The following letter appeared in the November 26, 2009 edition of the Jerusalem Post, written by Jonathan and Esther Pollard.
Why is the life of one Israeli captive deemed so precious that Israel’s leaders are willing to dispense with all logic and morality in order to redeem him? Why is the life of another Israeli captive dismissed as if it were worthless?
Why is the life of one captive such an urgent national priority that the safety and security of every single Israeli citizen must be put at risk? Why is the life of the other captive so inconsequential – after decades of captivity – that negotiations for his release have never been undertaken?
Are we, the People of Israel, so incompetent, so bereft of will, talent, imagination and faith in God that we really believe the only way to secure the release of the former captive is at a price so exorbitant that it beggars the imagination? Do we really believe that the wholesale release of terrorists and murderers is a rational response? Are we, the People of Israel, so bereft of vision that we cannot grasp that burying one captive alive while we pray for the release of the other drives the blessing away and brings shame and dishonor upon us all?
Are we, the People of Israel, so politically brainwashed that we cannot see that, in both cases, mere expediency reigns supreme in a morally-bankrupt government? This is not fulfillment of the mitzvah of pidyon shvuyim!
AS LONG as Israeli leaders demonstrate a unanimous will to exploit the value of rescuing one captive because it suits their political ends, while simultaneously ignoring another captive, there can be no national honor, nor national self-respect. There is only political expediency. Self-serving, opportunistic, political expediency.
Those who are willing to close their eyes to the truth and follow lockstep with Israel’s “leaders” in support of this unconscionable plan to unleash the forces of evil by allowing the architects of mass murder to pour forth from Israeli jails are placing their own lives at risk as well as the lives of their loved ones.
Those who fail to speak out and protest Israel’s lopsided, immoral policy of selective rescue – damning one captive while saving the other and simultaneously putting the lives of all citizens in jeopardy – must know that they are complicit in this criminal deed.
It is painfully clear that Israel’s mainstream media has stymied all rational debate on this issue, just as it has, for its own self-serving reasons, lent its support to the government’s cowardly abandonment of the latter captive.
Nevertheless, moral conscience does not permit us to remain silent.
If our words are not heard today, so be it. A time will come when they will be heard. We hope that by then, it will not be too late.
Jonathan Pollard is an American-born Israeli citizen currently in the 25th year of his life sentence in an American prison for his activities on behalf of the security of the State of Israel. Esther Pollard is his wife.
(Jerusalem Post)
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10 Responses
Silly Editor. Dont you know that Pollard is expendable? wake up and smell the coffee. Then they needed him,now they dont. They used him he did his job,and finished it. Simple as that. He has become a liability to the israelis.
Since Hagoan R Mordechai Eliahu shlita is in the hospital, someone needs to step up to the plate and continue to bat for jonathan pollard. He is one person who has not let the issue rest and went through great pains to visit, encourage and keep his name on the table of pidyon shvuim.
also why have we given up on obama? our rabbis teach that that it is hashem who puts the ideas into the heads of state. we must keep up the pressure on washington no mater how slim the chances are for we are maaminim bnei maaminim
Pollard is not in danger of being killed, as aposed to Gilad Shalit.
The reason they don’t make strong demands for Pollard’s release is that Pollard humiliated The U.S. by what he did, and the American government will not have their noses rubbed in it again by freeing him.
The Israeli government, who believes that the yeshua doesn’t come from HaSh-m, but from Washington, is afraid to offend Washington by pushing on this issue.
TO MENACHEM who compares Pollard to a yishmaeli in a refugee camp, that is a DISGUSTING and totally inaccurate comparison. He was not out to sell this intel to just anyone, to make money. He was working for Israel, and gave the information only to them.
The Israeli government officials who have let Pollard rot in jail for so many years, will one day have to make a serious accounting to the Dayan Emet!
This letter is 100% valid. Due process requires the punishment fits the crime. You cannot have a crime where everyone pays a $100 fine, but one other person, for the same crime, is charged $25,567,332 in comparison.
charlie,
I think that has been explained in the past. It seems an application for parole, if denied, will affect chances for pardon for a long time. I don’t have all the facts, but this has been explained quite succinctly by Rabbi Pesach Lerner, I believe.
rebshalom, all of the facts have come out. Caspar Weinberger wrote a letter insisting that Pollard stay in jail for the max. Senator Schumer saw the letter and didn’t think there was anything unusual. People who are smarter and more discerning than you have been working on behalf of Pollard.
It is the United States who wants Pollard to stay and rot because they got caught with egg on their faces.
It is clear that negotiating with terrorists is short sighted. It inevitably leads to further kidnapings R”L. I am not indifferent to the plight of Gilad Shalit nor to the horrible situation in which his family finds themselves. Has it ever occured to the Israeli government that the only reason that Gilad Shalit was kidnapped is because Israel today willingly negotiates with kidnappers? Are Jews more or less safe by negotiating with these kidnappers??The answer is clear to all.
#11, the facts are in. From Weinberger going out of his way to personally write a letter to the judge to be severely harsh in sentencing, and from the fact that those convicted of greater espionage offenses had lighter sentences, the jury is in: INJUSTICE!! CORRUPTION!!! ANTISEMITISM!!! SELF-HATING JEW (Caspar)!!!
What’s the matter with some of you people? Where is your Ahavas Yisroel for a poor, downtrodden Jew, who is suffering in jail?
I happen to know someone very high up in the American Government. He is a personal friend of the Bush family. When I asked him about Pollard, in the middle of a very pleasant conversation, he suddenly froze up and told me “I don’t want to go there.”
My impression was that there is something deeply personal about the vendetta against Pollard. He hurt the Bush family in a very personal way, and they can’t forgive him.
The best explanation I have seen so far is from gadfly journalist Barry Chamish, who claims that Pollard unwittingly gave his Mossad contact secret information that revealed and documented the Iran-Contra deal during the Reagan era, in which the elder George Bush was closely involved.
The Democrats in Congress pursued Reagan and Bush mercilessly, and they almost succeeded in bringing down Preisdent Reagan. Chamish claims that Shimon Peres blackmailed the Bush family, using Pollard’s information, which would have given the Democrats the “smoking gun” they needed to bring down Reagan.
If this blackmial story is true, it would explain the deep personal desire for revenge on the part of Reagan’s people.
And, by the way, none of you are as close to the Pollard situation as Rabbi Pesach Lerner, that Tzaddik who heads the Young Israel movement in America. He visits Pollard all the time to give him Chizuk, and he knows how unfairly Pollard has been treated, compared to people who did much worse crimes than him.
He has more than paid for his crime. He should be released.