"What? Is Pollard Ill?"

Israel National News ^

[RCW2001]

"What? Is Pollard Ill?"

by Moshe Burt
April 01, 2002

Each Shabbat morning, I am wont to ascend to the bima (dias) to give a special Mishabeirach for Cholim (prayer for the sick), for Yonaton Ben Malka - Jonathan Pollard (Yehonatan Pollard, for the benefit of native-born Israelis). Every Shabbat morning, no matter which synagogue I'm in here in Israel, when I make this Mishabeirach for Cholim followed by my saying Pollard's full name in English and in Hebrew, I hear the same derisive muttering in the background, "What? Is Pollard Ill?" Every Shabbat I feel the same shock, to put it mildly - no, make that outrage.

Some of what I feel is particular to the case of Jonathan Pollard and the frank indifference to his plight on the part of olim (immigrants to Israel), of ‘Anglos’ – English speakers . Notice, I said Anglos, not native-born Israelis. I hear the mutterings and its always Anglo voices, not Israelis. I never hear Israelis mutter either in Hebrew or in broken English "What? Is Pollard Ill?" Granted that Israelis don't know near enough about the Pollard case and the Israeli Government's part in it. They are not aware of the fact that when Pollard tried to take shelter and ask for asylum in the Israeli Embassy in the US, sovereign Israeli territory under international law, the Israeli Government rewarded Pollard for saving thousands or tens of thousands of Jewish lives by turning him over to US for prosecution. Pollard gave information, information that the US was bound by agreement to provide, but did not do so, to Israel, a US ally, which enabled Israel to take out the Iraqi nuclear reactor in the early 1980s. Israel's action in bombing the Iraqi reactor ironically didn't save just Jewish lives, but American lives as well. Reference the Gulf War in 1991, for example.

Israelis are not aware that the US made a plea-bargain agreement with Pollard to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence, which the US Justice Department then violated when it sentenced Pollard to life imprisonment based on then-Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's dubious "If you only knew" document submitted to the sentencing Judge shortly before sentencing was passed.

Israelis also are not aware of the daily mistreatment of Jonathan Pollard for some 17 years at the hands of the US Prison System. They don't know of the years when Pollard was incarcerated in isolation, denied the barest minimum medical care and denied a Kosher diet. They don't know that despite all of this, Pollard had the strength and will of character to become a religious Jew - a Ba'al Teshuva.

Israelis, by and large, don't know that there is a so-called "principled Jew" named Joe Lieberman, who, after attacking Clinton for the "Lewinsky Affair", nearly became US Vice President in the closely contested election between Al Gore and President George W. Bush. Israelis don't know, have no clue, of the fact that Joe Lieberman to this day proclaims that Pollard had a trial by jury when, in fact, such trial never occurred, as Pollard was sentenced as a result of a violated plea-bargain and never had "his day in court." Israelis don't know that Lieberman has spent years evading attempts by people like NY State Assemblyman Sam Colman to set the record straight.

Israelis also, by and large, don't know that their current Prime Minister and previous Prime Ministers, with the possible exception of Netanyahu, have acted with equivocation and have made no effort to bring about Jonathan Pollard's freedom. They also, by and large, probably have no inkling, no clue that the current Prime Minister has tried, on two occasions – first with $1 million and then with $2 million, to buy Pollard's silence and languishing in prison until death.

I spoke recently with a friend, an American reservist living in Israel who was activated in the aftermath of the Twin Towers event of 11 September, 2001. While in the United States, he was able to visit and spend some time with Jonathan Pollard. My friend related to me the following: "Jonathan is a genius, plain and simple, and he's a joy to be with. Despite it all. he has a sense of humor and his breadth and depth of knowledge is breathtaking. The hardest thing to take is when he talks about his plans for a family and starting a business when he gets out. Heartrending - because you know he can make a serious difference in Israel and every minute that he is hindered from his goals is a not only a personal tragedy, but a national one."

