Dear Family & Friends,

This is just the beginning of those who wish to & can unravel the lies & intended harms that have been visited upon Jonathan Pollard. Yes, he is out of jail but, he is not ‘released’. On a YouTube in TimesOfIsrael.com he was walked out of the prison by a very tall imposing guard holding his arm in a vise-like grip, who asked loudly: “You’re wearing your ankle…?” Jonathan Pollard has to wear a GPS electronic ankle bracelet so he won’t run away???!!! How bizarre is the United States of America?!!!

Too many of today’s journalists & their employers are still employing the smear words against Jonathan Pollard. Even casually, calling him the American Jewish Spy for Israel…etc.

PLEASE NOTE! Jonathan was not indicted for or convicted for Spying, or being a Traitor, or Spying against the United States. He was indicted & convicted for one count of passing classified information to an Ally, Israel, who was entitled to receive the information about existential threats from Arab armies, their arms capabilities, their intentions against Israel, according to the successive MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) signed by successive American Presidents. Israel was supposed to be told exactly what existential weapons & plans the Muslim Arab world had & planned to use against her.

During his non-trial (no jury, just Judge Aubrey Robinson a South African black who was biased against Pollard), the MSM (Main-Stream-Media) slammed him with every prejudicial smear they could create (or were fed by the US government): Greed, Helping Israel for money, Drugs, Alcoholism, & a few more vicious ones. All were disproven & Pollard’s testimony was declared truthful because he survived all the polygraph tests they threw at him. But, the Media never got the memo. He was NOT a SPY!

He was accused of causing the deaths of approximately 10 Agents for America in the Soviet Union. An American CIA agent was tasked with discovering who betrayed the American Agents. That agent sent to find the treasonous agent was actually Aldrich Ames who was the agent who betrayed the 10+ American agents.

Jonathan Pollard was buried in jail (his first year & a half were in a jail for the criminally insane, many floors below the earth, with no Kosher food, no fresh air, a jail cell infested with vermin & water). We were told that the main reason he was so treated & buried for Life-with-no-Parole was that he exposed President George Herbert Walker Bush’s first Iran-Contra deal of “Arms-for-Hostages” because it looked as if a ship carrying arms in the Middle East was smuggling arms to Arafat’s PLO. And he was being violently pressured to reveal who was his secret American Jew – the alleged recipient of his secrets.

His first wife, Anne Pollard was also jailed, although Jonathan’s plea bargain NOT to challenge any of the charges was so Anne, who was very ill would NOT go to jail & her severe medical problems would be cared for. Anne was used as a Blackmail Chip against Jonathan & Jonathan was used as a Blackmail Chip against Israel & the Jewish people in America as well as Israel.

With the draconian restrictions slapped on him now, it looks like the Obama Administration is still using Pollard as a Blackmail Bargaining Chip against Israel. That is to say, IF Israel doesn’t do what Obama orders, Jonathan Pollard can be found to have broken his parole (with any excuse) & whipped back into jail. \

So, this is a very deep story with (as they say) ‘legs’. It’s very exciting for today’s Media to trumpet such an outrageous story. They never seem to question whether it is true or fair. Read deep & decide for yourselves.

Also have a sweet night & blessed, safe day. All the very best, Gail/Savta/Savta Raba x 2/Mom

Our Website has a very deep & wide collection on Articles, Features & OpEds that my husband, Manny Winston, z’l, wrote since the first day Jonathan was arrested.

View: The Pollard Book listed at the bottom of the last Summary page:

1.Three decades of US lies about Jonathan Pollard unmasked

2.Come home by Michael Oren

3.Arlene Kushner “Beyond” November 22, 2015

4.Ahead of release, Pollard supporters pan tough restrictions

6.Analysis: Pollard’s tragedy of errors By GIL HOFFMAN

7.After 10,956 days in prison, Jonathan Pollard is free

11/19/2015 23:35

1.Three decades of US lies about Jonathan Pollard unmasked

By ELIOT LAUER, JACQUES SEMMELMAN Jpost.com 02/26/2015 21:04

After nearly three decades, in light of the government’s perfidy, the only conceivable way to provide a belated measure of justice is to end Pollard’s incarceration immediately.

