The Iraq Crisis

and the Pollard Affair

Edward Alexander

Now that the United States has barely (for the time being) avoided a violent clash with Iraq, the American military build-up of that country during the Reagan administration needs to be recalled. It affords a dramatic illustration of the old Jewish saying: ha-golem kam al yotzro (the monster rises against its creator). But it also affords the occasion to reflect upon one of the many tragic offshoots of that ill-conceived policy (presided over mainly by then Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger): namely, the plight of Jonathan Pollard, now entering the thirteenth year of a life sentence for supplying Israel with satellite photos of Iraqi weapons sites and information about the transfer to Iraq (approved by Weinberger) of U.S.-manufactured weapons, subsequently used to kill or poison American soldiers and Israeli civilians in the Persian Gulf War.

It is common knowledge that, although Pollard was indeed guilty of espionage, his sentence was outrageously out of proportion to his crime, grossly in excess of penalties meted out to other Americans (both before and after him) convicted of spying for "friendly" countries (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Korea) and handed down in blatant violation of the U. S. government's plea-bargain agreement that, if he acknowledged his guilt, surrendered his right to trial, and cooperated with investigators, it would not seek a life sentence against him. Instead, egged on by the official who had most to gain by preventing a public trial and thereby concealing his own incompetence and skulduggery--namely, Weinberger--Pollard was sentenced to life for treason, even though that charge never appeared in the indictment against him.

All this is, by this late date, so much blood under the bridge. But what is to be done for Pollard now? Little can be expected from the Israeli government. Since the Oslo accords were signed in 1993, Israeli governments

have shown remarkably little interest even in protecting their own citizens, much less acknowledging their responsibility towards an American citizen who was in this instance working (illegally) on behalf of vital Israeli security interests.

No--responsibility for aggressively pursuing commutation of Pollard's sentence or a presidential pardon rests with Americans, and most specifically with our officially (if not always democratically) designated Jewish leaders--not so much religious leaders, who have often and publicly called for Pollard's release, but with the

spokesmen for public policy groups, such as the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. These have occasionally brought up Pollard's case in their periodic meetings with President Clinton, but always, as the Forward delicately remarked in 1996, "with great judiciousness." In late July of that year, meeting with the Conference of Presidents, Clinton responded with silence and a contemptuous smile to Seymour Reich, president of the American Zionist Movement, when Reich raised the question of Pollard. It later emerged that at the very time Clinton was airily snubbing the Jewish Presidents' concern, his spokesman, Michael McCurry, elsewhere in the capitol, was announcing that Clinton had once again rejected an appeal for clemency made on humanitarian grounds.

This incident was a clear indication that, despite the overheated claims made to the contrary by hostile left-wing journalists and timorous Jewish ones, the American Jewish community is not taken seriously in the White House. Clinton and his advisors know only too well just what issues are dear to the hearts of most American Jewish leaders. They are keen to show their support for the (comically named) "peace process," and for "better cooperation" between Israel and its "peace partner," even though anybody who still believes that the logical termination of this "process" and "cooperation" can be something other than the dismantling of the state of Israel would also be a likely customer for some choice real-estate in downtown Sarajevo. Many of these Jewish leaders also become irate over the difficulties that American Jews of the kind who are usually absent from their own synagogues for eleven and a half months of the year encounter when they demand co-ed prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Clinton understands that both of these Jewish "issues" are really ill-disguised attempts to bring down the Netanyahu government, an aim with which, as a former campaign manager for Shimon Peres, Clinton is entirely in sympathy.

For better or worse, however, these leaders are the only ones we Jews have with access to the president--and not only to the president, but to the vice-president who may very well succeed him, and to congressional leaders from both parties contending for the presidential nomination. Now, when the latest fallout from Weinberger's pro-Iraq policy threatens yet another catastrophe, would seem the suitable time for Jewish leaders to show leadership (rather than followership) in the case of Jonathan Pollard, and to indicate, clearly, unambiguously, and aggressively, that American Jews consider the issue one of the greatest importance to them--not only as a matter of fairness to Pollard, but as a matter

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