Pollard, the ultimate gesture of friendship to People of Israel
Call President Barack Obama For Pollard Today!
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Barack Obama on July 6, 2010, hopes are high that the date will prove to be an historic one for both countries. Anticipating that mutual goodwill will produce concrete efforts for reconciliation, many pray that the President will send Jonathan Pollard Home with Mr. Netanyahu.
POLLARD AS A GESTURE TO THE PEOPLE
The Israeli People have been waiting 25 years for Jonathan Pollard. Public opinion polls in Israel consistently show that the People of Israel see the return of Jonathan Pollard as a national priority, with 84% to 92% supporting initiatives to secure Pollard's release. No other issue enjoys such wall to wall support.
POLLARD IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL
The American people, speaking through their elected representatives, want President Barack Obama to act in support of Israel. 87 Senators recently signed a letter to the president urging that he show support for Israel. 31 Jewish Congressman recently met with the President and they too urged that he show support for Israel. The return of Jonathan Pollard would be the ultimate gesture of support, welcomed and enthusiastically embraced by all the People of Israel.
CALL THE WHITE HOUSE NOW: Tel: 202-456-1414 or 202-456-1111
Everyone is urged to participate in this worldwide grassroots effort starting today, by calling the White House, daily, every day from July 1st through July 6th repeatedly and often, to urge President Barack Obama to send Jonathan Pollard home to Israel.
Call between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM EST. To leave a message for the President, the White House Switchboard can be reached at 202-456-1414. The White House Comment Line can also be reached directly by calling 202-456-1111. Tell the President that releasing Jonathan Pollard would be the consummate act of friendship towards the People of Israel. Ask the President to please send Jonathan Pollard home with Mr. Netanyahu.
OPPORTUNITY FOR FRIENDSHIP AND RECONCILIATION
"With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scheduled to meet with President Obama in Washington on July 6, this is a golden opportunity for a gesture of friendship and reconciliation to be made by releasing Pollard and sending him home to Jerusalem, to his wife and to his People," said Rabbi Pesach Lerner, the Executive Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel, and one of the driving forces behind the Pollard campaign.
The Time Is Now to Press for Pollard's Release
By Farley Weiss - Hamodia - November 30, 2009
The failure to obtain Jonathan Pollard's release from his U.S. prison is primarily due to the fundamentally flawed policy of the leaders of Israel, and, no less, that of American Jewish leadership. They together continue to follow a strategy that has failed for twenty-five years - of quietly (if at all) pressing for Pollard's release, while at the same time withholding the necessary support for public efforts to secure Pollard's release.
Before the end of President Bush's tenure, the National Council of Young Israel (regrettably, almost the only Jewish organization that constantly publicly pushes for Pollard's release) organized a concerted call-in directed at the White House to appeal for Pollard's release. Moreover, efforts were undertaken to privately contact high-level people, past and present, from the Bush Administration to push for his release.
The National Council even persuaded friends of the president to advocate for his release, a relatively isolated endeavor because the government of Israel itself had no involvement and gave no assistance to these efforts. Simply stated, the failure to make this a case that warranted attention clearly did not help Pollard's chances to be released.
It is noteworthy that the U.S. activists lobbying for Pollard were not interviewed by Micha Lindenstraus, Israel's State Comptroller, who just completed an investigation of the Israeli Government's actions regarding Pollard. Yet it is public knowledge that Defense Minister Ehud Barak (then Prime Minister) pushed for a pardon for fugitive financier Mark Rich at the same time he was supposed to be singularly focused on Pollard's release. Barak's push for Rich gave President Clinton an excuse to say that he acceded to one of Israel's two requests - when it was known that Clinton had promised to release Pollard at Wye and then reneged on this promise. Known too is the fact that Prime Minister Olmert attempted to prevent Eli Yishai, the head of the Shas Party in Israel, from speaking to President Bush regarding Jonathan Pollard at a dinner in Israel.
We also know that whatever private efforts were carried out by Israeli leaders have failed. Thus, one must wonder why numerous substantial changes of policy were not advocated by Mr. Lindenstraus, even though in other investigations he usually does make such suggestions, and it is obvious that the current policy has been a failure.
