electronic surveillance network.
Pollard used his courier position to demand the desired material for Israel rather than clandestinely acquire it. NCIS wrapped the documents Pollard requested, and he in turn passed them on to the Israelis. He would transfer the documents to suitcases, drop the documents off with the Israelis for copying, and retrieve whatever documents needed to be returned days later, along with orders for what types of information to get over the next week.
I rarely seek information from Wikipedia, but its article on Pollard seems fairly straightforward. It states that Pollard did not honor the terms of his plea agreement. Instead, he participated in interviews with Wolf Blitzer and others in which he discussed matters the plea agreement prohibited, all prior to his sentencing.
The article further states that the judge, having obtained the SecDef damage assessment, and not bound by the plea agreement, sentenced him to life.
Nonetheless, he will be paroled in November 2015.
The article does state that Clinton had worked out an agreement for Pollard’s release, but that deal fell apart when the then-CIA director threatened to resign. Clearly, the CIA director, the SecDef and the sentencing judge know more about what Pollard did than has been made public, nor available to most elected officials.
Its a dirty business and who's to say that this information WAS NOT REALLY intentionally leaked to Israel under "deep cover" for "plausible deniability" under the guise of "national security" ...
Pollard's leak WAS NOT "authorized" or "sanctioned" ...
$10,000 and some rings...does that sound like a payday for a spy?
The judge stated that Pollard was an ideologue and didn’t do it for the money.
This whole saga simply divides people who might otherwise agree on much more important issues; Pollard’s defenders will use it as an excuse to accuse people of anti-Semitism (regardless of the merits of the case), while those who feel he should serve out his sentence will accuse his defenders of being “Israel-firsters” (regardless of the meris of the case). It is nothing but division, and serves no one in the end (including Pollard). If he is pardoned, it will almost assuredly be at the hands of a Dem president (as his defenders have pointed out here, with BJ Clinton).
I simply ignore it, and focus on more important things (and to both sides of the debate: there are more important things).
I’m not the one who thinks he was some altruistic superhero who was trying to save the world. I read that from some of the traitor’s supporters. I’m the one who said that’s a false image of him. He’s a greedy traitor who sold (not gave away out of the goodness of his heart) information that put America at a disadvantage (not an advantage). He is not a modern day Audie Murphy. He’s a traitor, and doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as the average murderer, let alone the air of a free man.
You DON’T seem to grasp the fact tha what he did was TREASONOUS - it DOES NOT matter how MUCH or how LITTLE he took.
IT is NOT up to ANYONE [except the PROPER authorities] to decide what SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be disclosed to foreign governments, FRIEND or FOE.
The government ENTRUSTED documents to Pollard upon the ASSURANCE that they WOULD NOT be disclosed to unauthorized personnel. These, and OTHER documents [which he WAS NOT authorized to see] were STOLEN, COPIED, and then RETURNED in order to COVER UP the espionage. Then, the copies were transmitted to Israel.
It is NO DIFFERENT than Benedict Arnold giving up the plans for the defense of West Point during the Revolutionary War.
Anyway, the little weasel was selling classified information to countries like South Africa and Pakistan (and finally got nailed trying to sell to Australia - Australia!) because he needed the money to support his cocaine habit.
That greedy little scumbag is right where he belongs.
“put America at a disadvantage (not an advantage).”
How?
How did he put American’s at a disadvantage? Since you’re calling for death, please show what harm he is accountable for.
Please also name the others jailed for espionage who you want sentenced to death...and then take that cause up somewhere else.
“It is NO DIFFERENT than Benedict Arnold giving up the plans for the defense of West Point during the Revolutionary War.”
Only it’s ENTIRELY different.
Are you arguing that the US arming it’s allies enemies with chemicals is the same? Oh wow.
This is completely bogus.
Pollard was arrested for espionage in 1985.
Gas masks were distributed to the Israeli population during the Gulf war in 1991.
It was public knowledge that Saddam Hussein used poison gas against the Kurds in 1988, killing thousands of the inhabitants of the city of Halabja.
Thus the citizens of Israel had plenty of time to obtain gas masks before the Gulf War without any "warning" from Jonathan Pollard, who had been in jail for years.
It is also not plausible the Jonathan Pollard was the only source that the Mossad had for the information that Iraq was developing chemical weapons, even if such information was included somewhere among the millions of documents he stole.
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