Pollard's Family Pleads to Allow Him to Attend Father's Funeral

Arutz Sheva ^ | 18/6/11 | INN Staff

[Eleutheria5]

Morris Pollard, the father of Jonathan Pollard, has died at age 95. HIs family has sent an urgent plea to President Obama, asking him to show mercy and allow Jonathan Pollard compassionate leave to attend his father's funeral. Jonathan Pollard was convicted for passing classified information to a foreign country and has been incarcerated for 26 years Pollard's father had been hospitalized for the last several months. During this period, activists on Pollard's behalf and various well-known Israelis, attempted to no avail to obtain permission for Jonathan to visit his father on a 24 hour leave.

The refusal prompted MK Aryeh Eldad to send a message of condolence to Jonathan, saying: "The people of Israel will not forget President Obama's cruelty in ignoring all the requests to free you. A president who lacks the basic human feeling that would allow a son's visit to his dying father should not wonder that the Jewish people will make every effort to prevent his re-election."

A petition signed by a 75 israeli MK's, asking Obama to allow Pollard to visit his dying father was to have been handed to Vice President Joe Biden shortly. It came too late.

MK Nachman Shai (Kadima), initiator of the petition, said that its signers represented a broad spectrum of parties and opinions, who united for this humanitarian purpose. "I hope that we will succeed in opening President Obama's heart," he had said.

Recent efforts on the part of various persons to convince President Shimon Peres, considered by Deptury Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon the natural choice to turn to Obama on this issue, had been unsuccessful.

[Graybeard58]

What sentence did American Taliban member John Walker Lindh receive?

[chuckee]

You cannot be serious. To characterize Pollard as a heroic figure out to save mankind and as savior of the West from Iranian nuclear attacks when at the time Iran had no nukes is over the top fantasy. He was an inept loser who did it for the money and possibly to provide an advantage to Israel at the expense of the US.

[Scotsman will be Free]

Exactly so. Harmonium is implying anti semitism on the part of those who believe Pollard got his just desserts or deserved the death penalty. Typical of a troll and trouble maker. I hope she gets tossed.

[fuzzthatwuz]

Your list omitted two additional traitors: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg- United States.

[rabidralph]

What was Pollard doing in an alley? Bowling? “Entitled to.” Nice.

[KantianBurke]

“Pollard also confessed to passing a TS/SCI document to the Pakistani government in the hopes it would take him on as a spy. The Pakistanis rejected his offer. Pollard then became involved with numerous other foreign governments’ representatives in Washington in an attempt to be a middle-man weapons broker, selling for a profit their weapon systems to Afghanistan via South Africa. Pollard admitted he was “addicted to money” stating, “It consumed him.”

Pollard was never charged for these crimes.”

http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1162378442998&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

[Magnatron]

harmonium wrote: "Pollard was never indicted for treason. He was never accused of formal damage to the US. He acknowledged guilt, and was indicted for 1 count of passing classified info to an alley - which they were entitled to, according to a Memorandum of Understanding."

What he was convicted of - and what the totality of his actual actions were - are two completely different animals.

Just like Manning, there's a simple understanding when you are in the business of working with intelligence: You don't pass that intelligence to ANYONE who isn't cleared to receive that information through a structured process of approval. If you violate that, you go to prison.

Period.

[4Runner]

alley—an enclosed often empty space between two tall buildings

ally—a fellow traveler who actively supports another’s belief system and value structure. Can be said of an individual or a country. When a country is an ally it usually lends its own military and intelligence assets in support of the actions of the country with whom it has shared goals and interests.

[ml/nj]

Execute him and investigate his family.

You know, I used to feel this way too. But then I heard Pollard's father speak. Not intentionally either. My reaction was, "I can't believe I have to listen to an apologist for a spy." Pollard Sr. had a lot to say. He spoke about the support Father Hesburgh, then president of Notre Dame, was giving to the effort to gain Pollard's release. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

This was in 1988. There was no internet then for most of us. I had a dial-up subscription to Dow Jones News Retrieval then. As soon as I got home I started searching DJNR and everything I found confirmed what Pollard Sr. had been saying. There was no claim that Pollard was innocent. It was just that the nature of his crime was minor compared to other spies and that his punishment had been much more severe than these other spies. This was nearly 23 years ago; so now Pollard has had 23 years more punishment than when folks like Father Hesburgh were suggesting that he had already been punished enough. It's time to let him go.

