"The Jonathan Pollard Spy Case: The CIA's 1987 Damage Assessment Declassified New Details on What Secrets Israel Asked Pollard to Steal CIA Withholding Overturned on Appeal by National Security Archive National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 407 Posted - December 14, 2012 UPDATED January 9, 2013 Edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson"
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Bibi wants to bargain with the US over this Israeli spy. Natanyahu says that he won't negotiate with us over the Palestinians unless we give them their spy, a spy they helped commit treason against the US. Fine. He has served 28 years? He should not be given a pardon, just released as a criminal convicted of numerous felonies. pl
Col Lang
Is twenty eight years enough time to have served ? Perhaps we could strip Pollard of his citizenship when released. I still from my total layman's point of view ~ would look at Bibi bullying the USG into requiring Pollard's release as rewarding bad behavior. Repeating old behaviors expecting different results .
Posted by: Alba Etie | 01 January 2014 at 03:41 AM
AE
I believe Pollard renounced his US citizenship. pl
Posted by: turcopolier | 01 January 2014 at 08:39 AM
The Chinese would call him a "pearl", not to be given away lightly.
Posted by: Charles I | 01 January 2014 at 01:09 PM
AE and rick,
As an Englishman, I would not normally put my oar in with such an intimately American/Israeli an affair as the question of whether Stephen Pollard should be released.
But perhaps some old-fashioned English cynicism may be relevant.
Among the best news of the past year has been that both the Israelis and the Saudis have been overreaching themselves -- overplaying their hands.
As an outsider I may judge wrong, but it seems to me that to go on appealing for the release of Pollard, an 'Israel firster' who did rather considerable damage to the United States (irony alert) represents a patent case of the Israelis and their American 'fellow travellers' shooting themselves in the foot.
In so doing they do not only make it easier for gentiles to oppose the Israeli lobby. They also increasingly confront American Jews who have a deep gratitude to what the United States has given them, and a deep loyalty to your country, with intractable dilemmas which, at some point, they will no longer be able to avoid.
It is critical to understand how difficult it is, for American as for British Jews -- although perhaps to a somewhat lesser extent here -- to face up to the fact that the Zionist dream has been turning into a nightmare.
Having Pollard stay, at least for the time being, in prison in the United States, and having the Israelis go on and on demanding his release, may actually be very helpful, in helping us all find a way out of the mess in which we find ourselves.
Posted by: David Habakkuk | 01 January 2014 at 01:57 PM
Vanunu for Pollard?
Posted by: Mac | 01 January 2014 at 06:29 PM
Did he renounce his citizenship before or after the spying was found?
I say to Bibi, loudly and emphatically, NO!
Posted by: Jackie | 01 January 2014 at 06:45 PM
Now that more about the Pollard case has been released it's time to release the full, true story of the USS Liberty affair in 1967.
Posted by: ex-PFC Chuck | 01 January 2014 at 10:31 PM
Haaretz reports: "Netanyahu puts settlement construction plans on hold until after Kerry visit"
That is ludicrous. No settlement related construction program is going to be stopped for a second while Kerry is in Israel.
And Bibi, in what amounts with him to a 'concession', is going to announce new ones only once Kerry has left in order to not spoil the mood for the talks that are likely to result in nothing, just as if the deed means nothing if only it is proclaimed a week later? Is this idiot for real?
http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/.premium-1.566506
Point is - he probably is. The Izzies are so effing tone deaf on the simple fact that they invoke criticism FOR WHAT THEY DO and not for what they are.
'Putting Gaza on a diet', the routine extra judicial killings, the regular excessive use of force, expropriation and expulsion of Palestinian Arabs and Bedouins - all that is unjust. People tend to not like it when other people do such things to them. They then oppose those to inflict such harm on them. That is a very normal reaction, though undesirable from an Israeli point of view.
But because the Izzies are so tone deaf, the only explanation the likes of Bibi finds for all that opposition and critique is probably that the Gentiles are at their anti-Semitism again.
I have started to believe that the anti-semitism canard is not just what the Izzies and their supporters use to beat people they dislike over the head with. They have become so insular in their thinking and discourse that they actually believe that crap themselves.
Posted by: confusedponderer | 02 January 2014 at 01:05 AM
Mr Habakkuk
I do believe we are witnessing the beginning of the demise of the American Likud party . May Pollard rot in jail now & forever - amen ..
Posted by: Alba Etie | 02 January 2014 at 08:50 PM
True to form Israel has announced new settlements about just as Kerry left.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/01/06/israel-oks-west-bank-apartments/4341839/
It speaks plainly to me that they don't want any deal at all. All they want is all that they as the stronger party can grab without peace, by force if necessary, and they are confident that's a lot more than they'd get in a deal.
And by force I also mean expulsion by the various administrative means Israel uses, in particular enforcement of zoning ordinances.
These Bedu villages they flatten all the time are in violation of zoning laws that give a poop about that these folks were living down there for the better part of a millennium, reducing them to squatters on their ancestral land.
Apparently Israeli settlements in contrast conform with Israeli zoning ordinances, considering how little opposition they face from Israeli authorities.
Tyranny in modernity reveals itself starkly in procedural, administrative and criminal law.
The 'low law' and the general lack of recourse reserved for the Palestinians speaks for itself when contrasted to what treatment Israelis reserve for themselves.
I wonder if the likes of Liebermann will be able to resist to generate absolute clarity when they eventually expel the Arab Israelis by stamping a P or an A in their passports. Or just leave them stateless. There must be an Endlösung of the Arab and Palestinian question after all if Greater Israel is to be. Maybe they could all be shipped to Madagaskar, or what, Jordan?
Posted by: confusedponderer | 07 January 2014 at 02:29 AM