Hamas War

Monday, December 8, 2014

Will Jonathan Pollard Make it out of the USA Alive?

Pollard" Poster in 
And can Jews get a fair shake in the United States?

The entire Jonathan Pollard saga is an allegory of Jewish and Israel relations/status with the United States of America.

al·le·go·ry
 noun \ˈa-lə-ˌgr-ē\: a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation


George Orwell. Photograph:
Courtesy of Vernon Richards Estate
I could see George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, Nineteen Eighty-Four, writing the Jonathan Pollard story as if it was fiction.

So many people, even thirty years after Pollard's arrest, still consider the USA as Israel's greatest friend and ally. If a more modern George Orwell-type had written the story as "fiction" thirty-five or forty years ago, people would have considered it unthinkable that:

  • America would refuse to reveal security information to Israel, although they have a treaty guaranteeing Israel such intelligence information.
  • Israel would have to rely on an American Jew for intelligence information.
  • When that Jewish employed is arrested by the Americans he's treated worse than any communist spy.
  • The Americans renege on pretrial agreement.
  • That Jew is given a harsher sentence than any enemy spy.
  • The convicted Jew is refused parole, even though he has served a longer sentence than those convicted of more serious security offenses. 
  • The convicted Jew is refused parole, even though he is seriously ill.
Pollard, who has been jailed on charges of passing classified information to Israel on regional threats to the country, has suffered multiple health problems over the years, for which he was finally hospitalized in March and underwent a surgery then...Late last month, as Pollard started his 30th year in a US jail, the Parole Board of the US Justice Department rejected Pollard's parole, with senior US officials involved in the case writing to US President Barack Obama to complain that the decision was "deeply flawed."They noted that the length of his sentence was unprecedented compared to others who were held on similar charges of spying for an ally nation, and that the legal justifications for the decision were based on clear mistakes.
Last Friday with Pollard's hospitalization the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Chairman Robert G. Sugarman, and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein, wrote of "the need for immediate action for his release."
"It is regrettable and inexplicable that the Parole Board denied his application after serving 30 years, much of it in solitary confinement, far beyond anyone accused of a comparable crime," wrote the two, backing the letter sent by senior officials to Obama.... (Arutz 7)


Too many aspects of the Jonathan Pollard case seem like unthinkable fiction, certainly for someone of my generation raised on the myth of American "equal justice for all." Yes, myth, because Pollard's punishment is certainly disproportionate to not only what he did but to all legal precedent. American Jews employed in US security/intelligence have gotten the message that they will be held to a standard that no other religious or ethnic group is demanded/required.

American Jewry, remember that you aren't equal under American Law.

7 comments:

HDG, Yerushalayim, E"Y Shlemah said...

Batya, thank you for writing this.

Need we be reminded that 1984 came complete with a Jew everyone loved to hate: Emmanuel Goldstein.

I suppose he was supposed to be the fictional version of Leon Trotsky because both were formerly Party leaders (Goldstein was likely fiction within fiction) and both were kicked out & hated later. But take out the leadership part and you have Jonathan Pollard in Goldstein's place. He was in the Navy and then disgraced in the most public and horrible way. That is not fiction and we live with it every day. How we do this I cannot fathom. I'm surprised we are not hearing more updates about his progress now.

At this point I can well assume we can't pull an Entebbe action on the US to get him out. The US is likely hyper-alert for such an action.

Batya said...

CDG, thanks for adding this information. I consider it the height of duplicity and immorality for the USA to continue to imprison Pollard. He paid for his crime many times over.

CR said...

Friendship with U.S. is Suicide.

Batya said...

Maybe not suicide but it certainly isn't oxygen.

goyisherebbe said...

CDG: Good point about Orwell's Goldstein. I forget who said it but the Trotskys make the revolutions and the Bronsteins (Trotsky's birth surname) are the ones who pay.

in the vanguard said...

If left to the Americans to get him out, good luck; There's too much hate for the Jew - most especially in this current administration (and the infrastructure it has nurtured the last 40 years).

The only way to force his release is to insist that "talks" with America are predicated on his release - and I don't think Israel's politicians are brave enough for that.

Batya said...

Goyish yes
Vav good point sad and tragic.