Love of the Land: Editorial: Taking Responsibility for Pollard

Editorial: Taking Responsibility for Pollard

Hamodia
IMRA
07 September 09

Israel's state comptroller, retired judge Micha Lindenstrauss, last week released a report on the country's handling of the Pollard affair. In a nutshell, the report exonerates Israel's political leadership and blames Jonathan Pollard's continued incarceration on the "fierce and consistent" opposition of U.S. administration and intelligence officials. It also recommends that Israel press the Americans to give Pollard a new trial.

The report is, to put it charitably, a huge disappointment.

For starters, it makes contradictory claims. On one hand it states categorically that since 1996, the governments of Binyamin Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert acted "continuously and consistently" to obtain the release of Pollard. "The Pollard issue challenged the prime ministers of Israel," it states. "Their actions were continual and consistent, and the issue was brought up in their meetings and conversations with U.S. presidents."

At the same time, Lindenstrauss admits that Netanyahu, Barak, Sharon and Olmert made sure that their discussions with U.S. presidents and senior administration officials on this sensitive issue were never documented. (He calls this failure a "significant transgression," because it makes it impossible to reassess past efforts to get Pollard freed and try to come up with a more successful approach.)

But if Lindenstrauss didn't have any transcripts of these meetings, how could he be so sure that these prime ministers acted "continuously and consistently" on Pollard's behalf?

Without going into all of the details of the Pollard case, the pertinent facts are as follows: Jonathan Pollard is an Israeli citizen (as of 1995); the government of Israel has recognized him as an Israeli agent (as of 1998); and he has spent the past 24 years in prison for providing Israel with information that saved many, many lives.

In this sense, Pollard is like any other Israeli prisoner, be it Ron Arad, the navigator downed over Lebanon in 1986, or Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier
kidnapped at the border with Gaza three years ago. But there's one crucial difference: While Arad and Shalit are being held in unknown locations by terror organizations, Pollard is in the hands of Israel's closest ally, the United States. And it is inconceivable that Israel leaders acted "continuously and consistently" and still came up empty-handed.

How can it be that 24 years have passed - with U.S. administrations that were Republican and Democrat; more friendly to Israel and less friendly; with prime ministers from Labor and the Likud - and that at no time was it
possible to close a deal that would send Pollard home?

If the efforts of Israeli prime ministers were truly continuous and consistent, if there was the proper sense of hakaras hatov to Pollard for what he did for Israel, then surely there were ample opportunities in the past 24 years - be it at the signing of Oslo or the disengagement or the end of the administration of former president George W. Bush - to gain the release on humanitarian grounds for a man who is sick and who has expressed remorse for his deeds? (The notable exception was then-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who truly tried to engineer a deal upon signing the Wye Plantation agreement on a Chevron withdrawal, only to be bitterly disappointed by Bill Clinton.).

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Love of the Land: Editorial: Taking Responsibility for Pollard

Love of the Land: Lawyer Lambasts Pollard Report

Lawyer Lambasts Pollard Report

JPost Staff
03 September 09

Jonathan Pollard's lawyer, attorney Nitzana Darshan-Leitner, strongly criticized Thursday's report by State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss on the case of the convicted spy. According to Darshan-Leitner, "The report is an additional cover-up of the failures of successive Israeli governments on the issue of Pollard's release."

"No government at any time has made any effort to release Pollard, throughout all the years of opportunity that he has been in prison - 24 years," said Pollard's attorney.

Darshan-Leitner asserted that the government has abandoned Pollard.

"Pollard, an Israeli agent, tried to use all legal means at his disposal with the US authorities, including numerous requests for a retrial, and he has no choice but to depend on the [Israeli] government to release him," said Darshan-Leitner.

"However," added Pollard's attorney, "the Israeli government still pretends that all of Pollard's activities took place in an operational framework that was directed by [former senior Mossad official and Pollard's handler] Rafi Eitan under special authority, and not by the upper echelons of the state, and leaves him to deal alone with the results of this failure."

The attorney demanded that Lindenstrauss's entire report be released to the public."The fact that the overwhelming majority of the report is otherwise confidential, means that it contains dark secrets surrounding the Pollard affair that the government does not want the public to know," she claimed.

"The Israeli public must demand that the report be released in its entirety, including its classified parts, in order that the public can decide if there was indeed an effort on the part of the Israeli government to release Pollard, or if all of the successive administrations have relegated Pollard to the dustbin."

The new report said the Pollard issue was not neglected by consecutive Israeli governments, but suggested the convicted spy had likely been denied due legal process during his trial in the United States. The report refutes complaints by Pollard's family and friends, who have accused the government of not doing enough to secure his release.

While most of the report issued by Lindenstrauss remains classified, an abstract of the report was released for publication on Thursday afternoon.

Pollard was convicted in a US court of spying for Israel and has been in jail since November 1985. An American citizen, Pollard received Israeli citizenship in 1995. From May 1998 he was acknowledged as an agent working for Israel.

During his work on the matter, Lindenstrauss met with Pollard's attorneys and with former ministers, prime ministers and other government officials who worked to try and secure his release. He also met with Pollard's father, Prof. Morris Pollard.

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Love of the Land: Lawyer Lambasts Pollard Report