Silence On Pollard

Thursday, 23 June 2011 11:44

It was painful to watch the days pass with silent inaction. The lack of words, however, spoke a great deal about the true feelings and the deep-seated sentiments that lie in the heart of President Barack Obama when it comes to Israel and perhaps the Jewish community. At the least, it is very troubling and quite distressing.

The president rarely misses an opportunity to speak about the American dedication to the rights of the individual anywhere in the world to live free and with dignity. He has expressed that concern about citizens of our country dealing with economic hardships to innocent Libyan citizens placed in harmâ€™s way by a despotic regime and Americaâ€™s obligation to act on their behalf. He is steadfast in his insistence that we as Americans and that he as our elected leader do the right things no matter how difficult, costly, or unpopular they may be.

If the president feels that Jonathan Pollard did not deserve compassionate leave to attend his fatherâ€™s funeral, then he should have been courageous enough to simply express his position on the matter. Why hide behind the silence? The deafening quiet is an affront to all of usâ€”that is, all decent and civilized human beings. Obama, however, time and again uses and manipulates systemsâ€”in this case the bureaucratic prison systemâ€”to promote what is overall rapidly becoming his increasingly unpopular agenda.

Barack Obama on Monday refused to allow Pollard to attend his fatherâ€™s funeral in Indiana for two reasons. One is that he didnâ€™t have to do it by law and the second is that he determined that politicallyâ€”for now anywayâ€”he could get away with it. The point is that humanity, compassion, or basic human decency did not enter into any of the considerations over the last few days.

And while there was a full-court press to get Pollard released for a day, the effort did not appear to be wholehearted. If it was, then it was a miserable failure. This is precisely where the debate lies. Could the organized American Jewish leadership have acted more forcefully or forthrightly? If so, would it have been worth the effort to achieve Mr. Pollardâ€™s exit from his imprisonment for a mere half day?

Major Jewish organizations with the image of influence and muscle issued a series of brief press releases at first urging the administration to allow Pollard to attend the funeral of his father, who died at the age of 95, and then when that request was met with a steely silence, issued an additional release announcing their disappointment at the presidentâ€™s decision to simply ignore the situation.

There is an angry sense that under any type of other similar situation the president would have acted, but that a special brand of justice (or injustice) is always available to be rendered when it comes to the Pollard case.

Many believed that would have shined a glimmer of light on the status of the case if the administration had acted to allow the man to attend his fatherâ€™s funeral. Perhaps it would have been a new and positive indication that someone in the higher-ups of the administration was thinking about Pollardâ€™s disposition and that it was an issue important enough to act upon. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the stillness that emanated from Washington, there is no choice but to conclude that this was indeed their clearly ennunciated response and that despite the pressure, the message is that they plan to let the Pollard case linger open-endedly without action.

We have hashed over and analyzed this horribly frustrating case way too many times in the past. There is really very little that is new to report. And there is no choice but to come to the realization that at this point, after all these years, this case is no longer just about a man that betrayed his position as a Navy intelligence officer and gave or sold American secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard exposed the most sensitive facet that defines the nature and essence of what it means for a person to be an American citizen loyal to his or her country, as well as an active and vociferous supporter of Israel.

Pollard in a sense tipped the carefully balanced scale and expressed to the world, or at least created the impression, that when push comes to shove we might act for Israel above what might be considered the best interests of the United States. And while this is most likely not the case for the overwhelming majority, Pollard, by his actions, floated the idea out there as a possibility that after all these years is still shrouded in maximum sensitivity and discomfort. Despite the fact that what he did took place more than a quarter century ago, the consequences of his actions still obviously reverberate today.

Whereas the bitterness or the intensity of some offenses seem to wane with the passage of time, there is something about the Pollard affair that keeps it as fresh and buoyant as if his crime of espionage was committed very recently. American Jews are patently uncomfortable, with many being unforgivingâ€”not so much about the crime Pollard committed, but about the position his actions placed American Jews in.

For many American Jews, the wound all these years later is all too fresh each time the name Pollard is raised, conjuring up a whole new set of emotions about the man and his actions.

