Background

By Haim Hermon

As a Navy analyst, Pollard illegally provided Israel with classified documents concerning activities of Arab countries, specifically the chemical, bacteriological and nuclear program in Iraq. This information had not been transmitted to Israel despite a Convention of Reciprocity signed between the United States and Israel. In spite of leniency pledges by the Justice Department in exchange for his cooperation with the FBI, he received life imprisonment, an extremely harsh punishment for spying on behalf of a friendly nation. In sentencing him, the judge allegedly was influenced by a confidential and still not revealed letter from former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.

The background of that letter is the investigation on the Iranian scandal (shipping illegal arms to Iran-sponsored terrorists as part of a deal to free American hostages), and the collapse of the American spying network inside the USSR. Pollard became a victim as the figures involved in the scandals (Bush, Weinberger, Admiral Inman and Ames) inflate the Pollard case to relief the pressure from themselves.

Review

This Page has been placed on the web for the supporting of Jonathan Pollard. My contribution to this effort is to provide the most relevant links and a concise information about Jonathan Pollard in order to join the international move to release Jonathan from his prison cell.

First, I would like to respond to one of the important issues rose: does the American Jewish are able to support Israel and still be loyal to America? I have no doubt about that. Historically, the Jewish people at the Diaspora had been accused many times for "divided loyalty". Assuming this is true that the Jewish people are obligated to Zionism, I believe that it shouldn't create any conflicts with the local interest of any democratic nation. The Pollard case, which is an extreme example, provides support for this argument. What Pollard was doing was in fact, in favor of the US interests. In general, those who supports Israel are by the same time supporting the interest of the USA because Israel is the greatest ally of the USA in the world, and vise versa: those who supports the Arabs are at the same time harming the interest of the United states, because the Arabs hate the Americans and they are long supporters of the radicalism and fundamentalism trends using violence, and terrorism. For instance: helping the Iraqi industry (as happened in the Bush era) is contributed by indirect way to the international terrorism and to the proliferation of concealed mass destruction weapons in the world. Same thing stands for the Palestinians, the definitely are going to join the most extremist enemies of the USA. Jonathan Pollard has evaluated this complicated situation and decided to act in favor of Israel. Now is our turn to show our support for him, He needs to be on our agenda continuously until he will be free. Although he supplied Israel with intelligence, he didn't harm USA interest as the provided information was mainly related to the threaten came from Iraq's mass destruction weaponry project. Israel, on the other hand, didn't provided that information to USSR as it has been leaked by the state department officials. It is unfortunate that in return he was treated as a traitor (by the U.S.) or as a cheap contractor (by Israel). Why he was treated like that? Some articles given here, are shining a light on this case. One of the new facts revealed recently was that the leading intelligence officer Aldrich Ames had used Pollard as a cover to conceal his own role as the worst CIA traitor ever.

Now, beyond the matter how much time he has to serve in the prison, and acknowledging the fact that Pollard was ready to sacrifice his career or even his life for the sake of Israel, Israel has to act more seriously for his sake. Nobody else can do so but the state of Israel! But he was betrayed many times by all parties. Instead of acknowledge his role in favor of the nonproliferation efforts towards Iraq, he was over-punished much beyond anybody else in the democratic world! Why it was happened to him? Because it was easy to frame a Jew serving the interest of Israel instead of the USA. This is very sensitive issue among the American Jews. However, nothing to shame on. This is the extreme situation when an excellent navy officer decided against his supervisors, of what is better to the free world. The Gulf war provided the final proves that he was right and Ames-Weinberger-Bush were wrong if not worse than that. It's too bad that the United States still doesn't fully acknowledge the fact that Israel and US sharing common interest on the matter of nonproliferation issues.

The second issue I want to raise here is related to the fact that Pollard has been sentenced for life in the prison, while in the free world things going on like nothing were happened. Why we can't expect, at least from the Israeli government, to apply the same efforts to free Jonathan Pollard, as they did in order to free Ron Arad?

The arguments of Jonathan Pollard's friends.

The sentence against Jonathan Pollard is unprecedented in the United States and grossly disproportionate to the offense committed.
The satellite pictures and other information he gave Israel should normally have been transmitted to Israel in accordance with a Convention of Reciprocity signed in 1983 between Israel and the United States.
Jonathan Pollard was never accused of "treason"; he was indicted on one count only: providing classified information to an ally-Israel.
The information transmitted to Israel dealt only with countries hostile to Israel:

- Iraqi chemical manufacturing plants.

- terrorist projects against Israel.

- satellite pictures of hostile neighboring countries (Lebanon, Syria, Libya, etc.).

- technical information about Soviet armament sold to these same countries.

This information helped Israel to protect itself against the attacks of Iraqi Scuds during the Gulf War in 1991. According to Israeli sources, the information provided by Jonathan Pollard concerning Iraqi military capabilities, and in particular its unconventional weapons, had been "critical and of utmost importance for Israel ". This information not only helped Israel to protect its population against an eventual attack of Iraqi missiles, "it also allowed Israel to take the decision not to react at this stage - and thus to respond positively to the request of the United States."