I recently attended an event at which I approached one of the top Jewish leaders in the U.S., someone with access to President Obama. I asked him what President Obama's view was on Pollard. His response was particularly telling. He did not know, indicating that he had not used his access to Obama to address the matter.
In fact, to our knowledge, no Jew or Jewish organization has exploited their access to raise the Pollard issue in the ten months since Obama has been president (the National Council of Young Israel was not invited to the two recent Jewish Leaders meetings with President Obama, probably due to its public and outspoken right-of-center support for greater Israel).
Despite the many meetings between Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Senator George Mitchell, special envoy for Mideast affairs, we have yet to hear that Israel has demanded or received anything in return for concessions the U.S. is exacting. Quasi support for a Palestinian state and a removal of roadblocks are concessions Israel has already made without obtaining anything from the U.S. in return, and the U.S. continues to demand more concessions from Israel with no apparent quid pro quo. One might at a minimum expect some gesture to obtain Pollard's release.
Years ago, during the discussions that led to the Wye Agreement, it was well known that President Clinton promised then-Prime Minister Netanyahu that he would release Pollard - and then reneged on this promise at the urging of Dennis Ross. Ross is today one of the advisers to President Obama, and it appears that he has now switched his position, favoring Pollard's release. Unfortunately, since returning to office, Prime Minister Netanyahu has yet to mention Pollard in any speech or give any indication that this is an issue of concern for him, even though previously he had made the biggest effort to obtain Pollard's release and is the only Israeli leader who visited Pollard, albeit when he was not Prime Minister.
Considering the fact that President Obama is a former constitutional law professor, it seems reasonable to expect that we might convince him to support Pollard's release on the merits of the case. Furthermore, the argument that American presidents should be called upon to consider the pardon only during the last days of their tenure is misbegotten. It should be noted that the closest Pollard came to being released was during the 1998 Wye negotiations, not during the last days of the Bush Administrations. Thus there is no reason to wait another three years.
The failure by many different people in many different forums to raise the issue with the administration may have led President Bush to believe it is not important. This is not a subjective opinion of mine, but the exact message I personally received from a member of the Bush Administration. He unabashedly asked me why, if this was such an important issue, Jewish leaders are not bringing it up in their meetings with the president and the secretary of state, and unfortunately, as is the case now, with the Obama Administration?
Not relying upon the government of Israel or Jewish leaders in the U.S., I succeeded ten years ago in helping to convince former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini (Arizona), then head of the Intelligence Committee, to reverse his position and support Pollard's release. Moreover, in the last few years I also helped arrange for former CIA Director James Woolsey to go public with his support for Pollard's release. Both of these people know all of the classified information about Pollard and they believe he should be released.
They know that the average sentence for passing information to an ally is two to four years, that Pollard pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, that he did not expose U.S. agents, and that he has expressed remorse for his actions. And yet he is still in prison and is now in poor health. By supporting his release, these officials confirmed that the circular reasoning that Pollard must have done something terrible that we are not aware of to receive such a harsh, unprecedented sentence is simply false. This was confirmed by Lawrence Korb, deputy of former defense secretary Casper Weinberger, when he wrote Pollard's father that the severity of Pollard's sentence was due to Weinberger's visceral hatred for Israel.
A famous aphorism attributed to Albert Einstein seems applicable to the Pollard case: Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting to achieve different results. That is why the current methods of pressing (or not pressing) the case for Pollard's release must change. Coordination of efforts among Israeli leaders and lay and organizational leaders involved in the Pollard case needs to start now. Jonathan Pollard has suffered too long. His release from an unjust sentence needs to be pressed by those lobbying the administration, whether Israeli leaders or U.S. Jewish leaders. A twenty-five-year policy of silence has failed; it needs to change.
December is the main month for pardons and commutations of sentences by the President of the United States. So that Pollard will finally be released, we ask you, the readers of this column, to start on December 1 and continue through the month to call the White House to politely register support for the commutation of Pollard's sentence to time served.
The White House number is 202-456-1111.
Let us do our part, and maybe the American Jewish and Israeli leaders will finally do theirs.