The issue before us here and now is not whether there is an American-Jewish consensus about whether Pollard should be released and be allowed to go live in Israel as he desires. The issue here is about President Obama and his consistent reference in a whole plethora of situations about the need to do the right thingâ€”the American thingâ€”as a man with moral clarity and as the elected leader of the free world.

Where is the person, regardless how one feels about Pollard, who believes that 26 years in prison is not sufficient punishment for his crimes? In the history of this country there have been only two other spies convicted of espionage who were more severely punished than Pollardâ€”Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who were executed by the United States after being convicted of spying for the Soviet Union in the 1950s.

Letâ€™s consider the disposition of cases similar to Pollardâ€™s and the sentences meted out as a result. There was the case of Steven Morrison, who spied on the U.S. for England and was eventually sentenced to two years. He was released after two months. Even those who were convicted of spying for our enemies have served far less time than Pollard has already served. There were, for example, Joseph Santos, Carlos Alvarez, and Mariano Faget, who spied for communist Cuba and were sentenced to three-and-a-half to five years.

Brian Horton spied for the Soviet Union and received a six-year term. And what about Hasan Abu-Jihad, a Navy sailor who leaked classified information to terrorist sympathizers? He was sentenced to 10 years. The longest sentence of espionage in modern times was the one handed to Steven Lalas, who spied on the U.S. for Greece. He was sentenced to 14 years and has already been back home in Greece for the last four years.

It has to be concluded that for some reason the Pollard case is unlike any other to date. But rest assured that it does not help the tenuous situation to label anyone anti-Semitic. These types of assertions can only serve to set back the effort to eventually arrange for the president to release Mr. Pollard. Other recent cases of late where either the judges or the prosecution were accused of harboring tinges of anti-Semitism only worked against the ultimate fate of the defendants.

In the case of Sholom Rubashkin, the sentence received was two years greater than the prison sentence recommended by the prosecution. Also, more recently, in the case of Minnesotan Wendy Runge, she received a ten-year sentence on a fraud conviction of less than $2 million. The lesson learned the hard way is that it doesnâ€™t pay to infuriate the judgeâ€”whether or not the assertions are valid.

On the other hand, the matter has to be weighed before rallying the entire community to take a stand on Pollard and against Obama. Israel and the U.S. have so much at stake in the relationship between the two countries; the question needs to asked whether the cause of Pollard counterbalances all the other national issues at play.

For example, would it have been justified last year for Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to a further freeze in settlement building in exchange, in part, for Pollardâ€™s release? Or is it right for Pollard to be released simultaneously with archmurderer and terrorist Marwan Barghottuiâ€”alleged to be a future Palestinian leader?

Evidently, and as difficult as it is to write, there is a sense out there that the U.S.â€“Israel relationship cannot suffer or be sacrificed in order to adjudicate the Pollard situation. Former Prime Minister Yitzchak Shamir said many years ago on Pollard that Israel has to know when â€œitâ€™s time to cut a man loose.â€ He told an interviewer at the time that the military cemetery on Har Herzl is filled with young men and women who sacrificed dearly for Israel. The case is a heartbreaking one, as Pollard is very much alive. However, the former prime minister was saying that the Pollard case is not that much different from that of the young people who gave up their lives in the defense of Israel.

Many in the Knesset this week expressed surprise and even disdain for President Obamaâ€™s lack of compassion or action on the Pollard request to attend his fatherâ€™s funeral. MK Otinell Schneller of Kadima said that in his estimation the Americans have displayed this week â€œa cold-heartedness to the point of unfathomable wickedness.â€ In the meantime, to the extent that he is able to, Pollard is sitting shivah in the medium-security prison in Butner, North Carolina.

There is no minyan in Butner and for now. Israelâ€™s chief rabbi, Yona Metzger, said the other day that he would be reciting Kaddish this year for Morris Pollardâ€”that is until Jonathan is freed and able to fulfill that obligation himself.

Comments for Larry Gordon are welcome at editor@5tjt.com.