Jonathan Pollard's only motivation was the moral duty he felt to help Israel to protect its population.

Jonathan Pollard has been accused of having received "important amounts of money" from the Israeli government on "accounts in Switzerland". It has to be recognized that if there has not been any monetary fine imposed on Jonathan Pollard, it is precisely because the Jury could establish that he did not get any material profit out of his action.

Caspar Weinberger

Caspar Weinberger was Defense Secretary of State at the time of Jonathan Pollard's trial. He was employed (like George Bush) by the company BECHTEL which is well-established in Saudi Arabia.
One of his Under-Secretaries, Lawrence J. Korb, writing to Morris Pollard (Jonathan's father), describes Caspar Weinberger: "I do know that Weinberger had an almost visceral dislike of Israel and the special place it occupies in our foreign policy. "Could this "visceral dislike" be related to the fact that Weinberger has Jewish origin and is converted to Christianism?

Caspar Weinberger was probably Jonathan Pollard's worst enemy. He bears a great part of responsibility in the harshness and disproportion of the sentence. (On March 4th 1987, one hour before the sentence hearing, Caspar Weinberger transmitted a 47-page memo to Judge Robinson asking the stiffest sentence possible "commensurate with Pollard's 'TREASONOUS' behavior" ignoring that Jonathan Pollard was NEVER accused of treason)

His calumnious statements against Jonathan Pollard were complete non sense.

- He describes Jonathan as "the worst spy in American history"
- He declares that "the Pollards have succumbed to the same virus of treason as the Rosenbergs"
- He declares (talking about Jonathan): "If I could, I'd hang him."
- In a letter written to Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr., just before the sentence hearing, he writes: "[it is] difficult to conceive of a greater harm to national security than that caused by the defendant..."

However, in December 1993, Weinberger said he would not oppose Jonathan Pollard's liberation as he did not represent a danger for the national security any more.
Another link (H.H.)to the role that the state department took in this case by leaking disinformation to the major Washington DC papers, is quoted here: "Geoffrey Aronson, relying on State Department sources, reveals about the Pollard affair ("The Christian Science Monitor", January 27). He writes that according to 'unanimous response' from these sources, what Pollard has been always said to have betrayed, were 'this country's most important secrets', namely the 'information relating to U.S. targeting of Soviet nuclear and military installations and the capabilities and defenses of these sites'. This seems to accord with Israel's global aspirations basedon its nuclear power. Aronson also quotes his sources to the effect that much of intelligence passed on by Pollard 'was unusable to the Israelis except as bargaining chips and leverage against the United States and other countries' interests'. In view of this fact Aronson conjectures that Pollard's intelligence was used by Israel for deals with Moscow consisting of 'trading nuclear secrets for Soviet Jews'." (Israel Shahak)"

Comparison of Pollard's Sentence With Others

The following tables show how grossly disproportionate the life sentence meted out to Jonathan Pollard is when compared with the sentences given to others that committed similar offences by spying for allied nations.

Pollard's life sentence is also disproportionate even when compared to the sentences of those who committed far more serious offences by spying for enemy nations.

Table I: American Allies

Jonathan Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally.
On November 21, 1997, Pollard entered the 13th year of his life sentence, with no end in sight.
The maximum sentence today for such an offence is 10 years.

The median sentence for this offence is 2 to 4 years.

Name	Country Spied For		Sentence			Time Served Before Release
Jonathan Pollard	Israel		Life
Michael Schwartz	Saudi Arabia		0 years			0 years
Peter Lee	China		1 year in halfway house
Samual Morrison	Great Britain		2 years			3 months
Steven Baba	South Africa		2 years			5 months
Sharon Scranage	Ghana		2 years			8 months
Jean Baynes	Phillipines		3.5 years			1.4 years
Abdul Kader Helmy	Egypt		3.8 years			2 years
Geneva Jones	Africa		5.2 years
Joseph Brown	Phillipines		5.9 years
Michael Allen	Phillipines		8 years
Robert Kim	South Korea		9 years
Thomas Dolce	South Africa		10 years			5.2 years
Steven Lalas	Greece		14 years
Table II: American Enemies Jonathan Pollard spied for an American ally. This chart shows that Pollard's life sentence is far harsher than most of the sentences received by those who spied for enemies, and thereby committed much more serious offences and treason.
Name		Country Spied For		Sentence	Time Served Before Release
James Wood		Soviet Union		2 years
Sahag Dedyan		Soviet Union		3 years
Randy Jeffries		Soviet Union		3-9 years
Brian Horton		Soviet Union		6 years
William Bell		Poland		8 years
Alfred Zoho		East Germany		8 years
Nikolay Ogarodnikova		Soviet Union		8 years
Francis X. Pizzo		Soviet Union		10 years
Daniel Richardson		Soviet Union		10 years
Ernst Forbich		East Germany		15 years
William Whalen		Soviet Union		15 years

כתבות בעברית

Review

The arguments of Jonathan Pollard's friends.

Caspar Weinberger

Comparison of Pollard's Sentence With Others

Table I: American Allies