Posted on 11/04/2002 5:23:57 PM PST by JohnathanRGalt
by Jonathan Pollard
The Wall Street Journal - Originally published February 15, 1991
JONATHAN POLLARD: ....the photos that I turned over to the Israelis were of a number of Iraqi chemical weapons manufacturing plants which the government did not want to admit existed. Why? ....What the administration was really concerned about was being placed in a position where it would have to admit that it had tacitly condoned the creation of an Iraqi chemical weapons manufacturing capability.
In 1985, my son, Jonathan Pollard pleaded guilty to providing Israel with information about the military capabilities of Arab states, including Iraq. Today he sits in a basement cell, in isolation 23 hours a day, serving a life sentence.Jonathan was never accused of or indicted for treason, because he did not commit treason. He was indicted on one count of passing information to an ally, Israel. Abdel Kader Helmy, an Egyptian American rocket scientist, participated in a scheme to illegally ship ballistic missile technology to Egypt - technology later used to help increase the range of Iraq's Scud-B missiles. Mr. Helmy got less than a four-year sentence. Jonathan who warned Israel about Iraq's capabilities, got life.
America is now fighting a war with Iraq, while the one person who tried to warn Israel about Iraqi threats sits in jail. In a 1989 letter excerpted below, Jonathan wrote to an American rabbi from his cell that America would have to go to war against Iraq if we failed to prevent the completion of chemical facilities that we knew were under construction. How right he was. - Morris Pollard
Dear Rabbi,
My name is Jonathan Pollard and I am currently serving a life sentence due to my activities on behalf of Israel.
Lest you labor under a false impression, Rabbi, I want to state quite categorically that I do not consider myself to be above the law. I fully appreciate the fact that I must be punished for my activities however justified I may have felt them to be. That being said, I do not believe that the draconian sentence that was meted out to me was in any way commensurate with the crime which I committed. Nowhere in my indictment... was I ever described as a "traitor," which is hardly a surprise given the fact that the operation with which I was associated actually served to strengthen America's long-term security interests in the Middle East.
Notwithstanding [then Defense Secretary Caspar] Weinberger's disingenuous opinion, any objective examination of the record will show that no American agent, facility or program was compromised as a result of my actions - not one. But this salient fact was conveniently overlooked by Mr. Weinberger, who felt that I deserved the death penalty for having had the audacity to make Israel "too strong."
In retrospect, perhaps one of the worst things that the Reagan administration did to Israel during the course of my trial was that it purposely distorted the nature of my activities in such a way as to leave the impression that Israel had somehow become a threat to the national security of this country. So, by intent, the subsequent sentence that I received was an arrow aimed directly at the heart of the US-Israel "special relationship."
The case of Mr. and Mrs. Abdel Kader Helmy appears to be yet another instance where the political aspects of an espionage trial have been of paramount concern to the government. As you'll recall the Helmys are Egyptian-born US citizens who were accused last year of funneling highly sensitive ballistic missile technology to their native land. At the time of his arrest on June 24, 1988, Mr. Helmy was a senior propulsion engineer who held a "secret" level security clearance from the US Department of Defense. According to a 36 page affidavit filed by the Customs Service ... US customs agents searching [Mr.] Helmy's trash found handwritten notes outlining how to work with carbon-carbon fiber material used in rocket nose cones and "stealth" aircraft; instructions on building rocket exhaust nozzles; a description of an extremely sensitive microwave telemetry antenna; and a complete package needed to build or upgrade a tactical missile system.
Although there is no public evidence linking [Mr.] Helmy directly with the Iraqis, intelligence sources have indicated that the Egyptians have used [Mr.] Helmy's expertise to help Baghdad modify its stockpile of Soviet-supplied Scud-B ballistic rockets. His principle responsibility, however was to ensure the success of an Egyptian-Iraqi missile program which had encountered some developmental problems. Code named BADR 2000 by the Egyptians and SAAD-16 by the Iraqis, this Argentine-designed weapon has an estimated range of 500 to 1000 miles, and from what I've been told, figures prominently in Arab strategic planning against Israel.
If one compares the way in which the government responded to my affair with the soft-pedaling of the Helmy case, the existence of a double-standard becomes apparent. Firstly at the insistence of the State and Defense Departments, all espionage-related charges against Mr. and Mrs. Helmy have been quietly dropped.... [T]he administration has done everything it can to reduce the notoriety of the Helmy affair.
The problem ... lay in the fact that many of the photos that I turned over to the Israelis were of a number of Iraqi chemical weapons manufacturing plants which the government did not want to admit existed. Why? Well, if no one knew about these facilities the State and Defense Departments would have been spared the embarrassing task of confronting Iraq over its violation of the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which banned the use of chemical weapons in war. You have to remember... that at the time of my sentencing the massacre of Kurdish civilians in Halabja had not yet occurred, and what little concern was being voiced over Iraq's apparent use of poison gas was largely ignored by the administration which did not want to anger the Arab world by criticizing the use of such barbaric weapons against Iran. The photos I gave Israel, though, if "compromised" would have jeopardized the administration's policy of callous indifference to this issue, in that they constituted hard, irrefutable proof that Iraq was indeed engaged in the production and wide scale use of chemical weapons. What the administration was really concerned about was being placed in a position where it would have to admit that it had tacitly condoned the creation of an Iraqi chemical weapons manufacturing capability.