By Farley Weiss - Hamodia - November 30, 2009
The failure to obtain Jonathan Pollard's release from his U.S. prison is primarily due to the fundamentally flawed policy of the leaders of Israel, and, no less, that of American Jewish leadership. They together continue to follow a strategy that has failed for twenty-five years - of quietly (if at all) pressing for Pollard's release, while at the same time withholding the necessary support for public efforts to secure Pollard's release.
Before the end of President Bush's tenure, the National Council of Young Israel (regrettably, almost the only Jewish organization that constantly publicly pushes for Pollard's release) organized a concerted call-in directed at the White House to appeal for Pollard's release. Moreover, efforts were undertaken to privately contact high-level people, past and present, from the Bush Administration to push for his release.
The National Council even persuaded friends of the president to advocate for his release, a relatively isolated endeavor because the government of Israel itself had no involvement and gave no assistance to these efforts. Simply stated, the failure to make this a case that warranted attention clearly did not help Pollard's chances to be released.
It is noteworthy that the U.S. activists lobbying for Pollard were not interviewed by Micha Lindenstraus, Israel's State Comptroller, who just completed an investigation of the Israeli Government's actions regarding Pollard. Yet it is public knowledge that Defense Minister Ehud Barak (then Prime Minister) pushed for a pardon for fugitive financier Mark Rich at the same time he was supposed to be singularly focused on Pollard's release. Barak's push for Rich gave President Clinton an excuse to say that he acceded to one of Israel's two requests - when it was known that Clinton had promised to release Pollard at Wye and then reneged on this promise. Known too is the fact that Prime Minister Olmert attempted to prevent Eli Yishai, the head of the Shas Party in Israel, from speaking to President Bush regarding Jonathan Pollard at a dinner in Israel.
We also know that whatever private efforts were carried out by Israeli leaders have failed. Thus, one must wonder why numerous substantial changes of policy were not advocated by Mr. Lindenstraus, even though in other investigations he usually does make such suggestions, and it is obvious that the current policy has been a failure.
I recently attended an event at which I approached one of the top Jewish leaders in the U.S., someone with access to President Obama. I asked him what President Obama's view was on Pollard. His response was particularly telling. He did not know, indicating that he had not used his access to Obama to address the matter.
In fact, to our knowledge, no Jew or Jewish organization has exploited their access to raise the Pollard issue in the ten months since Obama has been president (the National Council of Young Israel was not invited to the two recent Jewish Leaders meetings with President Obama, probably due to its public and outspoken right-of-center support for greater Israel).
Despite the many meetings between Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Senator George Mitchell, special envoy for Mideast affairs, we have yet to hear that Israel has demanded or received anything in return for concessions the U.S. is exacting. Quasi support for a Palestinian state and a removal of roadblocks are concessions Israel has already made without obtaining anything from the U.S. in return, and the U.S. continues to demand more concessions from Israel with no apparent quid pro quo. One might at a minimum expect some gesture to obtain Pollard's release.
Years ago, during the discussions that led to the Wye Agreement, it was well known that President Clinton promised then-Prime Minister Netanyahu that he would release Pollard - and then reneged on this promise at the urging of Dennis Ross. Ross is today one of the advisers to President Obama, and it appears that he has now switched his position, favoring Pollard's release. Unfortunately, since returning to office, Prime Minister Netanyahu has yet to mention Pollard in any speech or give any indication that this is an issue of concern for him, even though previously he had made the biggest effort to obtain Pollard's release and is the only Israeli leader who visited Pollard, albeit when he was not Prime Minister.
Considering the fact that President Obama is a former constitutional law professor, it seems reasonable to expect that we might convince him to support Pollard's release on the merits of the case. Furthermore, the argument that American presidents should be called upon to consider the pardon only during the last days of their tenure is misbegotten. It should be noted that the closest Pollard came to being released was during the 1998 Wye negotiations, not during the last days of the Bush Administrations. Thus there is no reason to wait another three years.
The failure by many different people in many different forums to raise the issue with the administration may have led President Bush to believe it is not important. This is not a subjective opinion of mine, but the exact message I personally received from a member of the Bush Administration. He unabashedly asked me why, if this was such an important issue, Jewish leaders are not bringing it up in their meetings with the president and the secretary of state, and unfortunately, as is the case now, with the Obama Administration?
