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Over at Commentary’s Contentions blog, a usually insightful place, we have this nonsense: Alana Goodman believes that President Obama has no incentive for pardoning Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard because of his left-wing base. Jennifer Rubin, the new Right Turn columnist for the Washington Post, also notes the efforts on Pollard’s behalf and seems to approve them. She too sees nothing in it for President Obama. I am normally never very far from Jennifer Rubin’s views but both she and Ms. Goodman are wrong. The President has every incentive to release Pollard, but he should not do so.
First, a little back ground. Jonathan Pollard wormed his way into American naval intelligence and then provided classified information to the Israelis as one of their paid agents. He accepted money for his spying. He was caught in 1987 and he and his wife were going to be tried for their crimes. Instead they accepted a plea agreement. His wife received five years and was released early for health and other reasons. The prosecution was incensed by an interview Pollard gave presentencing to the media and violated, in my opinion, the spirit if not the letter of that agreement. But it can also be argued Pollard breached in his disclosures while awaiting sentencing. The Court did not accept the prosecutor’s plea agreement and sentenced Pollard to life in prison. One of the reasons for doing so was that Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger entered evidence against him.
It appears from news reports that Pollard never sought parole. In fact, he has behaved oddly and erratically for years. This article in fact lays out the story very well. I have no idea why Pollard’s lawyer did not file an appeal. Because it was a pre-sentencing guideline case, Pollard can apply for parole, but instead he is seeking a pardon. Prime Minister Netanyahu has asked for his release.
President Obama can commute Pollard’s sentence at no cost to himself. He would not have to pardon Pollard but merely commute the sentence to the time already served. Pollard would immediately leave the country for Israel and not be heard from again. Any knowledge of American secrets he has are well over twenty years old. President Obama could do this during the election year not only to garnish some support in specific areas but also in exchange for some visible concession from the Netanyahu government. He could show leniency to a discrete constituency, and also show concessions from Israel to please another portion of his base. He would lose support only among national security sticklers and those folks are not going to be voting Obama in 2012.
He should not do so, in any case. Jonathan Pollard spied for a foreign power. That it is an ally makes no difference. Many used this defense in supplying the Soviets with secret information during World War II. It is not the spy’s decision who to tell secrets to, but the government. He was sentenced by a respected judge who had all the evidence before him. Pollard has made clear his true allegiance is to Israel. A greater propaganda gift to the Arab world and the enemies of both this country and Israel than Jonathan Pollard can not be imagined. American Jews subject to “dual loyalty” jibes have in Pollard a pure example for the “anti-Zionist” crowd. Lenient treatment would immediately be used to show a double standard with many Arab spies and malefactors. Do we want new requests of pardon for those who performed crimes for the Palestinian cause?
At bottom only the harshest penalties, carried out to the letter, deter and punish the crime of an American intelligence officer turning his coat. America, in the age of Wikileaks, can not send a message of leniency. America would weaken any in terroram effect its laws now have. It is also the case that neither Israel, nor American Jews would be served by such an early and unjustified release. Pollard made his choices. He should not be freed from the consequences of those choices. Such special treatment would at a stroke dismay the intelligence community, anger and provide ammunition to Arab and Moslem enemies of this country, inflame anti-Israelis in this country and weaken Americans in the eyes of all potential spies.
I think Ms. Goodman is wrong that Obama will not pardon Pollard, and that Ms. Rubin’s hope is justified, but I hope the former turns out to be right.
“At bottom only the harshest penalties, carried out to the letter, deter and punish the crime of an American intelligence officer turning his coat.”
and yet, IOKIFYR … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates
I… agree with John Vecchione. I feel so unclean. The Sirhan Sirhan comparison was even *shudder* apt. APT!
One nitpick, though: “Moslems”? Rather quaint of you. Why not go the whole hog… I mean, gefilte fish… and call them “Mohammedans”? It was good enough for Jefferson. Why must you spit on the graves of our beloved founders? Un-American, that’s what it is.
Whenever the most ardently Pro Israel blogger out there agrees with you, you must have a point. Here is Marty Peretz of The New Republic:
In the first instance and despite the brazen insinuations of his supporters, Jonathan Pollard is not a Jewish martyr. He is a convicted espionage agent who spied on his country for both Israel and Pakistan (!)—a spy, moreover, who got paid for his work. His professional career, then, reeks of infamy and is suffused with depravity. It is true that Pollard has achieved the status of hero for some in Israel. But you should know exactly who these people are: They are professional victims, mostly brutal themselves, who originate in the ultra-nationalist and religious right. They are insatiable. And they want America to be Israel’s patsy.
They are also not democrats in any sense of the word, and their call for “justice” in this case is probably the only instance in which they have been moved by a sense of mercy for pretty much anyone.
If you release Pollard, you would be encouraging the kind of ideological blackmail that has paralyzed Israeli politics not just in the ongoing diplomatic torpor (in which I believe, as you well know, that it is not Jerusalem at fault) but through the general assault on civil liberties and freedoms that make the Jewish state so distinctive in the Middle East. I know, Mr. President, that you are not responsible for the health of Israel’s democracy. But you will find that bending to this demand for ransom will only encourage the extortionists in Israel to attempt to hijack grand politics in an ever grander manner.