I asked my friend, "Do you think that we have a shot with Bush to get him Free? My friend responded, "Best chance there's been in many years." Then I asked, Is Sharon really the one throwing the monkey wrenches into efforts to free Pollard? He responded, "Let's put it this way, it's not much higher than priority #72 by him." I restated the question this way, Is that 28% from rock-bottom or 28% below top priority? The answer came quickly, "The former, unfortunately."

Israelis don't know and must be brought "up to speed". For religious Anglos, however, no such excuse - "we didn't know" - exists. One would have had to be deaf, dumb and blind not to know. You name it, every major religious publication - The Jewish Press, Jewish Week, Jewish Action, Hamodia, Viewpoint, etc. - has had extensive coverage over the years of the Pollard case. There have always been, through these many years, and still are, American TV and radio talk shows devoted to Jonathan Pollard's plight. The bottom line is that in light of the great mitzvah of Pidyon Shvu'im - freeing of an unjustly imprisoned Jewish captive - the mutter of "What? Is Pollard Ill?" is really quite lame and quite infuriating.

Some of what I feel is Pollard-particular, but much of what I feel is symptomatic of our collective malaise. The malaise of doing things totally by rote – of constantly playing "beat the clock" at the expense of the quality, concentration and intensity of our tefillah (prayer) as delivered to and ultimately received by God. When tefillah is continually said at a speed needed to break a time-barrier and when the gabai (beadle) similarly utters Mishabeirachs for the sick at break-neck, mumbling speed as he races against the clock, lest the congregants spend one extra minute in synagogue on shabbat, how do you think that such tefillah is received in Heaven?

Why do I make a point each Shabbat, the day of the largest synagogue attendance of the week, to explicitly see that there is an appropriate tefillah said for my brother Jonathan Pollard? If there is no other tefillah which reaches Heaven unimpeded, ungarbled by break-neck speed, this one will. God-willing, if others pick up this call in other synagogues throughout Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel) and in Chutz L'Aretz (abroad), we hope to be worthy to soon witness Jonathan Pollard's freedom and the day when he is physically among us here in Eretz Yisrael. I know that I long for that day and will do all that I can to bring it about.
----------------------------------
Moshe Burt, of Ramat Beit Shemesh, is the Founder and Director of the Sefer Torah Recycling Network.

[RCW2001]

If you want off or on this 'Pollard bump list'...freepmail me.

[Alberta's Child]

They also, by and large, probably have no inkling, no clue that the current Prime Minister has tried, on two occasions – first with $1 million and then with $2 million, to buy Pollard's silence and languishing in prison until death.

Bill Clinton was the most unprincipled man ever to occupy the White House. If Israel couldn't buy Pollard's freedom while X-42 was president, you know there was a damn good reason to keep him in prison for the rest of his life.

[VinnyTex]

Jonathan Pollard Was No Jewish Patriot

by Eric Margolis

The Toronto Sun, Jan. 14, 1999

---

The case of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Jay Pollard has again reared its ugly head. American Jewish groups, Hollywood celebrities and Israel have renewed pressure on the besieged Clinton administration to free the man they call "the Jewish Dreyfus." Pollard has served 13 years of a life sentence.

President Bill Clinton is loath to antagonize America's politically powerful Jewish community, which strongly supports the Democratic party. But the president is also under intense pressure from the national security community not to free the Israeli spy. CIA director George Tenent has threatened to resign if Pollard is pardoned. Seven former U.S. secretaries of defence, some of whom are Jewish, also demanded Pollard remain in prison for life.

After years of denials, Israel finally admitted Pollard, a U.S. Navy civilian analyst, was not a "rogue agent," as it originally claimed, but a spy for Israeli intelligence.

Pollard caused enormous damage to U.S. national security. He gave Israel top-secret U.S. military intelligence and diplomatic codes; names of nearly 100 U.S. agents in the Mideast, who were then "turned" by Israel; NSA code-breaking techniques and targets; intercepts of foreign communications; and U.S. war-fighting plans for the Mideast.

According to CIA sources, Pollard provided Israeli intelligence with names of important American agents inside the former

Soviet Union and Russia who had supplied information on East Bloc weapons and war plans. How the agents' names were linked to the secrets they supplied - a major breach of basic intelligence security - remains a mystery.