Not relying upon the government of Israel or Jewish leaders in the U.S., I succeeded ten years ago in helping to convince former U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini (Arizona), then head of the Intelligence Committee, to reverse his position and support Pollard's release. Moreover, in the last few years I also helped arrange for former CIA Director James Woolsey to go public with his support for Pollard's release. Both of these people know all of the classified information about Pollard and they believe he should be released.
They know that the average sentence for passing information to an ally is two to four years, that Pollard pleaded guilty and cooperated with the government, that he did not expose U.S. agents, and that he has expressed remorse for his actions. And yet he is still in prison and is now in poor health. By supporting his release, these officials confirmed that the circular reasoning that Pollard must have done something terrible that we are not aware of to receive such a harsh, unprecedented sentence is simply false. This was confirmed by Lawrence Korb, deputy of former defense secretary Casper Weinberger, when he wrote Pollard's father that the severity of Pollard's sentence was due to Weinberger's visceral hatred for Israel.
A famous aphorism attributed to Albert Einstein seems applicable to the Pollard case: Insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting to achieve different results. That is why the current methods of pressing (or not pressing) the case for Pollard's release must change. Coordination of efforts among Israeli leaders and lay and organizational leaders involved in the Pollard case needs to start now. Jonathan Pollard has suffered too long. His release from an unjust sentence needs to be pressed by those lobbying the administration, whether Israeli leaders or U.S. Jewish leaders. A twenty-five-year policy of silence has failed; it needs to change.
December is the main month for pardons and commutations of sentences by the President of the United States. So that Pollard will finally be released, we ask you, the readers of this column, to start on December 1 and continue through the month to call the White House to politely register support for the commutation of Pollard's sentence to time served.
The White House number is 202-456-1111.
Let us do our part, and maybe the American Jewish and Israeli leaders will finally do theirs.
Farley Weiss is 2nd Vice President of the National Council of Young Israel and President of Young Israel of Phoenix
(END)
Posted November 19, 2009
To many of us, November 21, 2009 may seem to be just another typical day on the calendar. The fact is, however, that this day carries with it a significance that warrants the attention of the greater Jewish community. On November 21, 2009, Jonathan Pollard will begin his 25th year in prison. It has been nearly a quarter of a century since Jonathan was arrested in 1985 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deliver classified information to the State of Israel, an ally of the United States.The story behind his imprisonment is well known. Jonathan Pollard never had a trial. At the request of both the U.S. and Israeli governments, he entered into a plea agreement, which spared both governments a long, difficult, expensive and potentially embarrassing trial. Jonathan Pollard fulfilled his end of the plea agreement, cooperating fully with the prosecution. Nevertheless, Pollard received a life sentence and a recommendation that he never be paroled - in complete violation of the plea agreement he had reached with the government. On March 4, 1987, he was sentenced to the maximum penalty, life in prison.
Jonathan Pollard has repeatedly expressed his remorse publicly and in private in letters to many Presidents and others. He has said that he sincerely regrets having broken the law and is sorry that he did not find a legal means to act upon his concerns for Israel.
Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence is grossly disproportionate when compared to the sentences of others who have spied for allied nations and even when compared with sentences given to those spying for non-allied nations. Although the median sentence for his offense is 2 to 4 years, Jonathan Pollard is about to begin serving his 25th year in prison. He spent 7 years in solitary confinement in the harshest unit of the harshest prison in the Federal System - FCI Marian. Countless elected officials, individuals from the national intelligence arena and the legal world, as well as religious and community leaders, have described Jonathan Pollard’s sentence as excessive, and have called for his sentence to be commuted.
In addition, Jonathan Pollard is in poor health, having developed diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, pre-glaucoma, and arthritis while in prison.
We must take this opportunity to reflect on Jonathan Pollard’s plight and pray that his sentence is commuted so he can finally return home to Israel and reunite with his family.
The National Council of Young Israel urges people to say a prayer on behalf of Jonathan Pollard, which was composed by Rabbi Yonah Metzger, the Chief Rabbi of Israel. To view the Chief Rabbi’s prayer, click here
In addition, the National Council of Young Israel encourages people to write to Jonathan Pollard in prison. Not only do the letters to Jonathan demonstrate to him that people care very deeply about the pain and suffering that he continues to endure, they also give him the necessary strength and support to continue.
