That’s why Netanyahu is going to DEMAND the release of Pollard, this time - or Israel will do nothing the USA wants on the Palestinian issue.
It’s going to be absolutely quid pro quo this time around. That’s because this wasn’t another Israeli government that Netanyahu simply “heard about” getting stiffed - it was Netanyahu, himself. He’s not forgetting that - this time around.
Netanyahu ‘to demand release of spy in return for peace talks concessions’
The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will link the release of former US naval intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, convicted of spying against the US for Israel, to progress in the US-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.
The reports said Netanyahu would either demand Pollard’s release when Israel signed a framework agreement, or as part of a prisoner exchange involving Arab citizens of Israel held for terrorist offences, who have always been excluded from previous agreements.
Netanyahu’s office declined to confirm or deny the story, which was reported by most of Israel’s most well-informed diplomatic correspondents – a favoured method of leaking sensitive information.
Netanyahu appeared to be responding to mounting pressure following revelations that Britain’s GCHQ and America’s National Security Agency had targeted then Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, his defence minister, Ehud Barak, and Barak’s chief of staff.
Pollard was imprisoned in 1987 and has served longer than any other spy captured in the US. Repeated Israeli requests for his release have been ignored, although they have lately been joined by top US officials responsible for his prosecution, including Lawrence Kolb, deputy to then US defence secretary Caspar Weinberger.
“We ask that you seriously consider the requests that there have been from top current and former American officials and release Pollard on humanitarian grounds,” said a letter to The US president, Barack Obama, signed by more than 100 Israeli MPs and ministers ahead of a special session in the Knesset on Wednesday.
“It’s a matter of justice,” said the deputy defence minister, Danny Danon. “The Americans can’t come to us asking for more and more while Pollard remains in prison.”
Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier released in a prisoner swap in 2011 after being held for five years by Hamas, added his moral weight to the campaign and called on “our American friends” to release him.
“After Israel released terrorists with blood on their hands as a gesture to the Palestinians – this is an appropriate reciprocal gesture,” Shalit wrote in a national newspaper column.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/24/israel-demand-release-spy-jonathan-pollard-peace-talks
That’s why Netanyahu is going to DEMAND the release of Pollard,