The tacticians on the Israeli far-right argue (dishonestly in my view) that, if you give Pollard to Prime Minister Netanyahu, Bibi will be less constrained and constricted in his diplomacy. Some journalists and commentators have bought this stratagem. (I am surprised to read that also Barney Frank is in this camp.) This is a fundamental and, for some, a deliberate misreading of the dynamics of Israeli statecraft. One hand does not wash the other in Jerusalem, at least not for more than a day or two.
Actually, I was relieved to read that your press counselor had said that Pollard was not on your mind. But, Mr. President, I understand that it might just be easier to let the culprit go. That’s one way to stop the incessant special pleading.
My imagination turns a bit lurid. You release Pollard. He flies to Israel on El Al. He is greeted by thousands and thousands of triumphant hustlers in the streets of Jerusalem. They have pulled one over on you. Over America, too. And over American Jews, especially. They are dancing the hora, of course, ecstatic.
There’s an article in Friday’s Jerusalem Post about a relatively new book, Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us by my Harvard colleague Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell. (Putnam is also the author of the highly provocative Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community.) Grace has good news in it for the Jews of the United States. They are very much respected by their fellow Americans … and also much liked. Or, as Putnam told the Post, “the most popular religion in America are Jews” The author does not believe that this is a fragile standing.
The Post reports:
Putnam offers a piece of anecdotal evidence to illustrate just how positively Jews are allegedly viewed in the U.S. at the moment. According to the processor, people signing up for dating websites who say they are Jewish are more sought after than others.
“If you say you are Jewish, you get more date offers than less,” he said.
I haven’t read the new book. So I don’t know how Israel fits into the equation. My estimate, however, is that Israel’s place in the American mind is quite secure. No, it is not persuaded by the tremblings of some liberal Jewish (and a few non-Jewish) journalists who seem to believe—as perhaps you do, too, Mr. President—that the arc of the future will be drawn in the world of Islam.
So American solidarity with Israel is quite firm. But it is reckless to tempt the goddesses. Pollard is the single repellent figure in this history. It would be a disservice to both Zion and what our forefathers called the “new American Zion” to appear to cleanse this viper. Make no mistake about this: Your clemency for Pollard will be widely seen as a cleansing.
Ironically, tragically, the struggle for Pollard’s freedom has all but displaced and replaced the struggle for Gilad Shalit’s freedom. Innocent of any crime, without even a visit from the Red Cross after four and half years in Hamas captivity, Shalit seems to have been all but forgotten by his countrymen, except the hardy few manning a tent outside the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem.
One of my anxieties is that President Obama might in the end make the calculation that he could win some credits with Israel’s zealots if he let Pollard go. Myself, I do not think he would even do that. My fear is that he might read the situation in exactly that way. And squeeze Israel on its real security interests which are to guarantee a peace with the Palestinians who do not really want peace.
Now one point myself. I remember Israel released a Palestinian prisoner convicted of killing an Israeli family, including a 4 year old girl, bashing her head in, for political reasons. The Palestinian was a young man when he committed the horrific crime so I could have understood some leniency if the Palestinian had showed the slightest bit of remorse, which he did not. When he was released he was greeted by rapturous crowds in Lebanon. Remember he had bashed in the head of a 4 year old girl and crowds cheered his release. If it were the goal of Israel to show the sickness in some much of that society they succeeded, but that price was against Justice and respect for a dead child.
Now Pollard is not such a low life animal as to have slaughtered a small girl but the sight of a convicted traitor being greeted by cheering crowds in Israel, with parks named after him, would be a disaster far outweighing whatever short term minor political gain to be had.
Two questions: 1. Why wasn’t Pollard executed for treason, or at the very least sentenced to life without parole in a SuperMax? 2. If Pollard had been spying for Canada or the UK (who are much closer allies than Israel), would we even be having this conversation, or would it be laughed at?
Is it too late for the President to order a public execution for Pollard?
In that way we can end this banal conversation forever.
“and yet, IOKIFYR … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates”
The hell?
Agree with the content of the piece. If Britain spies on us, the same standard should apply.
@lessadoabouteverything
I completely agree with you. I remember that case: I believe that Israel released him in exchange for the bodies of some of their soldiers that had been killed. Israel is very serious about returning slain soldiers to their families for a proper burial. Either way, I think it was a terrible deal.
kevin47
Agree with the content of the piece. If Britain spies on us, the same standard should apply.
Huh? Britain is our closest ally with whom we share the most secret of intelligence daily, if they felt the need to spy on us we both have a problem. I am not saying that they do not gather intelligence on us as we do on them but can you imagine they would dare risk paying an American to pass on intel? Intel that they are most likely entitled to anyway. We share the same enemies, our forces fight together around the world. If caught it would be an absolute train wreck for both sides.
“I am not saying that they do not gather intelligence on us as we do on them but can you imagine they would dare risk paying an American to pass on intel?”
No. I was embracing the premise of Crime Dog’s hypothetical.
That said, it’s hard to imagine Israel spying on us. For them to do so, and then demand the release of their paid spy is a bit gauche.
kevin47: I was embracing the premise of Crime Dog’s hypothetical.
OK, fair enough and you are absolutely right, hypothetically speaking.
Should Jonathan Pollard be released?
I think the answer is: YES, he should be released!
Watch youtbe viedo about this issue:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eX8KY4VxoXk
What do you think?
@ lessadoabouteverything
I agree!
If I had my way, the death penalty would be applied only to people like Pollard.