October 7, 2011, 6:15 AM
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Next month, convicted Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard will begin his 27th year in prison, and the Obama administration is displaying stunning insensitivity to what this means for the American Jewish community.
Pollard was arrested in 1985 for transferring classified documents to Israel during his service at US Naval Intelligence. In 1987, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crime.
Pollard's sentence contradicted his plea bargain agreement. It was based, among other things, on an impact assessment report of his crimes that was authored by CIA officer Aldrich Ames. At the time of Pollard's arrest, Ames had been spying for the Soviet Union for two years.
Ames was arrested for espionage in 1994. He was responsible for the deaths of at least 10 agents working for US intelligence in the USSR.
Ames reportedly blamed Pollard for some of the agent deaths caused by his own espionage.
Pollard's life sentence was grossly disproportionate to the sentences routinely given to offenders who transfer classified information to US-allied governments. The median sentence for such crimes is two years in prison.
Until last year, there was a longstanding consensus in the US political and intelligence communities opposed to granting clemency to Pollard.
This consensus evaporated last year. In late 2010, US President Barack Obama received letters recommending commutation of Pollard's sentence to time served from former CIA director R. James Woolsey, and from retired senator Dennis DeConcini, who served as the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of Pollard's arrest and sentencing.
Obama received similar letters from former secretaries of state George Schultz and Henry Kissinger. He received requests for commutation from Sen. John McCain and former attorney-general Michael Mukasey.
Lawrence Korb, who served as assistant defense secretary under Caspar Weinberger, has spearheaded the effort to release Pollard. Korb has stated categorically that Pollard's harsh sentence was the result of Weinberger's antipathy for Jews.
Other US luminaries who have called for Obama to grant Pollard clemency include former congressman and presidential adviser Lee Hamilton, former senator and presidential adviser Alan Simpson, Harvard law professor and Obama mentor Charles Ogletree, US Appellate Court Judge Stephen Williams and former deputy attorney- general Phillip Heymann. Scores of congressmen, several senators and more than 500 clergymen have called for Pollard's release from prison.
Answering public entreaties from Korb and Pollard's wife, Esther, in early January, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu became the first Israeli leader to issue a formal, public appeal for clemency for Pollard. Netanyahu read the text of his appeal to Obama from the Knesset podium and submitted it to the White House on January 4.
One of the main reasons for the urgency of the current appeal is Pollard's failing health. Aside from that, the basic arguments given by his advocates are the disproportionate length of Pollard's sentence; his deep, repeatedly stated remorse for his actions; his exemplary behavior in prison; and the fact that deterrence has been achieved.
OBAMA HAS failed to respond to Israel's formal request for clemency.
He has been silent in the face of lesser requests as well. When Pollard's father, Morris, was on his deathbed in June, Obama did not respond to formal requests to permit Pollard to visit him in the hospital. He similarly failed to respond to formal requests for Pollard to attend his father's funeral.
Obama's cold silence was broken last week by his agent Vice President Joseph Biden. According to the New York Jewish Week, in a meeting with 15 rabbis in South Florida on September 23, Biden provided an unsolicited monologue about Pollard's case. Repeatedly referring to Pollard as a "traitor," Biden said, "It would take the Third Coming before I would support letting Pollard out."
According to The New York Times, in making the statement, Biden, who is considered a friend of the US Jewish community and of Israel, served as Obama's fall guy. Biden's job was to deflect criticism of Obama's unstated decision not to release Pollard away from the president.
In the event, Obama's decision to send Biden out to reject calls for Pollard's release backfired.
Rather than killing the issue, Biden's unbridled assault on Pollard caused the US Jewish leadership to unify around Pollard and call for his release. As Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman told Channel 2 on Wednesday, Jewish leaders had never discussed Pollard's case publicly, but after Biden went public, they decided that they must follow suit. The leaders of the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox movements were all quoted by Jewish Week calling for Pollard's release.
Their calls came just before Biden's previously scheduled Rosh Hashana reception for Jewish leaders. So at the party on Wednesday, Biden was beset by leaders asking him to reconsider his position and recommend clemency for Pollard. In response, Biden agreed to meet with a small group of Jewish leaders in the near future to discuss Pollard's case.