Jonathan Pollard. (photo credit:Courtesy)

A recent breakthrough in the case of Jonathan Pollard has shed powerful light on the injustice of his continued incarceration.
Key portions of a critical classified document, on which the US government has relied as its justification for keeping Pollard in prison for nearly 30 years, have been declassified.
As a result, longstanding government assertions that this classified document contains the proof that Pollard caused unprecedented harm to US national security when he delivered classified information to Israel have now been exposed as utter falsehoods.
On November 13, 2014, after years of litigation, the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), granted our appeal on behalf of our pro bono client Jonathan Pollard, and ordered the declassification of significant portions of a Declaration that had been submitted to the court in 1987 by then-secretary of defense Caspar W. Weinberger in connection with Pollard’s sentencing.
Pollard had imparted classified information to the State of Israel. He was arrested in 1985. In 1987, Pollard was sentenced to life in prison, largely on the basis of the Weinberger Declaration.
Since then, the government has stridently invoked the Weinberger Declaration as its basis to oppose executive clemency or parole for Pollard.
The government has asserted that Pollard should not be released from prison because the Weinberger Declaration establishes that Pollard caused greater harm to US national security than had ever occurred previously. The government has been able to present this harsh characterization of the Weinberger Declaration without fear of contradiction, as no one representing Pollard has been allowed to see the Weinberger Declaration since the day he was sentenced.
For all these years, virtually the entire Weinberger Declaration has been kept under seal by the government under the rubric of “classified information.” The government has fought fiercely to prevent the two of us – Pollard’s security-cleared counsel since 2000 – from seeing any of the classified portion of the Weinberger Declaration, even under the strictest security conditions.
The recent disclosures ordered by ISCAP show that the government has been dishonestly hiding behind the mask of “classified information” to materially mischaracterize the nature and extent of the harm caused by Pollard. The newly disclosed material shows that any harm that may have been caused by Pollard was in the form of short-term disruption in foreign relations between the United States and certain Arab countries. That is not at all the same thing as harm to US national security, and it was dishonest for the government to pretend that it is.
The government’s deception had its most blatant and prejudicial impact at Pollard’s parole hearing held in July 2014, during which the government invoked the Weinberger Declaration and – without showing it to the parole commission – urged the commission to accept its representation that the document substantiated more harm to the national security of the United States than had ever occurred previously. In its decision denying parole, the commission took the government at its word, and essentially parroted the government’s characterization of the Weinberger Declaration when it wrote that Pollard had caused “the greatest compromise of US security to that date.”
That is an outright falsehood, and the recent revelations prove it. The newly disclosed portions reveal the substance of the Weinberger Declaration, which is devoted to the possible effect of Pollard’s actions on US relations with Arab countries.
Thus, it is now revealed that Pollard provided Israel with information concerning the “political-economic affairs of Middle Eastern nations,” various “Middle Eastern orders of battle,” and the “technology of Soviet weapons and radar systems” used by various Arab governments. The potential consequence to the United States of Pollard’s conduct is described by Weinberger as “a high probability of harm to the foreign relations of the US with friendly Arab nations.”
While the phrase “damage to the national security” is used as a section heading, what appears below it is, once again, in the nature of potential impact on foreign relations. For example, Weinberger bemoans the fact that Pollard provided information that enabled Israel to conduct a “successful strike on PLO headquarters in Tunisia” while “avoiding contact with Libyan Air Forces.”
In the same section, Weinberger decries the fact that Pollard “provided information on Soviet built air-to-air missile systems and Middle East air orders of battle,” even while acknowledging that “[s]ince Israel depends for its national security on control of Middle East air space, much of this information was considered vital, and, as Col. Sella [of the Israel Air Force] remarked, was not previously possessed by Israel.”
At Pollard’s sentencing, the government submitted a Victim Impact Statement, the instrument designed by law specifically to allow the victim of a crime – in this case the government itself – to describe to the sentencing judge the full harm suffered. The VIS says nothing about harm to US national security.
