Jonathan Pollard

[ReaganLiberal]

What do you think of Jonathan Pollard? Was he a traitor or a victim of anti-Semitism? Did he deserve his sentence? Does he still deserve prison?

My personal opinion is that an American's loyalties should be to the US only, even though every nation spies on every other. I also support that a spy's punishment should be commensurate with the damage he did and the countries' hostility towards the US and tougher punishments for US citizens who commmit treason. Intelligence experts say that Pollard caused untold damage towards the US.

[ihkili18]

If you think Jonothan Pollard deserved a punishment then you are one sick @#$%. We should throw your tuchis in jail and release Pollard immediately. Chaim has explained over and over again that Pollard saved America and Israel by providing info on the Iraqi nuclear program and enabled the destruction of it. Moderators, this shmuck needs to be banned. We already know his hero is Kevin Macdonald and now he is in favor of Jonothan Pollards imprisonment. Go to hell

[dawntreader]

Everyone also knows that former soviet spies have gotten off with a million times less of a sentence than Jonathan Pollard.

[kahaneloyalist]

Pollard is a true Jewish hero who risked his own life and freedom because of his love of the Jewish people. It is one of the greatest signs of the foolishness of the American-Israeli alliance. President Clinton himself admitted that Pollard hadnt done anything worth prison for. That is why he promised Bibi he'd free Pollard.

[ReaganLiberal]

If you think Jonothan Pollard deserved a punishment then you are one sick @#$%. We should throw your tuchis in jail and release Pollard immediately. Chaim has explained over and over again that Pollard saved America and Israel by providing info on the Iraqi nuclear program and enabled the destruction of it. Moderators, this shmuck needs to be banned. We already know his hero is Kevin Macdonald and now he is in favor of Jonothan Pollards imprisonment. Go to hell

I have strong disagreements with MacDonald. I read in a very pro-Israel neoconservative magazine Commentary about the Pollard case. Also, pro-Israel The Wall Street Journal, a New York paper with many Jews on its editorial board, expressed similar opinions about the harm Pollard caused to the US, and even Israel.
Either way, the Talmud says to follow the law of the land, and I believe in the policy of America First.

[Nic Brookes]

surely this is in the wrong section...

[dawntreader]

What Pollard did was actually GOOD for America. The retarded American State Department and others in high places (Who don't happen to be Jewish) have, at times, not given a rats ass about America. Or, if they do...it is only to advance some personal, hidden agenda. (Probably something to advance their political careers.)

Jonathan Pollard, by giving that info to Israel...SAVED thousands of Israeli lives...and by default, a lot of American lives too I am sure.

If you support America first...then it pays to support Israel. Those that don't are stabbing themselves in the back.

[Trumpeldor]

If anyone here actually believes he's a traitor, I recommend leaving JTF.

Go here instead: http://bnaielim.org/

[ReaganLiberal]

Pollard didn't cause damage to The United States. He was accused of leaking something to The Soviets but the person who was really responsible is now behind bars.

What Pollard did under Bolshevik law requires 2-4 years in prison. Under G-d's law, he doesn't deserve prison at all. Thank G-d that the black judge that sentenced him is not in Gehenom. "I guess he ate un-healthy food. I'm not going to say what he ate, but he ate un-healthy food." The quote is from Chaim from 4 years ago.

The people who sentenced him, such as Caspar Weinberger, were Jewish.
Why start baiting blacks? That is racist. Blacks will go to the same Heavens as whites.

The Talmud says to follow the law of the land. Pollard broke the law, even though we might have disagreed with it. I agree, however, that he shouldn't be punished as much as a spy for the Soviets.

What was the name of the actual spy who passed on the intelligence to the Soviets, if it wasn't Pollard?

[kahaneloyalist]

What Reagan refers to is Dina Malchuta shel Dina meaning the law of the King is the law. Under normal circumstances Jews must follow the law of the countries in which they reside. When the nation makes laws against the Torah, or it is a question of saving Jewish lives, the laws of the land are no longer binding.

Yaakov, I think Reagan should be given a second chance it is possible he is merely misguided rather then malicious.

[Trumpeldor]

I just banned the schmuck who started this thread.

Ehhh.

[Dr. Dan]

I just banned the schmuck who started this thread.

Ehhh.

reagan didn't say anything wrong yaacov.. be careful who you choose to ban....

[Lewinsky Stinks, Dr. Brennan Rocks]

America deserved an attack from the USSR for what it did to the AMERICAN patriot Pollard. 

[Dr. Dan]

sorry yaacov..i was looking regean liberal's other posts and yes..he looks like a baiter...good move banning him.