Biden's assault on Pollard was strange for two main reasons. First, it was bad politics. Obama reportedly tasked Biden with rebuilding Jewish support for the administration. That support has frayed in the face of Obama's harsh treatment of Israel.
It is odd that in the context of Biden's outreach attempts, he chose to express a hostile position on Pollard that couldn't help but raise the hackles of the very community he was dispatched to woo. Rather than bringing the US Jewish community closer to the administration, Biden accomplished the astounding feat of unifying the fractured community in opposition to his position.
The second reason that Biden's anti-Pollard harangue made no sense is because it flew in the face of the claim that Obama has turned over a new leaf on Israel. Obama's supporters have argued that his speech at the General Assembly last month where he opposed the PLO's efforts to gain UN membership as a sovereign state was a watershed event for the president. In announcing his intention to veto a Palestinian statehood resolution in the UN Security Council, his supporters argue that Obama abandoned his previous hostility towards Israel and embraced it as an ally.
BIDEN'S ATTACK on Pollard is just the latest in a stunning line of rebukes of Israel by Obama's senior surrogates over the past 10 days that cast a pall on that supposed watershed event. First Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US opposes even symbolic recognition of Israel's capital city Jerusalem. Then she attacked Israel for approving new housing construction in Jerusalem.
Following on Clinton's heels, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta launched a public assault on Israel both ahead of and during his visit early this week.
Panetta seemingly made US support for Israel contingent on Israel's willingness to make concessions to its increasingly radicalized neighbors, saying, "As [the Israelis] take risks for peace, we will be able to provide the security that they will need in order to ensure that they can have the room hopefully to negotiate."
Panetta further accused Israel of isolating itself diplomatically due to its unwillingness to take what he considers sufficient risks. Just weeks after US intervention was needed to force Egypt's military junta to prevent the murder of six Israeli embassy guards besieged by a mob of Egyptian rioters who took over the embassy in Cairo, Panetta added, "Real security can only be achieved by both a strong diplomatic effort as well as a strong effort to project your military strength."
Besides blaming Israel for the absence of peace with the Palestinians and for post-Mubarak Egypt's rapid radicalization, Panetta publicly rejected Israel's right to take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, claiming all action against Iran must be multilateral. In stating this position, Panetta effectively gave a green light for Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
This is the case because the sanctions policy the Obama administration clings to has already demonstrably failed to deter Iran from advancing its nuclear weapons program.
Clinton's attack on Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, Panetta's assault on Israel's right to defend itself from the threat of genocide, and his unrestrained criticism of Israel's refusal to genuflect before increasingly belligerent neighbors all indicated that Obama's speech at the UN was not a new chapter in his administration's treatment of Israel. Rather, it was a one-off response to concern about the loss of American Jewish support for the president. That concern was spiked by the Republican victory in New York's Ninth Congressional District's special election last month.
Biden's assault on Pollard - and through him, the American Jewish community - was a similar sign that Obama has not let go of his antipathy for Israel.
Obama's behavior on Israel following the Democrats' congressional upset replicates his response to Republican Sen. Scott Brown's upset victory in the special Senate election in Massachusetts in January 2010. Brown was elected at the height of the debate on Obama's nationalized healthcare plan.
For the first couple of weeks after Brown's election, Obama and his surrogates signaled their willingness to compromise with Republicans in light of Massachusetts voters' rebuke of their partisan brinksmanship on the healthcare issue. But within two months of Brown's victory, Obama and his allies had doubled down and passed their highly controversial healthcare program with no Republican support and against the opposition of the majority of American voters.
In the case of both Israel and healthcare, Obama has opted to ignore the political consequences of his actions and press on with his ideological agenda.
The lesson Pollard and his supporters in the US and in Israel should take from Obama's behavior is that they must continue to press on in their campaign for Pollard's release as energetically and as relentlessly as possible. As the election date nears, if Obama's polling numbers continue to drop, it is possible - although unlikely - that he will decide that desperate times call for desperate measures and grant Pollard clemency.
Even if Obama fails to act in such a politically sensible fashion, a public and outspoken campaign for Pollard's release still makes sense. At a minimum, it can set the conditions for a new president to grant Pollard clemency immediately upon taking office, by causing Obama's Republican opponent to commit to such a course of action.
Speaking of Pollard's case with Jewish Week, Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said, "In the midst of the Days of Awe, as we ponder the wrongdoings we have committed and pray for God's mercy, we pray as well that President Obama will act with mercy and grant Mr. Pollard long-overdue clemency."
