Gilad Shalit Joins Calls to Release Jonathan Pollard

Virtual Jerusalem ^ | 12/24/2013

[Former Fetus]

Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier who was kidnapped by Hamas and imprisoned for 5 years, called on the US to release Jonathan Pollard on Tuesday.

"I heard the request tonight, like everyone else, from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to release Jonathan Pollard, who has sat for 29 years in prison," Shalit wrote to Yediot Aharonot. "After Israel has released terrorist prisoners back to the Palestinian Authority as a gesture [for negotiations], we ask for a mutual gesture."

"I am sure that like me, the entire nation of Israel agrees that to demand such a simple gesture as Pollard's release is well-deserved," Shalit continued.

"Please - all of you - join me in a clear call to our friends the Americans: We released dozens of terrorists with blood on their hands at your request - so extend to us this one gesture that can likely save [Pollard's] life," he urged.

Shalit's statement touches a less-explored side of the Pollard issue, which has made headlines this week after documents revealed that the US and Britain have been spying on top-ranking Israeli officials.

>>SNIP<<

Shalit's point addresses the fact that Israel has been generous about releasing convicted terrorists back to the PA to appease the US, who is brokering peace talks between the PA and Israel. Pollard, by contrast, presents little security risk to the US.

[Former Fetus]

Enough is enough! How can anybody compare passing on classified information with actually murdering people? Yet the US keeps on demanding that Israel release convicted murderers. Shalit is right, releasing Pollard would be a gesture of friendship towards Israel.

[darkwing104]

The only way Pollard is going to be released if Obama needs to hide a really big scandal

[Natufian]

Traitors should leave their jails in a pine box.

[C210N]

0’ is more interested in releasing the Blind Sheik... and would have, had not a few Navy Seals got in the way. May they and the others rest in peace.

[Corporate Democrat]

Obama’s administration is wrong to pressure Israel to release terrorists, but it doesn’t mean that it’s suddenly okay now to release Pollard.

Pollard committed treason again the United States of America, and got the sentence he deserved.

[TurkeyLurkey]

IMO the Israelis have made a big fat mistake in releasing those murderers; they should have executed them. I don’t agree that Pollard should be released. If he were released, it sure wouldn’t be because of friendship with Israel.

[FredZarguna]

The argument is silly.

Neither should have been released, and two wrongs don't make a right.

The correct conversation is: "you wouldn't release Pollard for treason against the United States for just reasons, and for the same reasons we won't release people engaged in terrorism against us."

[Zenjitsuman]

Your a ignorant fool. The USA and Israel as allies had a memorandum stating that Intel that we found out that would jeopardize the security of Israel would be shared with Jerusalem.

Iraqi nuclear and biological weapons were a threat we knew about but were not sharing. Pollard merely handed over to Israel info we held back in violation of a written agreement.

Far less worse than what Snowden is getting praise for.

Pollard is in jail for not wanting Israel to be endangered
by the same strain of Crazies that today run Irans effort to exterminate the people of Israel.

We ordered Israel to release convicted murderers of civilians, Pollard never killed anyone, he never gave away secrets to our enemies, only what should have been given to one of our best allies.

Israel destroyed the Iraqi nuke plant enriching uranium to product WMD. What would the world have been like with Saddam Hussein having nukes, for starters no Israel.

Two wrongs don’t make it right, but, the USA was obligated to give this existential threat intel over to Israel and the violation of the agreement was also wrong.

[ozzymandus]

He should have been executed, like all traitors. Giving Israel billions of dollars every year is enough of a “gesture of friendship”.

[Corporate Democrat]

You know that Ronald Reagan was the President during the entire time Pollard was engaged in espionage activities, right? Hardly the ‘same strain of crazies that today run Irans effort to exterminate the people of Israel’.

And don’t be so quick to blame the USA for the treason committed by an Israeli agent.

[marron]

Pollard is just a small-time traitor. He never sat in the White House and he doesn’t have half a billion dollars in the bank.

[Dr. Sivana]

Your a ignorant fool. The USA and Israel as allies had a memorandum stating that Intel that we found out that would jeopardize the security of Israel would be shared with Jerusalem.

The Pollard case is a bit more complicated than that:

High-level suspicions about Israeli-Soviet collusion were expressed as early as December, 1985, a month after Pollard's arrest, when William J. Casey, the late C.I.A. director, who was known for his close ties to the Israeli leadership, stunned one of his station chiefs by suddenly complaining about the Israelis breaking the "ground rules." The issue arose when Casey urged increased monitoring of the Israelis during an otherwise routine visit, I was told by the station chief, who is now retired. "He asked if I knew anything about the Pollard case," the station chief recalled, and he said that Casey had added, "For your information, the Israelis used Pollard to obtain our attack plan against the U.S.S.R. all of it. The coordinates, the firing locations, the sequences. And for guess who? The Soviets." Casey had then explained that the Israelis had traded the Pollard data for Soviet emigres. "How's that for cheating?" he had asked.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/576453/posts

[Pining_4_TX]

Absolutely! I don’t get why anyone would think Pollard should be released. He sold our secrets to our enemies and caused the deaths of people who were our allies.

I don’t give a rat’s whisker what Israel or anyone else says about it. They just want him back so he can’t talk.

[Natufian]

Ok traitor lover. Any US citizen that sells (that would be cash money) information to a foreign power should die in the act or die in prison. I can’t be much clearer. You can take your relativism and your preference for foriegn states over the US and shove it.

[SeminoleCounty]

Wonder how many who want Pollard locked up support Free Trade with Communist China?

Talk about aiding the enemy...

At least Pollard hadn’t cost us trillions of dollars like the Communist Chinese supporters have

[Alberta's Child]

Baloney. The NCIS investigation into Pollard's dealings indicated that he was attempting to sell information to countries as disconnected from Israel's interests as South Africa and Pakistan.

Secondly, Pollard wasn't even an Israeli citizen at the time he was arrested, tried and convicted of espionage. He was born in Texas, raised in Indiana, and educated at Stanford University. He didn't even apply for Israeli citizenship until 1995, which was almost a decade after his guilty plea in his espionage case.

Israel spent years denying that Pollard was even working for him, until they finally admitted in 1998 that he was an Israeli spy.

Having this former prisoner from the Israeli army calling for Pollard's release makes about as much sense as having some dude from Nigeria bestow Nigerian citizenship on Lee Harvey Oswald retroactively and then launching a campaign to clear his name.