Once the atrocity of Halabja had occurred though, the White House was placed in a rather awkward position. On the one hand the US Intelligence community did not want to be accused of having failed to keep an eye on Iraq's burgeoning chemical weapons arsenal. Then again, the CIA ... could not very well confirm the existence of the Iraqi poison gas plants without running the risk of compromising the Reagan administration's policy towards these facilities.
After a few days of "soul searching," the State Department finally admitted that the US had intercepted some Iraqi Intelligence communications which indicated that lethal gas had, in fact, been used against unarmed Kurdish civilians. The Iranians had astutely outmaneuvered them, though, and the issue had to be "contained" before it caused a rift in US - Arab relations. Certainly, confirming the undeniable operational employment of chemical munitions by the Iraqis was preferable to describing the exact dimensions of their poison gas plants, which would have raised some uncomfortable questions on Capitol Hill.
Thus in attempt to recapture the moral "high ground," so to speak, from Iran, the White House evidently decided that it would be better for the US to be seen as leading the public denunciation of Iraq rather than the Ayatollah Khomeini. As it was though, the Administration still managed to salvage its standing in the Arab world by preventing Congress from imposing any punitive sanctions against Iraq. In essence, then, what I did by passing satellite photos of the Iraqi poison gas plants to Israel, was to endanger the Reagan Administration's pro-Saudi political agenda, not the intelligence community's "sources and methods."
According to the prosecution, there were two reasons why the government refused to tell Israel about Iraq's poison gas plants: 1) fear of compromising the KH-11 [intelligence] system and 2) concern over Israel's probable reaction once they recognized the threat these facilities posed to their survival.
What the Israelis would actually have considered was a preventative attack on the Iraqi chemical factories before they had become fully operational. Once they had come online, you see, and the Iraqis had been able to disperse their arsenal of chemical munitions, these plants, like the ones in Syria, would only have been attacked either in war time where the idea of a preemptive strike is valid, or in a clandestine sabotage campaign aimed at slowing their production of poisons. This was the same reasoning, by the way, that lay behind the Reagan Administration's desire to bomb the Rabta industrial complex before the Libyans had had the opportunity to complete its construction.
The crisis over the Rabta plant does beg the question, though: If the Reagan administration felt justified in its desire to eliminate what it perceived to be an impending Libyan chemical threat to our national security, why was it so unwilling to grant Israel the same right of preventative self- defense with regard to Iraq's poison gas manufacturing facilities?
So what was I supposed to do? Let Israel fend for herself? If you think that is what I should have done, then how can we condemn all those ... who during the Second World War consciously participated in the abandonment of European Jewry? Seriously, Rabbi, what would be the difference between what they did and a decision on my part to have kept silent about the Iraqi poison gas threat to Israel? I'd rather be rotting in prison than sitting shiva for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis who could have died because of my cowardice. -Jonathan Pollard.
URL please. We need a source on that statement. -- thanks.
You're sure, huh? Netenyahu was Prime Minister for a number of years, and I don't remember him trading anything for Pollard. Do you have superior knowledge, or intense hatred?
ML/NJ
The other traitors mentioned in your link should have gotten much harder sentences. All traitors should. And Pollard is an American traitor, the fact that he is ethnic Jewish and was paid by Israel makes no difference. Either you are an American and faithfully serve or you should be somewhere else. Let Pollard rot, he chose his own course. If you don't understand that, maybe you should HONESTLY join another country.
Jonathan Pollard will die in his American prison cell, no matter how many of his FReeper water-carriers hope otherwise.
Netanyahu plans in the book he is currently writing to publish several details that will considerably embarrass the president of the United States. In one of the chapters Clinton will earn the title 'International Swindler'.
And this is the story. In September '98, Yom Kippur Eve, Clinton and Netanyahu met for a conversation in the White House, during the course of which Netanyahu agreed to attend the conference at Wye Plantation with Yasser Arafat on condition that Clinton would act to immediately release the spy Jonathan Pollard. Clinton, according to Netanyahu and his closest advisors, agreed to the condition. Netanyahu explained to him that this gesture would help him to get the support from his constituents for the painful part of the agreement he expected to sign - continuation of the withdrawal from the territories. "Bibi went to Wye knowing that Clinton would immediately release Pollard with the signing of the agreement with the Palestinians," the advisors of the departing prime minister said this week.
During the course of the Wye summit the matter of Pollard was discussed several times between Clinton and Netanyahu. There were only a few in on the great secret: ministers Sharon, Mordechai and Sharansky.