American Jewish leaders deserve praise for their willingness to plead on Pollard's behalf. And they should be urged to continue to highlight Pollard's plight and call for his immediate release.
Pollard committed a crime. But his punishment far outweighs his misdeeds. Whether Obama releases him from his long suffering or not, it is heartwarming that due to Biden's unbridled assault on Pollard, the American Jewish leadership has found its voice and is calling for justice to be done.
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.
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When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Proverbs 29:2
OBAMA HAS failed to respond to Israel’s formal request for clemency'
Just as phony friend of Israel President Bush ignored this injustice and was still able to seduce extremely naive and gullible Jews.
The reason Israel is treated so poorly by both parties in American politics is that the nation has become an easy pushover not deserving of respect from the busy bullies.
If Israel would learn to say NO once in a while and stop backing down and capitulating all the time,the people and the nation would garner more respect than they are receiving now.
Subservient lackeys get table scraps if they are lucky.
Netanyahu the poodle did not even fight back and demand Pollards release he just rolled over like a good poodle and sent out his pit bull Barak to tear down more Jewish homes to please his masters.After US Defense Secretary Panetta's visit look for the 2 quislings of Jerusalem to tear down more Jewish homes soon.
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.
Proverbs 29:2
"...just the latest in a stunning line of rebukes of Israel by Obama's senior surrogates [....]Obama has not let go of his antipathy for Israel." Let alone his extreme-left knee-jerk aversion to Israel, the man is a natural product of his anti-Semitic church. It's much more logical for him to have surrounded himself with both pro-Palestinian fanatics and ingrained Jew-haters than for those same Jews to have overwhelmingly voted him into office. One hopes most of the latter will change their minds before the next round.
Aldrich Ames?
One of those little hidden facts not reported to the American people.
Suddenly I find myself in complete agreement with Pollard's release.
There are traitors and then there are TRAITORS. Suddenly in America, that word has new and profound meaning, heretofore not well understood. Obama and company have done much more damage than Pollard and they will not serve a day in prison.
I am a Jew who loves Israel.
I am an American who loves MY country.
Pollard is a traitor to HIS country,,,the United States.
He spied, was caught, and is now serving his rightful sentence.
I wish him an easy fast on this erev Yom Kippur
Pollard is no less a traitor that Ames. Both betrayed their country. It makes no difference that Ames worked for the Russians and Pollard for the Israelis. Indeed, it is Israel that should apologize to the US for such a bone headed operation against their greatest ally. Even though Pollard volunteered his services, the Israelis should at the very least have sent him packing.
Any loyal US citizen has a responsibility to ponder the guilt of Pollard and pause to wonder if clemency is the right response to a convicted spy. And that's what Pollard is, a convicted spy. But take another look at what the conviction is. If Pollard is a traitor, then who was he betraying the US to? Israel? But Israel is a friend to the US, proven over and over again, despite the US consistantly treating Israel with something less than honesty. And part of the way that Israel proves its friendship is by sharing intelligence, and also the US shares intelligence with Israel. Although between the two, the quality and value of intelligence coming from Israel is the better.
If Pollard passed classified information that he was not supposed to pass, it might easily have been an accident. In any case, since Israel is some kind of ally, and not a sworn enemy like the USSR was, the tone of prosecution and the sentencing Pollard received is easily questionable.
JOE BIDEN ISN'T ONE OF MY FAVORITE POLITICIANS.
BUT I THINK POLLARD'S FATE WAS IN HIS OWN HANDS.
The continuing harsh treatment of Jonathan Pollard is a travesty of justice. That the Jewish community is rallying to secure Pollard's freedom is heartening, but at what price? The only reason that Obama and his friends might consider his release from prison would be to boost lagging Jewish support for a president who has proven his willingness time and again to throw Israel and Jews under the bus. It seems that Israel has yet to learn the lesson that she is entirely on her own. Any support from the Obama administration will include more strings than a puppeteer with his puppet. Jonathan Pollard has suffered long enough. He deserves and has certainly more than earned the right to live his remaining years in comfort. May HaShem in His infinite mercy continue to guide us in making decisions that will benefit both Jonathan Pollard and the entire Klal Yisrael. Gmar Chatima Tovah and Shabbat shalom.
