After 30 Years in Prison, Jonathan Pollard to be Freed — but Not to Israel

[Purveyor]

Source: New York Times



WASHINGTON — Jonathan J. Pollard, the American convicted of spying on behalf of Israel, will walk out of prison on Friday after 30 years, but the Obama administration has no plans to let him leave the country and move to Israel as he has requested.

Mr. Pollard, who as a Navy intelligence analyst passed classified documents to Israeli handlers, was due to be released from a federal prison in Butner, N.C., after receiving parole on a life sentence, ending a long imprisonment that has been a constant irritant in relations between the United States and Israel.

Under federal parole rules, Mr. Pollard cannot leave the country without permission for at least five years. But his wife, Esther, lives in Israel and he has asked to be reunited with her there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel personally raised the request in a meeting with President Obama earlier this month, but the president was unmoved, according to American officials and the Israeli news media.

Two Democratic lawmakers wrote to the Justice Department last week urging Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch to grant the request, saying that Mr. Pollard would be willing to renounce his American citizenship and never return to the United States. They noted that a spy for Cuba was allowed to renounce his American citizenship and live in Cuba in 2013 after serving his sentence.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/20/us/politics/after-30-years-in-prison-jonathan-pollard-to-be-freed-but-not-to-israel.html?_r=0

[blackspade]

1. I'm glad Obama is standing firm on this.

Under federal parole rules, Mr. Pollard cannot leave the country without permission for at least five years. But his wife, Esther, lives in Israel and he has asked to be reunited with her there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel personally raised the request in a meeting with President Obama earlier this month, but the president was unmoved, according to American officials and the Israeli news media.

Good.

[murielm99]

3. I am surprised that Netanyahu thinks

he can ask Obama for anything after the way he disrespected him and his Presidency.

[Major Hogwash]

4. For now.

I've read the backstory to this case, and Pollard should have been freed years ago.
He went to prison for so long because he embarrassed Saint Ronny, right after St. Ronny told Israel they had nothing to fear from Iraq.
That was when Pollard gave Israel secret documents from the CIA that proved that Iraq was in the middle of building a nuclear plant.
So, the Israelis bombed that plant, and Pollard paid the price for making Saint Ronny look two-faced for lying about it to the Israeli government.

[cstanleytech]

6. I think you are right and the sentencing was based upon embarrassing the president because

Manning was not sentenced to life like Pollard was.

[ericson00]

2. good move

given that allies do spy on each other a lot, and Israel is the only stable, capitalism, free democratic state in the region. It's not only right to free him, given that he didn't spy for an evil empire like the Soviet Union, but its good politics: Israel is still broadly popular across America, too popular to be only liked by evangies and Jews, and Obama did shave 10% off his Jewish vote from 2008-2012. That is spread across some swing states, and yes donors, given the Jews spectacular economic achievements thru their hard work and dedication to education.

[Paulie]

5. I give it about a month

Before he's snuck out of the country.

[JohnyCanuck]

7. MSM avoids central Pollard question: Did Israel trade secrets to Soviets for emigres?

By James North and Philip Weiss at Mondoweiss.net:

DiGenova said that U.S. intelligence authorities suspect that some of the material obtained from Pollard was bartered to the Soviet Union in return for the release of Soviet Jews to Israel, and that U.S. intelligence “assets” in the Soviet Union were compromised and possibly killed as a result.

The American public would be interested to know about this angle; and legislators ought to demand an accounting of the damage before Pollard is freed.

Allan Brownfeld addresses the Soviet issue at Community Digital News:

Some U.S. intelligence analysts believe that documents stolen by Pollard were handed over to Moscow by Soviet moles within the Israeli intelligence service. Neil Livingstone of Georgetown University argued, “There’s no question that Mossad [Israel’s intelligence agency] is penetrated. A lot of what Pollard stole wasn’t related to Israeli security. Israel is a great trader in intelligence. To get an advantage someplace, they get something someone else wants and they create an indebtedness.”

The leading source of the theory is The Traitor, a 1999 piece by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, detailing the allegations that the material ended up in Soviet hands, as a trade for Soviet emigres to Israel:

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/07/pollard-question-soviets

[fbc]

8. I bet he ends up in Israel

He will get smuggled there, and I doubt the US will do anything about it other than issue a protest.

[NaturalHigh]

9. Let him go to Israel.

What's the point of keeping him here?

[JohnyCanuck]

10. Just Punishment: Jonathan Pollard was one of the worst traitors of the 20th century......

He deserved to languish as long as he did
By Fred Kaplan at slate.com

.............. A few weeks before Hersh’s story, four retired admirals—all of whom had served as directors of U.S. Naval Intelligence—wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post warning that Pollard’s idealistic image was a “clever public-relations campaign.” In fact, they revealed, Pollard had offered highly classified documents to three other countries before hitting up Israel. (Those countries were later reported to be Pakistan, South Africa, and Australia.)

Furthermore, the admirals wrote, Pollard was well-paid for his efforts—a monthly stipend of $2,500, more than $10,000 in gifts, and other favors, in exchange for a commitment to spy for 10 years—and he was asking his handlers for a raise when he got caught. An official investigation revealed that Pollard was constantly broke, in serious debt, borrowing money from colleagues, and spending it just as fast. Just a few months after Pollard went to work for a secret unit of U.S. Naval Intelligence, he was approached by an Israeli air force officer, and the arrangement began.

Finally, the admirals wrote, Pollard was lying when he said that he’d taken only documents that would help Israel defend itself from Arab countries. In fact, he stole entire databases, “suitcase-loads” of documents that he couldn’t have had time to examine before delivering them to his handlers, often on a nightly basis. Many of these documents, they added, had nothing to do with Israel or the Middle East.

There is another disturbing element to this story. For more than 12 years after his arrest, senior Israeli officials told their American allies that Pollard had been a “rogue” who had no contact with the Israeli government. Finally, in 1998, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to President Clinton that Pollard had been an Israeli agent all along, handled by senior officials in the Bureau of Scientific Relations.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2015/07/jonathan_pollard_was_one_of_the_worst_traitors_of_the_20th_century_he_deserved.html