ML/NJ

[ml/nj]

treason is still deserving of the death penalty

I notice that you keep using the word treason in reference, I assume, to the crime that Jonathan Pollard confessed to. I'm wondering: Do you have your own special definition of treason?

Here's what it says in the United States Constitution:

Article III, Section 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

Note especially the word only. Please let us know whether you think Polllard levied war against the United States; or if he adhered to one of our enemies; or gave aid and comfort to one of our enemies. Words mean things. Pollard was a spy. He did not commit treason.

ML/NJ

[RFEngineer]

“beginning to sound more and more like the thinly veiled hate that flooded the last thread on Pollard.”

There is also a not-so-thinly veiled aspect to your posts.

You like to beat people over the head with accusations of anti-semitism when they argue that a man convicted of treason should remain in jail.

You also thinly veil your accusations that pollard is somehow victimized with unfair treatment because he is Jewish.

They guy is exactly where he needs to be. There is no place for anti-semitism, nor is there any place for your game, which is to throw off thinly-veiled accusations of anti-semitism.

Stop it. There is no better place than America to be a Jew. Pollard is being punished for being a spy, not for being a Jew.

[rogue yam]

The fact that Pollard has such nasty supporters makes me all the more confident that he is where he belongs.

[Calvin Locke]

Cool Hand Luke didn’t get to go to his mother’s (iirc) funeral. And what was he in for, D&D? Malicious destruction of town property?

[Calvin Locke]

Do not forget that Pollard was supposed to be released into the general
prison population, but then-Sen. Hillary Clinton got him
transferred to the expensive sex offenders lockup, taking up
valuable space that might otherwise go to somebody that could
actually benefit from the therapies available at the facility.

[Calvin Locke]

Do not forget that Pollard was supposed to be released into the general
prison population, but then-Sen. Hillary Clinton got him
transferred to the expensive sex offenders lockup, taking up
valuable space that might otherwise go to somebody that could
actually benefit from the therapies available at the facility.

[Calvin Locke]

Do not forget that Pollard was supposed to be released into the general
prison population, but then-Sen. Hillary Clinton got him
transferred to the expensive sex offenders lockup, taking up
valuable space that might otherwise go to somebody that could
actually benefit from the therapies available at the facility.

[ansel12]

Amazing.

Execute all spies.

[ml/nj]

Amazing. Execute all spies.

You know, Pal, I'd be okay with that. But that isn't the law. I wonder: Does the law matter to you?

ML/NJ

[Eleutheria5]

“Espionage is espionage, no matter what the level. It is the MOST DESPICABLE crime that there is - betraying your country.”

You mean, if he were a serial killer or a pedophile, you might think kinder of him? What about a war criminal who faithfully followed orders to commit genocide, rape, ethnic cleansing? At least he was faithful to his country and didn’t spy. Careful with those absolutes.

[Never A Dull Moment]

“So much for “unsourced allegations” - lets see yours OTHER than the “Jonathan Pollard Cheerleaders” web site ...

Of course you do not like Pollard’s website- It focuses on the verified LEGAL documents, not the MSM skews that we all know to be BS.

So for those who want to know what really happened, and would like to see the actual court documents and the facts, Here are the links:

http://www.jonathanpollard.org/
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/court2000.htm
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2002/051502.htm
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/courtdate.htm
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/legal.htm
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/sentences.htm

......and one last thing,

Casper Weinberger was, and is still known to have a rabid hatred of Israel and Jews.
The comment below on Pollard’s behalf came from Casper Weinberger’s Assistant Secretary of Defense, Lawrence Korb, in a letter to Obama:

“Based on the knowledge that I have firsthand, I can confidently say that the punishment was so severe because of lack of sympathy for Israel by the U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time, my boss, Caspar Weinberger.”