This week, Caroline,I am not sure you are on the mark: "the American Jewish leadership has found its voice and is calling for justice to be done." I am not sure that you provide enough evidence to show that they are truly calling for justice with all their hearts, and souls and minds.
Even for Americans who unwaveringly support Isreal, by his own admission, Pollard was a spy against the US, his own country. Most Americans support Isreal, but we don't take kindly to spies. Americans know who is the staunchest supporter of Isreal, yet Isreal spied against us. From Isreal's point of view, maybe she was looking out for her best interest. And so are we; you are the recipient of the largest share of our aid--don't spy on us. Possibly the sentence was excessive and recommended by somebody who turned out to be a bad guy. True, muslims are doing more and worse against us. But, that is slowly changing as Americans wake up. That does not excuse US citizens from betraying us. Any American who calls for his release treads on shaky ground. It does not mean everyday Americans like Isreal less. There is no quid pro quo. Probably your best bet is the Obama administration on his way out the door.
It was painfully obvious that Biden was being used as the fall guy for Obama's decision.
Whether you agree with the idea that Pollard should be released is irrelevant.
It was a spineless, transparent, and poorly executed move on Obama's part.
No one was fooled.
Pollard's crime seems benign compared to Hanoi Jane's deliberate aid and comfort to the enemy, and her betrayal of POWs who entrusted her with notes to be delivered home; she turned the notes over to the guards who then beat the POWs
Yet Hanoi Jane has never been charged with treason and has been making money hand over fist ever since her despicable treason in the Vietnam war.
Sure Caroline is "appropriate" in her analysis. However, having said that; I am not very impressed by The American Jewish Community's leadership on the Pollard matter. Too little too late. Too late to cover your rear ends, my dear milk toast mucky mucks.
It was complicated by Pollard's own defense moves. Pollard is a huge humiliation for the US Navy, one in which they will never own up to.
Does anyone think Pollard joined Navy Intelligence with the intention of spying for Israel? What happened to Pollard while he was a civilian intelligence analyst which made him commit such a drastic act? In my mind, the second biggest mistake Pollard made was by signing away his right to a trial. The defense should have been temporary insanity.
Pollard was most probably,the victim of anti-Jewish harrassment in the US Navy. This harrassment was more than Pollard could stand. It literally drove him crazy. He was of the understanding that The US was behind Israel 100%. I know because I grew up at the same time as Pollard and that is what all Jewish Americans were taught, without question.
Well, we were fed misinformation. What surprises me is that Navy psychologists failed to detect that Pollard was incapable of handling the double standard hypocritical double crossing ax to grind anti Jewish/Israel attitude prevalant in The US Navy. The act of Pollard is proof that he was not capable of rational thinking.
Secondly, Navy was not able to detect Pollard for a very long time while all the signs were obvious to anyone who looked. US Navy =incompetant=humiliation=cover-up/blame the victim.
They failed to do their job, which was to screen Pollard out.
Pollard was out alright, out of mind for doing what he did. First of all, he did not know what the heck he was doing, so he went hog wild, like an emotional and hysterical drunken sailor. He opened himself up to boundless accusations by those in the US intelligence community who want nothing more than to end US support for Israel. It is not just the intelligence community either, US State Dept and Pentagon too.
I doubt any candidate for President will commit to release Jonathan, only to review the case. They want him to die in prison and the way things appear right now, one can not rule that out.
The USA has been good to the Jewish Community in general. We have the option of attending institutions of higher learning, so that we can acquire careers which do not put us into a position like the one Jonathan found himself in. Jonathan Pollard is a smart guy, very intelligent, but he should have found a different career path. He probably would have been very well off by now. It was just a fatal career move. Shows you how decisions affect a person. That is the lesson to be learned. Educate your children based upon reality rather than fairy tale, if you care.
Perhaps the U.S. Government is afraid Pollard knows too much about the Federal prison system in the USA and will do a "tell all", so they're keeping him here.
"No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other."
This holds especially true is the intelligence services. Any intelligence officer convicted of treason should be sentenced to death. He should be glad that he was allowed to live.
Yes, BHO can take a big step toward salvaging whatever legacy his presidency has vis-a-vis Israel by being a big mensch and setting Jonathan free. Spot on, Caroline!