A “relentless” campaign by David Nyer, a Jewish Orthodox activist from Monsey, New York, has succeeded in winning significant support from House Democrats who are now calling on President Obama to release Jonathan Pollard.
Pollard is a former civilian intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying for Israel and through a plea bargain received a life sentence in 1987. He is believed to have caused incalculable damage to US national security.
Nyer’s campaign “struck gold” when he succeeded in winning the support of Rep. Barney Frank. The JTA reported:
Getting Frank was a coup, one congressional insider said, not only because he has a leadership position, but because his pronounced liberalism in other arenas adds credibility to an effort that has been identified in recent years with the Israeli and pro-Israel right.
Frank took up the cause because he long has believed that Pollard’s life sentence was disproportionate to the crime, his spokesman said.
“It is something he feels strongly about,” Harry Gural told JTA.
Launching the initiative at a Capitol Hill news conference Nov. 18, Frank listed two factors that made the matter timely: Pollard’s 25 years in prison as of Sundayand the parlous state of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
“The justification of this is the humanitarian one and the notion that the American justice system should be a fair one,” Frank said. “We believe that clemency after 25 years for the offenses of Jonathan Pollard would do that.
“My own hope is that if the president would do this, it would contribute to the political climate within the democracy of Israel and would enhance the peace process.”
Frank alluded to Obama’s low popularity in Israel where, fairly or not, the president has been saddled with a reputation as cool to Israeli interests.
The Jerusalem Post reports that Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the US to add Pollard’s release to the many other generous incentives the Obama administration have offered Israel in the hope of a 90 day, once only, extension to the settlement slowdown.
In “Why Pollard Should Never Be Released (The Traitor),” published in the New Yorker in January 1999, Seymour Hersh wrote:
A full accounting of the materials provided by Pollard to the Israelis has been impossible to obtain: Pollard himself has estimated that the documents would create a stack six feet wide, six feet long, and ten feet high. Rafi Eitan, the Israeli who controlled the operation, and two colleagues of his attached to the Israeli diplomatic delegation — Irit Erb and Joseph Yagur — were named as unindicted co-conspirators by the Justice Department. In the summer of 1984, Eitan brought in Colonel Aviem Sella, an Air Force hero, who led Israel’s dramatic and successful 1981 bombing raid on the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak. (Sella was eventually indicted, in absentia, on three counts of espionage.) Eitan’s decision to order Sella into the case is considered by many Americans to have been a brilliant stroke: the Israeli war hero was met with starry eyes by Pollard, a chronic wannabe.
Yagur, Erb, and Sella were in Washington when Pollard was first seized by the F.B.I., in November, 1985, but they quickly left the country, never to return. During one period, Pollard had been handing over documents to them almost weekly, and they had been forced to rent an apartment in northwest Washington, where they installed a high-speed photocopying machine. “Safe houses and special Xeroxes?” an American career intelligence officer said, despairingly, concerning the Pollard operation. “This was not the first guy they’d recruited.” In the years following Pollard’s arrest and confession, the Israeli government chose not to cooperate fully with the F.B.I. and Justice Department investigation, and only a token number of the Pollard documents have been returned. It was not until last May [1998] that the Israeli government even acknowledged that Pollard had been its operative.
In fact, it is widely believed that Pollard was not the only one in the American government spying for Israel. During his year and a half of spying, his Israeli handlers requested specific documents, which were identified only by top-secret control numbers. After much internal assessment, the government’s intelligence experts concluded that it was “highly unlikely,” in the words of a Justice Department official, that any of the other American spies of the era would have had access to the specific control numbers. “There is only one conclusion,” the expert told me. The Israelis “got the numbers from somebody else in the U.S. government.”
Richard Perle? He was Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration at that time and early in his career had been caught by the FBI passing classified information to the Israeli embassy in Washington.
Pollard’s American interrogators eventually concluded that in his year and a half of spying he had provided the Israelis with more than a year’s worth of the daily FOSIF reports from Rota [in Spain, the location of the Navy’s Sixth Fleet Ocean Surveillance Information Facility (FOSIF)]. Pollard himself told the Americans that at one point in 1985 the Israelis had nagged him when he missed several days of work because of illness and had failed to deliver the FOSIF reports for those days. One of his handlers, Joseph Yagur, had complained twice about the missed messages and had asked him to find a way to retrieve them. Pollard told his American interrogators that he had never missed again.
The career intelligence officer who helped to assess the Pollard damage has come to view Pollard as a serial spy, the Ted Bundy of the intelligence world. “Pollard gave them every message for a whole year,” the officer told me recently, referring to the Israelis. “They could analyze it” — the intelligence — “message by message, and correlate it. They could not only piece together our sources and methods but also learn how we think, and how we approach a problem. All of a sudden, there is no mystery. These are the things we can’t change. You got this, and you got us by the balls.” In other words, the Rota reports, when carefully studied, gave the Israelis “a road map on how to circumvent” the various American collection methods and shield an ongoing military operation. The reports provide guidance on “how to keep us asleep, thinking all is working well,” he added. “They tell the Israelis how to raid Tunisia without tipping off American intelligence in advance. That is damage that is persistent and severe.”
See, that’s why the Tea Party exists: because democrats are such whores rejecting the mass majoirty of the very loyal American Jews who are ashamed of Pollard for the Jew Zionist moneybags. I wonder, if the binLaden family offered the Dems $25 million to give Osama a pardon and let him run on the Democrat ticket for mayor of NYC would they do it?
