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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Terror in the U.S. and the Jonathan Pollard case
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By Larry Dub
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com
In a bitterly ironic way, the devastating terrorist assaults on New York and
Washington which recently claimed thousands of innocent American lives bring
to mind the desperate and futile attempts of Jonathan Pollard to save America
and Israel from just such a catastrophe.
In the early 1980s, Jonathan Pollard was a civilian analyst in an
anti-terrorist unit of the U.S. Navy. He was responsible for identifying
state sponsors of terrorism in the Middle East, analyzing information on
terrorist activities and briefing American officials on the probability of
terrorist strikes, both at home and abroad.
Pollard's unceasing message in these briefings and in the reports he
submitted was if America did not combat terrorism abroad, the battle would
eventually be brought home to be fought on American soil. Much to Pollard's
dismay, as long as his reports were only about murdered Jews and Israeli
targets, his exhortations were met with indifference. His warnings and his
recommendations – which if implemented threatened to disturb America's
relations with her so called "moderate" Arab allies – were largely ignored.
For example, Jonathan Pollard was deeply troubled that the U.S. government
did not seem to appreciate the threat to American interests posed by Saddam
Hussein. He repeatedly warned American officials of the dangerous game the
U.S. was playing – both in arming Iraq and providing it with sensitive
intelligence. He also tried desperately to hold the U.S. to its commitment to
warn Israel of "the Butcher of Baghdad's" lethal plans for the Jewish State.
In his efforts to get this information legally released to Israel, Pollard
appealed all the way up the chain of command in the Pentagon. To no avail. In
desperation, Pollard finally gave the information to Israel himself.
Essentially, Jonathan Pollard warned Israel that Saddam Hussein was planning
to scorch the Jewish State with weapons of mass destruction. What is perhaps
most shocking of all, though, is the fact that this vital information was
being purposely withheld from Israel by the U.S., Israel's closest ally.
While the exact reason for this betrayal will probably never be known, at
least two high-ranking members of the American National Security
establishment at the time – Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Deputy
CIA Director Admiral Bobby Ray Inman – were well aware of Iraq's genocidal
intentions toward Israel, and chose to blindside the Jewish state. Their
motive, it seems, was to curry favor with the Egyptians and the Saudis who
viewed Saddam's covert strategic arsenal as a means to finally destroy
Israel.
Nevertheless, thanks to Jonathan Pollard, Israel was ready with gas masks and
sealed rooms when Iraq attacked her during the Gulf War.
In warning Israel, Jonathan broke the law. He deserved to be punished. But
the punishment has to fit the crime. The usual sentence for spying for an
ally is 2-4 years. Jonathan is about to complete his 16th year of a life
sentence, with virtually no possibility of parole.
Jonathan Pollard did not spy against the United States. He was never indicted
for intent to harm the United States, nor for treason, though he has been
falsely accused of both. He received his life sentence without benefit of
trial, as the result of a plea bargain which Jonathan honored and the U.S.
violated.
Jonathan received a sentence far harsher than most of those who spied for an
enemy nation. Twentieth-century spies Michael Walker, Clayton Lonetree and
Richard Miller, who spied for the Soviet Union and did inestimable damage to
American national security, are all free men today. Only Jonathan Pollard, a
Jew who spied for the Jewish State, remains in prison with no end in sight.
Additionally, the case of Michael Schwartz highlights the disparity in
sentencing between Jew and non-Jew and between Israel and other U.S. allies.
Schwartz, a non-Jew who spied for Saudi Arabia, was arrested, confessed and
indicted. But before he ever stood trial, a quick deal was worked out in
order to appease America's Saudi ally. His punishment? Loss of his Navy job,
rank and pension. Whereas Jonathan Pollard got life for his activities on
behalf of a U.S. ally, Schwartz did not get a single day in prison.
An article ("Crime and Punishment," LA Jewish Journal – 04/03/98) by J.J.
Goldberg, Editor of The Forward (N.Y.), cites high-level Washington sources
indicating that the Joint Chiefs of Staff acted through Caspar Weinberger to
secure a life sentence for Jonathan Pollard that has nothing to do with
Jonathan's guilt or innocence and everything to do with sending an
intimidating message to Israel and to the American Jewish community:
"High-ranking sources say that it was the Joint Chiefs of Staff who urged the
judge, through then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, to ignore the plea
agreement and throw the book at Pollard. … They wanted to send a message. ...
Pollard is still in jail, these sources say, not because his crime merits his
lengthy sentence – it doesn't – but because too many American Jews still
haven't gotten the message."
Perhaps this explains why both the American justice system and the clemency
process have been repeatedly subverted in the Pollard case and why, in spite
of the patently false accusations against him, Jonathan Pollard remains in
prison nearly 16 years later.
