BRET STEPHENS: ON POLLARD AND OBAMA’S TRIP TO ISRAEL….SEE NOTE PLEASE
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323869604578368200275334358.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_BelowLEFTSecond
I COULD NOT AGREE MORE WITH THIS COLUMN WHICH IS SURE TO SPARK INDIGNATION. POLLARD’S CASE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED WITH REGARD TO HIS SENTENCE…UNFAIR LENGTH AND SEVERITY…BUT HE IS NOT A HERO AND TO NAME A PUBLIC SQUARE IN ISRAEL FOR HIM IS A TRAVESTY AND AN INSULT…AND TO PIN HIS RELEASE TO MORE CONCESSIONS BY ISRAEL IS OUTRAGEOUS AND SHAME ON THOSE ISRAELIS WHO WOULD DO SO…..RSK
Don’t Free Jonathan Pollard
A man who betrayed his country is no martyr to the Jewish people.
“Nations are rightly judged by their choice of heroes. Israel has plenty of worthy heroes, yet today there’s a square in Jerusalem named for Pollard. So here’s something else I’d like Mr. Obama to do while he’s in Israel: Insist that the square be renamed. Maybe then, in a quieter hour and without regard to diplomacy or politics, can Jonathan Pollard’s fate be reconsidered in a purely humanitarian grounds.”
There are a few things I’d like to hear Barack Obama say on his trip this week to Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.
I’d like to hear him go beyond the bromides about “having Israel’s back” and “not bluffing” about Iran’s nuclear ambitions to spell out a U.S. timetable and a U.S. red line. I’d especially like to hear the president say the U.S. is not interested in a diplomatic settlement that solves the immediate nuclear crisis but allows Iran to retain and expand its nuclear-industrial base.
Keeping Iran from sprinting to a single bomb now so that it can amble toward 50 bombs once Mr. Obama is out of office is not a policy worthy of any American presidency.
I’d also like to hear the president tell Palestinians during his visit to Bethlehem that what really stands between them and a state isn’t Israel or its settlements. Israel dismantled its settlements in Sinai for the sake of peace with Egypt, and dismantled them again in Gaza in the interests of disengaging from the restive coastal strip. Most Israelis would gladly do so again for the sake of a real peace with the Palestinians.
But Israelis can have no confidence in such a peace so long as Palestinians elect Hamas to power, cheer the rocketing of Israeli cities, insist on a “right of return” to Tel Aviv and Haifa, play charades at the U.N., refuse to negotiate directly with Israel, and raise their children on a diet of anti-Semitic slurs. In his 2009 speech in Cairo, Mr. Obama spoke the truth about the Arab world’s Holocaust denial. He shouldn’t deprive his Palestinian audience of a similar dose of truth-telling, least of all in Bethlehem.
Finally, I’d like to hear Mr. Obama tell Jordan’s King Abdullah that the U.S. will back the Hashemite kingdom to the hilt.
Right now, the king is dealing with a long-running financial crisis, the influx of more than 300,000 refugees from Syria, diminishing political support from tribal sheiks, and an assertive Muslim Brotherhood that smells political blood. If the king falls, the U.S. loses an ally, the Arab world loses a moderate, Israel loses a secure border, and a contest for power erupts in which all the outcomes are bad. U.S. assistance to Jordan came to $736 million last year. It’s cheap at five times the price.
But here’s something I don’t want to hear from Mr. Obama, especially not when he’s in Israel: that he has agreed to release former Navy intelligence analyst and convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
Associated Press
Not that such a gesture wouldn’t go down well in Israel and with much of the U.S. Jewish community. As of this week, 175,000 Israelis have signed a petition calling for Pollard’s release. Israeli President Shimon Peres intends to raise the subject personally with Mr. Obama; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a formal request for the spy’s freedom two years ago.
Also true is that there is a humanitarian case to be made for Pollard’s release. He has now served 28 years of a life sentence, which comes to nearly half his life, and he is said to be in failing health. Compare that with the seven years served by Robert Kim, another Navy analyst who spied for another friendly country, in his case South Korea.
Yet whatever the humanitarian interest in freeing Pollard, it must be weighed against other interests, American as well as Israeli.
Regarding the Israeli interest: It does not help Israel to make a hero of a compulsive liar and braggart, fond of cocaine, who violated his oaths, spied on his country, inflicted damage that took billions of dollars to repair, accepted payment for his spying, jeopardized Israel’s relationship with its closest ally, failed to show remorse at the time of his sentencing, made himself into Exhibit A of every anti-Semitic conspiracy nut, and then had the chutzpah to call himself a martyr to the Jewish people.
Nor does Israel do itself any favors by making Pollard’s case a matter of national interest, and therefore a chip to be played against other concessions. As Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin has noted, “That a man who claimed his crime was committed to enhance the Jewish state’s security would have his freedom bought with concessions on territory or settlements that undermine the country’s ability to defend itself must be considered a bitter irony.” All the more so given that it’s right-wing Israelis who have been most outspoken on Pollard’s behalf.
Regarding the American interest: What’s inequitable about Pollard’s sentence isn’t that his is too heavy. It’s that the sentences of spies such as Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen and Robert Kim have been too light. Particularly in the age of digital downloads, WikiLeaks and self-appointed transparency crusaders, the U.S. needs to make harsh examples of those who betray its secrets. That goes especially for those who spy on behalf of friendly countries or, as Bradley Manning imagined, in the ostensible interests of humanity at large.
Nations are rightly judged by their choice of heroes. Israel has plenty of worthy heroes, yet today there’s a square in Jerusalem named for Pollard. So here’s something else I’d like Mr. Obama to do while he’s in Israel: Insist that the square be renamed. Maybe then, in a quieter hour and without regard to diplomacy or politics, can Jonathan Pollard’s fate be reconsidered in a purely humanitarian grounds.
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