America is for sale to anyone but real Americans!
corrected
See, that’s why the Tea Party exists: because democrats are such whores rejecting the mass majoirty of the very loyal American Jews who are ashamed of Pollard for the few Zionist moneybags. I wonder, if the binLaden family offered the Dems $25 million to give Osama a pardon and let him run on the Democrat ticket for mayor of NYC would they do it?
Hold on to your hats people. “O” & Ms Clinton will probably throw Pollard into the pot if the Israelis freeze the settlements for 90 days, just so “O” can say we tried.
This guy is responsible for the deaths of many people. He also assured that the 5 TRILLION spent by the US for development of National Secrets relating to defense…..was totally wasted money. Let Israel reimburse the 5 TRILLION and raise the people from the dead that he caused to be killed…THEN talk about a pardon. He deserves what the Rosenburgs got. He is a traitor….this is what happens when you have people in a nation, whose FIRST ALLEGIANCE is to another nation….that he does not live in. Mark my words…after he gets pardoned(and he will) ..he will be made a HERO in Israel..probably get a shrine built for him.
Dear Sirs: Jonathan Pollard was a US citizen and traitor, if he is ever released alive under any circumstances… thank you for noting Mr. Frank’s act of treason, perhaps he can join Mr. Pollard in the near future. Best, WM.
Fry the traitor.
Pollard ought to have been sent to the gallows years ago.
The Rosenburgs got fried for less.
They will probably release the traitor. If so, anyone who is involved in his release is also a traitor to the US. Pollard should have been given the usual for such a heinous crime against our country, the death sentence.
The Israeli handler never served one day in jail but he committed a crime. Any discussion of J. Pollard release should be made with the discussion of the 25 years that the handler should get. The Israeli have stated that 25 years is enough. Lets take them at their word and demand the turn over of the disgusting individual who came as a friend of the USA but used that friendship to steal our secrets. I would love to hear the chosen explain who that is anti semitic. It is called justice. J. Pollard accept a life in jail to allow the handler roam free in Israel. If J. Pollard changes the rule then the handler who was a criminal. I am sure our elected traitors will make a different cry of a criminal of that religion is always a friend.
Jonathan Pollard is irrelevant. Let him go; fry him; doesn’t matter. Why? He is a distraction, a red herring, a scapegoat, whatever you want to call him. Huh? Whaddaya mean?
Pollard was the worst incompetent spy in history. He was rude, obnoxious, and disruptive at work. His boss was desperate to fire him. One of the few ways to fire a federal worker is for abuse of classified information. His boss decided to try and the rest is history. If Pollard had half a brain he would still be spying today. He was a walk-on, not recruited by professionals. He was so bad the Israelis did not even try to save him. They threw him to the wolves so they could say “See, you caught him; he’s the only one.”
Apparently, some of us are stupid enough to believe it. A good spy does his job and is polite to everyone and above all, does not stand out. Pollard is FAR from the only one spying for Israel. We must assume Israel has access to EVERYTHING they want from us. What to do? A witch hunt? No. Follow Ron Paul’s advice and quit being the world’s police force. Stop manipulating other countries. Get our forces out of Europe, Japan, and Korea, not to mention Afghanistan and Iraq. Stay out of Pakistan and don’t start a war with Iran and North Korea. Stop spending so much on defense from a Soviet Union that no longer exists. Let Israel steal fighter planes from some other country. Concentrate on DEFENSIVE weapons, ones that shoot down 30 million dollar planes or 4 million dollar tanks with missiles costing as much as a house or maybe even a car!
I’m totally for Dual Citizenship, as long as the dual citizen lives outside the United States, pays US Taxes and can visit for two weeks once every 10 years.
If an elected offical like Rep Beloney Frank is successfully in getting this mass murder and zionist spy clemency then he immediately qualifies for dual citizenship. Beloney can exercite his congressional voting privilege during that 2 week visitation period each 10 years.
It is not enough to fry Pollard.
Any American politician who calls for his release should be immediately arrested for treason.
don’t know if this matters at all, but i noticed and then learnt one thing for sure, it’s that we all are – the one humanity. observation is the key, it would give any of us, who is interested in wasting his life in exchange to something worth it, the edge and the peace. the worst, the poorest, and the most brilliant or the rich will end up facing the last ”cashier”. (i’m not at ‘ll ‘o religious maaaan); just busy preparing :~)
Right on! Well said, right to the point. Thanks:
randy November 23, 2010 at 10:14 pm
This guy is responsible for the deaths of many people. He also assured that the 5 TRILLION spent by the US for development of National Secrets relating to defense…..was totally wasted money. Let Israel reimburse the 5 TRILLION and raise the people from the dead that he caused to be killed…THEN talk about a pardon. He deserves what the Rosenburgs got. He is a traitor….this is what happens when you have people in a nation, whose FIRST ALLEGIANCE is to another nation….that he does not live in. Mark my words…after he gets pardoned(and he will) ..he will be made a HERO in Israel..probably get a shrine built for him.
Can we look forward to the House Dems etc pushing for the release of Mordechai Vanunu, whose persecution by the Israelis State has been sadistic ? It easily appears to the ordinary outside observer that you Yanks are entirely in thrall to the Zionists. Too many appear to be putting Israel’s perceived interests before their own country’s.