Hamas War

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Jonathan Pollard, Predate WikiLeaks?

Jonathan Pollard's crime was a generation ago.  He has been jailed for twenty-five years already for a strange crime, giving United States security information to an ally (Israel) that had a signed agreement with the U.S. which promised Israel that sane sort of information.

The big question should really be:
Did the United States fulfill its treaty obligations with Israel?
and if it didn't...
Why didn't the United States fulfill those treaty obligations?
Pollard broke the law in that he decided on his own to correct the situation.  He was exposed to information that he understood should be in Israel's hands and offered it to Israel.  That's the simple explanation of the Pollard Affair. 

The United States went totally "ballistic" and Pollard's sentence was out of proportion, inconsistent with all prior punishment for even more serious security crimes.  One could innocently say that it's inexplicable or just explain it as another example of the inherent antisemitism in American society and government.

Today, there's WikiLeaks.  I wonder if Pollard would have been like Assange if he had been a generation younger.  WikiLeaks has publicized what governments want secret, while Pollard gave information to a United States ally.

It's time to free Jonathan Pollard.  When will the United States admit that they have committed a greater crime?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

times really haven't changed much. Assange is not employed by the US federal government, Pollard was, just as Wikileaks mole, SPC Bradley Manning is, and like Pollard, is looking at a life sentence.

Batya said...

Pollard didn't show the information to the world.