Granted, there is resistance to releasing Jonathan Pollard from numerous
officials and institutions in Washington which have gone to great lengths
over the years to exaggerate and fabricate the damage Pollard allegedly did
to U.S. national security. The record, however, has never supported these
unsubstantiated claims.
Congressman Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., recently wrote a letter to President Bush
in which he stated: "The facts of the case show that none of the information
provided by Mr. Pollard resulted in the loss of lives or the utility of any
agents, the need to replace or relocate intelligence equipment, the loss of
sources of information, or the compromising of technology. And while
sentences in espionage cases are traditionally proportional to the damage
caused, Mr. Pollard's sentence is in gross violation of this principle.
Having reviewed many of the documents in the case myself and received
numerous briefings on the subject, I believe that if anyone were to conduct
an original review of Mr. Pollard's case, they would come to the same
conclusion that I have: Mr. Pollard's sentence does not fit his crime."
Indeed, the Government's own Victim Impact Statement (VIS), which was
submitted to the court prior to sentencing indicated that Pollard's greatest
"sin" was that by giving Israel vital security information which permitted
the Jewish state to act in its own defense, he had made Israel "too strong"
and thus angered America's "moderate" Arab allies.
The assertion that Pollard had disturbed the balance of power in the Middle
East by making Israel "too strong" is absurd. As pointed out by David
Zwiebel, Esq., in his 1997 critique of the VIS:
For decades, Washington has sought to assure Israel of a qualitative military
and strategic advantage vis-Ã -vis its Arab neighbors; Pollard's actions were,
if anything, consistent with this goal.
Moreover, events of subsequent years (and especially the Gulf War) have shown
America's enormous credibility with its allies in the Arab world; Pollard's
actions had no discernible impact here.
Finally, intelligence-sharing between the United States and Israel has
actually been strengthened in the past decade, culminating in a historic
strategic cooperation agreement between the two states in 1996; Israel now
receives real-time data throughout the day from U.S. intelligence satellites.
If Pollard's actions indeed "adversely affected U.S. relations with both its
Middle East Arab allies and the Government of Israel," as claimed in the VIS,
it seems fair over a decade later to say that such adverse impact was of
short duration.
Nevertheless, in response to the "moderate" Arab allies' complaints that
Pollard had made Israel "too strong," the entire American judicial process
was subverted. This judicial subversion resulted in an unprecedented life
sentence for Jonathan Pollard, which was intended not only to send a severe
warning to Israel, but more importantly, to placate America's oil-rich Arab
allies.
In spite of the passage of time which has exposed government allegations
against Jonathan Pollard as either gross exaggerations or outright lies, and
in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, America continues to punish
Jonathan Pollard as if he had committed a far more serious crime and as if
Israel were an enemy state. Meanwhile America continues to indulge her
"moderate" Arab allies as if she were unaware of their connection to and
tolerance of terrorism.
As of September 11, 2001, the above situation is no longer tolerable.
America's sufferance of Arab "allies" who tolerate terrorism and give it safe
haven must cease immediately; and the grossly disproportionate sentence meted
out to Pollard to placate these so-called allies must be immediately
resolved.
What can be done to bring resolution to the Pollard case which has for 16
years remained impervious to due process and truth? In 1998, a political
solution was sought and found – but never implemented. That solution remains
viable to this day.
Most Americans and Israelis know that on the heels of the Pollard crisis at
the Wye River Summit in 1998, former President Clinton promised former Prime
Minister Netanyahu that he would review the Pollard issue. What very few
people know is that both prior to the Wye summit and then, again, as an
integral part of the Wye accords, President Clinton had, in fact, committed
the United States to freeing Jonathan Pollard. The U.S. commitment still
stands to this day, waiting to be honored. Israel has fulfilled its part of
the deal. The U.S. must live up to its end of the agreement.
In order to understand why America still owes Jonathan Pollard to Israel, it
is necessary to understand the sequence of events before, during and after
the Wye River Summit. According to a variety of eyewitness participants,
including Mr. Netanyahu himself, this is what happened:
In September 1998, just before the mid-term congressional elections,
President Clinton (who at the time was facing impeachment hearings and in
need of a foreign policy PR victory) asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to attend a three-way summit with the Palestinians at Wye River,
Maryland. Clinton knew that a successful summit at Wye just before the
Congressional elections would be good not only for his image, but would also
reap political benefits for the Democrats in their bid to regain control of
Congress. As an inducement to Netanyahu, Clinton promised to release Jonathan
Pollard within the context of the summit.
Understanding the value of Jonathan Pollard for his own re-election bid, and
needing him as a sweetener to sell any kind of "peace" deal to the Israeli
people, Netanyahu ignored the entreaties of Republican friends like Newt
Gingrich, who implored him not to hand a PR victory to the Democrats, and
agreed to attend the summit.
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