Gingrich said Thursday that he was 'leaning towards clemency' for
convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
While in office in the 1990s, Gingrich, who is currently ahead in the
polls over the five other GOP candidates, spoke adamantly against any
such pardon.
Judge Aubrey Robinson, Jr., imposed a life sentence after hearing a
"damage-assessment memorandum" from the Secretary of Defense.
Pollard was a US citizen, born on US soil, but his greed and loyalty
to Israel was more important than his American citizenship. He should
have been executed or continuously tortured for information.
Israel granted Pollard citizenship in 1995, but publicly denied that
he was an Israeli spy until 1998. Israeli activist groups, as well as
high-profile Israeli politicians, have lobbied for his release. His
case was later linked to that of Ben-ami Kadish, another U.S. national
who pleaded guilty to charges of passing classified information to
Israel. He renounced his United States citizenship and is now solely
an Israeli citizen. He will be deported to Israel in the event that he
is released from prison.
Pollard's espionage was discovered in 1985 when a co-worker
anonymously reported his removal of classified material from the NIS.
The FBI again became involved. A short time later Pollard's neighbor
began calling around the military intelligence community (he was a
naval officer) asking what to do with the 70 lb suitcase full of
highly classified material that Pollard's wife, Anne, had given him.
Prior to sentencing, Pollard and his wife Anne gave media interviews
in which they defended their spying and attempted to rally Jewish
Americans to their cause. In a 60 Minutes interview, Anne said, "I
feel my husband and I did what we were expected to do, and what our
moral obligation was as Jews. Aviem Sella, Pollard's initial Israeli
contact, was eventually indicted on three counts of espionage by an
American court.[35] Israel refused to allow him to be interviewed
unless he was granted immunity. America refused because of Israel's
previous failure to cooperate as promised. Israel then refused to
extradite Sella, instead giving him command of a prestigious air force
base. The U.S. Congress responded by threatening to cut aid to Israel,
at which point Sella stepped down.
know the enemy:
When asked to return the stolen material, the Israelis reportedly only
turned over a few dozen low-classified documents. At the time, the
Americans knew that Pollard had passed tens of thousands of documents.
When American investigators traveled to Israel they were treated with
hostility from the moment they arrived in Israel to the moment they
left. The Israelis created a schedule designed to wear them down,
including many hours per day of commuting in blacked out buses on
rough roads, and frequent switching of buses leaving them without
adequate time to sleep and preventing them from sleeping on the
commute. The identity of Pollard's original handler, Sella, was
withheld. All questions had to be translated into Hebrew and answered
in Hebrew, and then translated back into English, even though all the
parties spoke perfect English. The Commander Jerry Agee remembers
that, even as he departed the airport, airport security made a point
of informing him that "you will never be coming back here again"; Agee
found various items had been stolen from his luggage, upon his return
to the United States. The abuse came not only from the guards and
officials, but also the Israeli media.
The New York Times reported on 21 September 2010 that Netanyahu
proposed that Pollard be released as a reward to Israel for extending
by three months a halt to new settlements in occupied territories.
In 2010 representatives Barney Frank (D-Mass.), Edolphus Towns (D-
N.Y.), Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) wrote a
letter which "notes the positive impact that a grant of clemency would
have in Israel, as a strong indication of the goodwill of our nation
towards Israel and the Israeli people", On November 18, 2010, 39
members of Congress submitted a Plea Of Clemency to the White House on
behalf of Pollard, asking the president for his immediate release:
"Such an exercise of the clemency power would not in any way imply
doubt about his guilt, nor cast any aspersions on the process by which
he was convicted.
Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State, wrote in a letter to
Barack Obama, "I believe justice would be served by commuting."
Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense under Ronald
Reagan, has called on the Obama Administration to grant clemency to
Polard:
In September 2011, when asked by a group of rabbis whether the Obama
administration was considering the release of Pollard, Vice President
Joe Biden responded, "President Obama was considering clemency, but I
told him, 'Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his
time. If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life.'
--
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