Some of the enormously sensitive secrets stolen by Pollard may have been either sold, or bartered, by Israel to the Soviet Union.

A number of key CIA agents in the East Bloc were allegedly executed as a result of Pollard's spying. The KGB likely gained access to top-secret U.S. codes - either directly from Israel, or through spies in Israel's government. In short, Pollard's treachery caused one of the worst security disasters in modern U.S. history.

FBI investigators discovered Pollard was being directed to steal specific secret data by a senior administration official, known as "Mr. X." But the White House, unwilling to stir up a domestic political storm, quashed the investigation.

To my knowledge, three previous cases of high-ranking U.S. government officials caught passing top-secret information to Israel have been similarly hushed up. Two were senior defence department officials under Ronald Reagan, one a top state department official in a previous administration. None was prosecuted.

Pollard's defenders claim he, like French Capt. Alfred Dreyfus in 1894, is a victim of anti-Semitism in the military. They maintain Pollard was "only" spying for a friendly country, motivated solely by concern for Israel's security. These assertions are patently false. Pollard was suspected for some time of spying. Investigation was held off precisely because of fears of raising cries of anti-Semitism. Pollard took large sums of money and jewelry from Israeli agents in payment for spying.

With remarkable chutzpah, Israel, which receives up to $5 billion in U.S. aid annually, refuses to return documents stolen by Pollard, or allow U.S. intelligence to debrief Mossad agents who ran Pollard in order to learn the full extent of the disaster. While Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu kept calling for Pollard's release on "humanitarian" grounds, he refused to free prisoner of conscience Mordechai Vanunu, now serving 18 years in solitary confinement in Israel for telling a British newspaper about Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Pollard is no Jewish patriot. He is a traitor who sold out his country, and fellow intelligence officers, for money, then claimed he was being persecuted by anti-Semites.

Victim he is not. To the contrary, Pollard is a poster boy for anti-Semitism. His treason unfairly exposes all American Jews to hate, and accusations of doubtful loyalty.

Jonathan Pollard is a traitor of the worst kind - not a second Dreyfus - and should stay in prison.

---

See also The Case Against Jonathan Pollard by Seymour Hersh. See other news reports . More news reports .

To receive Eric Margolis' Foreign Correspondent via email send a note to Majordomo@lglobal.com with the message in the body: subscribe foreignc For Syndication Information please contact: Email: emargolis@lglobal.com

[onedoug]

While the so-called palestinians can go to hell, so can Pollard.

[montag813]

Pollard is lucky to have his life. He should have been put down like the dog he is. He should stop complaining. At least he wont be loneley when he picks up the soap.

[luvzhottea]

The Knesset and their agents in America work on our politicians to free Pollard.
Then in February of this year there was a big celebration in honor of Baruch Goldstein

"Goldstein killed 29 Muslim worshippers on February 25, 1994 when he stormed into the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron and opened fire on the congregants"
As they knelt in prayer he slaughtered them.

"The purpose of the celebrations," said Ben-Gvir, "is to mark the memory of Dr. Goldstein, in opposition to the wave of left-wingers who... are trying to hurt his memory in all kinds of ways... Goldstein is a saint, and what he did was a holy thing. We are respectful of his memory. He did a great thing, a holy thing."
quotes from Ha'aretz February 24, 2002

[rmlew]

The FBI conveniently blamed everything on Pollard even as they had a spy in their midst. Virtually everything they blamed on Pollard, we now know is the work of Aldrich Ames. Yet the anti-Zionists refuse to admitt the truth. Pollard spied only for Israel.
Of course, being that he is a spy, I don't care if Pollard spend the rest of his life in jail.

[elbucko]

"Jonathan Pollard is a traitor of the worst kind - not a second Dreyfus - and should stay in prison."

And throw away the key, forget Kosher food.

Israel should be concerned regarding America's experiences "Red Diaper Babies".

[Dog Gone]

If Israel really wants to strain its relationship with the US, they should keep insisting that Pollard should be freed.