[ihkili18]

Forget about banning, if this shmuck said that Jonothan Pollard deserves what he is getting than this guy needed something a lot worse than getting banned. Good move banning him

[cosmokramer]

Pollard helped out a friendly country. This was just a modern Dreyfuss affair. He should be let go. IDK why Israel pushes the US to do so. But Israel, like the US is run by Bolsheviks. If anybody should be sued it should be Rafi Eitan. YM"SH

[mord]

First of all the word traitor gets thrown around alot,it's used in the military during a time of war with another country.Oh btw Former CIA chief disagrees with you Reagen Liberal    http://web.israelinsider.com/Articles/Politics/5454.htm

Woolsey: "Time to consider commutation for Pollard."
By Caroline Glick  May 2, 2005
 
 
James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, said in an interview with Makor Rishon that this is the right time to consider commuting Jonathan Pollard's sentence. We are fighting together on the same front in the war against terror, he said, and this is the time to pay attention to and show consideration for the sensitivities of the citizens of friendly democratic nations.

"Pollard," Woolsey explains, "may not have been a prime candidate for commutation, but 20 years is a very long time. At a certain point, it is time to ask if enough is enough -- and that is in regard to his release, not to diminishing the seriousness of his actions. There is an obligation to have a different approach to spies for friendly countries." Woolsey stresses that his words should not be construed as a recommendation for clemency, and says that when clemency requests are weighed it must be ascertained that deterrence has been achieved.

Woolsey began as CIA Chief in 1993. "I studied the Pollard file closely. My estimation at the time was that Pollard was not even close to being ready to be considered for commutation. At that time he had served a relatively short period of time in prison for a serious espionage case. Since then, he has served another 12 years. He has now been in prison for 20 years."

Claims that the information Pollard gave Israel was leaked to other countries such as China or the Soviet Union, are not true, said Woolsey. He explains that in his view, "the heart of the matter" was the US fear that Israel's own intelligence apparatus would be penetrated by hostile governments and that as a result the materials Pollard transferred, would be picked up.

"As for the quality of the information, in my opinion, at the time (1993) the material was broad-ranging and included information that did not relate solely to Israel's immediate security needs. Part of it, if it had found its way into the hands of a hostile country, would have presented a danger to the US ability to collect intelligence. No intelligence apparatus is immune to penetration, not even Israel's. If there had been some way to assure that only the two top Israeli officials would see the information, probably the US would not have been so concerned. At the time, there was a great deal of espionage activity all over the place. And the heart of the matter was the fear that the material he gave Israel could end up in the hands of a third country. This could have hurt the US ability to gather information."

The Secretary of State during the Pollard case, Caspar Weinberger, was the driving force behind Pollard's life sentence. Pollard signed a plea agreement and cooperated with his interrogators in return for a lighter sentence -- but Weinberger, as it was reported in the media -- claimed in a secret memo to the judge, that Pollard had done great and irreversible damage to the national security of the United States, and even caused the deaths of American agents.

The damage assessment in the Pollard case was carried out by Aldrich Ames, who at the time was a CIA bureau chief. Ames, who himself was exposed in 1994, was a Soviet spy. According to Angelo Codevilla, who at the time was an advisor to the Senate Defense and Intelligence Committee, Ames cast the blame on Pollard for much of the damage Ames himself had done to US national security and to its agents in the Soviet Union.

After the arrest of Ames, Senator Dennis Deconcini, the head of the Defense and Intelligence Committee wrote a letter indicating that was removing his objection to commutation of Jonathan Pollard's sentence. Weinberger himself admitted, in an interview in 2002 on the occasion of the printing of his memoirs, that the Pollard case was a "relatively minor matter" and that "it was made much bigger than its actual importance."

It appears that the disagreement in the United States surrounding Pollard's release revolves around two main arguments. The first argument: given that we now know that any damage caused by Pollard was insignificant, should he be freed in order to correct the injustice, or is it better to retain him as a bargaining chip? As Dennis Ross suggested to President Clinton during the negotiations at the Wye Summit in 1998, Pollard can be used to squeeze additional concessions from Israel for the PLO/Hamas Arab Muslim Nazis. The second argument: will the release of Pollard signal to the American Jews that is okay to spy for Israel, or has 20 years in prison been enough to achieve the goal of deterrence? 

[jdl4ever]

I support Pollard, but I know that the US has laws against spying against any country.  I understand that the US didn't want to send the message that spying is OK so I would understand if they would have gave him 3 years in prison, like I understand why the US put Chaim in prison even though Chaim was a hero like Pollard was.  Would you want every CIA agent to go giving unapproved info to allies (even if it is good for America)?  But life in prison was just an anti semitic smear campaign and we have to free him somehow.