Here is Jonathan’s mailing address:
Jonathan Pollard #09185-016
c/o FCI Butner
P.O. Box 1000
Butner, NC
U.S.A 27509-1000
Jonathan Pollard #09185-016
c/o FCI Butner
P.O. Box 1000
Butner, NC
U.S.A 27509-1000
“The Ghost of Israel’s Sealed Rooms,” was written by William Northrop, who was the Jerusalem bureau chief of New Dimensions Magazine. The article, which was initially printed in New Dimensions Magazine in 1992, provides an in-depth analysis of the integral role that Jonathan Pollard played in Israel’s decision to enhance its civil defense plan. The article examines how Jonathan’s intervention enabled Israel to be prepared for a possible chemical or biological attack by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein during the Gulf War.
To read this intriguing article in its entirety, click here
To read this intriguing article in its entirety, click here
On Monday, Dec. 15th, 2008, the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Metzger - along with Rabbi Pesach Lerner & Rabbi Shlomo Mostovsky of NCYI - visited Mr. Pollard in jail. After leaving the prison, YWN was granted an exclusive interview with Rabbi Metzger about the condition of Mr. Pollard. An audio file of the interview can be heard at the following link:
13 Former Prisoners Of Zion Plead For Pollard's Release (May 9, 2008)
An Urgent Request from Jonathan Pollard At the reqeust of Jonathan Pollard's attorneys, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt and Moslet LLP, we are urging everyone to send a letter to his or her senators and Member of Congress, preferably in hard copy. The attorneys request that you not alter the text of the linked letter in any way, but that you send it exactly as written. The attorneys also request that you provide a copy of your letter to Eliot Lauer or to Jacques Semmelman by email or by fax 212-697-1559 so that they can maintain a complete record of what has been sent.
Please send letter as shown:
Here are some links that
should facilitate
communication with your elected officials:
Senators
Members of Congress
Media Release Re: PollardWidespread Demands for Jonathan Pollard, Arutz Sheva
[To: Elected Official]
Dear __________________:
I am writing with regard to Jonathan Pollard, now serving his twentieth year in prison. He was arrested in 1985 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to deliver classified information to the State of Israel. On March 4, 1987, he was sentenced to the maximum penalty, life in prison.
In September 2000, Mr. Pollard's new attorneys Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman of Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP filed a motion for resentencing in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.. Their motion was based upon recent revelations, fully documented in their court papers, that Mr. Pollard's original defense lawyer was grossly ineffective before, during and immediately after sentencing. Mr. Pollard's life sentence was the direct result of deprivations of his constitutional rights to due process and effective assistance of counsel.
The Government's sole response to the motion was that Mr. Pollard waited too long. According to the Government, Mr. Pollard will have to spend the rest of his life in prison because he should have realized earlier that he has a meritorious basis for vacating his sentence on constitutional grounds. I am distressed that our Government has taken this position, which is incompatible with any notion of justice. Mr. Pollard's motion should have been addressed on the merits. The Government can still choose to allow Mr. Pollard's motion to be heard on the merits. That would be eminently fair, and would further the interests of justice. The Attorney General should direct the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia to agree that the motion should be heard on the merits.
As a separate matter, there are five partially-classified documents in the court's sentencing docket that no one representing Mr. Pollard has been permitted to see since he was sentenced. After a thorough background investigation, Messrs. Lauer and Semmelman were each granted "Top Secret" security clearance. They were determined eligible for the even higher "SCI" clearance upon showing "need to know." The U.S. Attorney has taken the disingenuous position that Mr. Pollard's lawyers have no "need to know" what is in their client's court docket. Yet, Government personnel opposed to relief for Mr. Pollard have repeatedly been afforded access to these very documents, based upon the Government's unilateral, extra-judicial assessment that its own employees have a "need to know." This disparity in access is unacceptable.
I urge you to exert moral pressure on the Attorney General to acknowledge that Mr. Pollard's lawyers have a "need to know" what is in their client's court docket.
Sincerely,
cc: Eliot Lauer (elauer@cm-p.com)
Jacques Semmelman (jsemmelman@cm-p.com)