[veronica]

Goldstein killed 29 Muslim worshippers on February 25, 1994 when he stormed into the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron and opened fire on the congregants" As they knelt in prayer he slaughtered them...

And a mad Islamist slaughtered 20 or so Jews as they sat down to sedar, and some other mad Islamists killed 3000 Americans on 9-11, and the USS Cole, etc., etc, etc. Islam is peace?

[luvzhottea]

‘So What, It’s Only Israel!’

There is a tendency in and out of government to minimize the impact of Israeli espionage against the United States because Israel is a friendly country. That overlooks the gravity of the espionage threat, says David Major, former director of counterintelligence programs at the National Security Council. “This ‘don’t worry about allied spying, it’s okay’ attitude is harmful,” he warns. “The U.S. should expect that the rest of the world is bent on rooting out its national-security secrets and the secrets that could subject its leaders to blackmail.” Minimizing or excusing “friendly spying,” he argues, only discourages vigilance and encourages more attacks on U.S. national security. “I’m not outraged by nations that find it in their interests to collect intelligence but by our unwillingness to seriously pursue counterintelligence.”

Major, now dean of the private Center for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, asks: “What price should Israel pay for this? My predictions are that there will be no impact whatsoever. Do we put our heads in the sand or do we take it as a wake-up call?”
Others observe that Israel has passed stolen U.S. secrets to America’s adversaries. The government of Yitzhak Shamir reportedly provided the Soviet Union with valuable U.S. documents stolen by Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. “It’s the security equivalent of herpes,” says a former U.S. antiterrorism official now at a pro-Israel think tank who requested anonymity. “Who gets it [beyond Israel] nobody knows.... Once we let it happen, the word gets out that ‘you can get away with this.’”

— JMW
From the ORIGINAL publication of:
05/29/2000
FBI Probes Espionage at Clinton White House
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By J. Michael Waller and Paul M. Rodriguez
waller@insightmag.com and rodriguez@insightmag.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Rodney King]

Israelis are not aware that the US made a plea-bargain agreement with Pollard to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser sentence, which the US Justice Department then violated when it sentenced Pollard to life imprisonment based on then-Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's dubious "If you only knew" document submitted to the sentencing Judge shortly before sentencing was passed.

BS Alert. The Justice Department does not sentence people. Judges do. All accused know that a plea bargain has a chance of not being honored by the court. If this guy does not even know that the Justice Department does not do sentencing, then what are we to think of his credibility on the rest of the article?

[luvzhottea]

Islam is peace?

My President says so:

Islam is a religion of peace.
--Ari FLEISCHER repeating George W. Bush's comment

(http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/20020225-16.html)
Office of the Press Secretary
February 25, 2002 12:45 P.M. EST Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer

[RCW2001]

bttt...

[luvzhottea]

Still trying to get Pollard out, still no accountability for the U.S.S. Liberty, and still the American taxpayer bends his and her back to pay pay pay:

U.S. Aid To Israel

A Conservative Total for U.S. Aid to Israel: $91 Billion-and Counting, by Shirl McArthur, Jan/Feb 2001

[veronica]

I think it's just terrible the way some people try and use the USS Liberty event for their own nefarious agenda...so do some Liberty Survivors

'This is an embarrassment to us, but one over which will have little control.

We wish to make it clear that we do not support their views and do not welcome or encourage their support of ours'

[veronica]

by Eric Margolis....

An anti-American Leftie...you guys love the Lefties!

[altair]

Israelis, by and large, don't know that there is a so-called "principled Jew" named Joe Lieberman, who, after attacking Clinton for the "Lewinsky Affair", nearly became US Vice President

Is this the same principled man who changed all his positions within a few days of accepting the VP nomination? Just asking.

[Rodney King]

So, let me get this straight:

Crazy Neo-Nazi's complain about the Liberty.

Liberty survivors deny any and all involvement with or support of the Neo-Nazi's.

Therefore: Liberty survivors are against ALL those who are upset about the Liberty?

Do I have it right?