At the end of the conference, at 5:00 AM, after arrangements had already been made for the signing ceremony, Clinton put his hand on Netanyahu's shoulder and asked him to step aside with him so he could tell him a few things. One of those present in the room saw Clinton and Netanyahu as they spoke from a distance. "Netanyahu turned pale, and Clinton hugged him," the man said this week.
When Netanyahu returned to the center of the room, he told his advisors and ministers that Clinton had announced to him that he could not honor his promise to release Pollard. "We were shocked," said one of them. "We thought that Bibi should go back to Clinton and tell him: 'if that is the case then there is no agreement with the Palestinians. You lied to me.' Our problem was that we did not want to find ourselves again in the terrible situation that both in Israel and the world Netanyahu would be presented as a liar, and would not talk at all about the real liar."
Foreign Minster Sharon, who was summoned to the room, was of the opinion that the agreement must not be signed. Minister Sharansky also said that the signing ceremony must be postponed. At the end, after Clinton promised to continue acting for the release of Pollard, the Israeli side folded. The signing ceremony was held with some delay, and Pollard remained in prison.
Netanyahu plans to reveal his full account in his book, in which Clinton will be presented as a scoundrel who did not intend, from the outset, to honor his part in the process that led to the Wye conference.
Using the information that Pollard supplied, it is even conceivable that the Sovs would have been able to prevent or even to countermand a Presidential order to US submarines to launch a secondary strike against the Soviet Union. I hope that he dies in jail, and that before he does, he has become quite a popular girlfriend to have among the inmates there.
Can anyone guess what the Mossad would have done to an American who'd done to Israel what Pollard did to the US?
Well, you don't have to wonder :
A Jewish immigrant of Yemeni extraction working on then-secret Israeli nuclear ambitions snapped some photos of the lab where he worked. He handed these photos off to journalists. Published in newspapers, these few well-chosen photos showed irrefutable proof to any nuclear scientist in the world with half a brain that Israeli had the bomb.
Now, Israel certainly didn't encourage this disclosure, and this disclosure was embarrassing. But actually you can make a pretty good case that de-facto exposure of the Israeli bomb did nothing to lessen her defenses (something that no one could say of Pollard's betrayal, at least insofaras US security is concerned). Some would even say that the disclosure enhanced Israeli security.
With the help of a beautiful American Jewish woman, who pretended to be an American expatriate abroad in London and feigned a romantic interest in this man, the Israelis kidnapped Israeli traitor from London.
For taking these few photos, the Israelis sentenced him to 20 years in prison.
Did they have good cause? Of course they did. But what would they have done to him if he had pulled a "Pollard"?
Good Lord, it would have been a .22 below the ear...
I know that there was some talk about a Pollard deal, but the bottom line is that it never happened. The article you quote is from 1999, three years ago. But so far there is no Netanyahu book with the promised quote. Possibly this is honor among thieves, but also possibly this is just Clinton BS to discredit someone he never liked. Let me guess.
ML/NJ
URL please. We need a source on that statement. -- thanks.
This was in the papers at the time--I would recommend a good library. It caused quite a stink in the Knesset when it came out. As for URL--well, guess what, son, not every damn fact is on the Internet.
Well, guess what, son, I think you're just blowing smoke and passing gas. We'll have to assume that you are just making all this up off the top of your head.
In 1998 the entire Knesset signed a pro-Pollard letter.
Appeasement of Iraq Made Me A SpySorry, Johnny dear.
- by Jonathan Pollard
You pulled your sh*t during the Cold War. You might have been a hero in 1991. But your ass was too wrapped up in dollar signs and political games to have anything to do with Saddam's invasion of Iraq.
F*-off for trying to blame this on us.
F*-off for blaming the nation you betrayed.
F*-off for excusing your sorry ass on someone else.
Even the liberals want the DC Sniper to die. I wish you could die a thousand times for every victim of the sniper. He betrayed fellow citizens. You betrayed a nation. You might have killed millions.
Did you just jump on the bandwagon because this POS was Jewish? Have you no capacity to imagine the damage the POS named Pollard did to the USA? Is the USA a sovereign nation or not?
I have never understood the hatred Jews claim to be their lot in life. If support of the the likes of Pollard are their idols, I begin to see a point to anti-semitism.I have been convinced of the virtue of anti-islamism since 9/11/01.
I am up for a two-fer.
Let your ancient Gods battle it out.But since both sides in this "war" have insisted the USA play, do not be shocked when the USA crushes both of your "evil" houses.
The majority of the population of the USA feels a deeper sympathy to Israel, and considers the terrorist tactics of Islamic countries to be totally without merit.
Keep pushing for Pollard's release.It shows the USA that Israel is just the flip side of the coin of Al Queda.
A pox on both of your houses.And a nuke or two would solve the whole problem.The middle eastern fanatics have made a fatal error in demanding the attention of the USA to "solve" their ancient religious problems.
Welcome to the 21st century.
We see your problem.You both demand we "cure" it.Be carefull what you wish for.....
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