The VIS focuses on relations with Middle Eastern countries, and on the lack of a quid pro quo for information the United States would have preferred to barter with Israel: “Pollard’s unauthorized disclosures have threatened the US [sic] relations with numerous Middle East Arab allies, many of whom question the extent to which Pollard’s disclosures of classified information have skewed the balance of power in the Middle East. Moreover, because Mr. Pollard provided the Israelis virtually any classified document requested by Mr. Pollard’s co-conspirators, the US has been deprived of the quid pro quo routinely received during authorized and official intelligence exchanges with Israel, and Israel has received information classified at a level far in excess of that ever contemplated by the National Security Council. The obvious result of Mr. Pollard’s largesse is that US bargaining leverage with the Israeli government in any further intelligence exchanges has been undermined. In short, Mr. Pollard’s activities have adversely affected US relations with both its Middle East Arab allies and the government of Israel.”
The VIS thus reflects friction between the United States and “Middle East Arab allies,” and temporary reduction in bargaining leverage by the United States. It says nothing at all about harm to US national security, and certainly does not allege, in words or in substance, that this was the greatest compromise of US national security up to that time.
Those who have opposed relief for Pollard have asserted that the VIS merely describes what could be shared with the public, and that grave damage to US national security is documented in the secret Weinberger Declaration. This has now been proven false. The Weinberger Declaration is merely a more detailed version of the VIS.
The revelations also dovetail closely with the disclosures in another recently declassified document, a 1987 CIA study of the Pollard case. The CIA study concludes that Pollard supplied Israel with information regarding Arab and Pakistani nuclear intelligence, Arab military capability and weaponry (including biological and chemical weapons), Soviet advisers in Syria and Soviet training of Syrian personnel, the PLO’s Force 17, and a radio signal notation manual requested by Israel to help in the decryption of intercepted communications of Soviet military advisers in Damascus.
Tellingly, the CIA study specifically states that Israel never requested information from Pollard concerning “US military activities, plans, capabilities, or equipment.” Thus, both recently disclosed government documents, as well as the VIS, point to the same conclusion: Pollard’s activities may have ruffled feathers in the Middle East, but there was no material impact on US national security.
The government’s unconscionable deception has deprived Pollard of his freedom for too many years. The document brandished by the government to implement its scheme, hidden from scrutiny until now, has finally been exposed for what it is: a description of a brief, long-forgotten blip in foreign relations, not a frightening exposition of unprecedented harm to US national security.
After nearly three decades, in light of the government’s perfidy, the only conceivable way to provide a belated measure of justice is to end Pollard’s incarceration immediately. President Barack Obama has the solemn duty to uphold the law of the land by finally putting a stop to this ongoing travesty. There are no more excuses. The president should exercise his constitutional power and grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard.
Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, litigation partners at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP, have been Jonathan Pollard’s pro bono attorneys since 2000. Lauer has 41 years of experience as a civil and criminal litigator. Semmelman has 31 years of experience, and was formerly a federal prosecutor in New York.

3.Arlene Kushner “Beyond” November 22, 2015 It’s lovely to begin with some good news: On Friday, Jonathan Pollard was released from the federal prison in Butner, N. Carolina on parole. He wasn’t “freed,” as some reports had it. He still must adhere to the rules of his parole, which has been granted at the end of 30 years of a life sentence.

But he is out of prison, and with his wife, Esther. And that is a great deal to be grateful for.

Credit: Telegraph (UK)

Pollard served an inordinately (a ludicrously) long time for one count of having passed classified information to an ally of the US, “without intent to harm the United States.” What is more, the information he passed was information that the government of Israel was entitled to receive from the US, according to a 1983 Memorandum of Understanding.

In the end, I cannot find any rationale for how he was treated other than anti-Semitism. And now a hostile attitude seems to pervade the draconian terms of his parole, as well: He must check in regularly with his parole officer and cannot leave New York City (never mind come to Israel); he must wear an electronic bracelet so that he can be tracked, and is subject to unfettered surveillance of his computers (which will inhibit his ability to get a job). All of this stringency is supposed to be to prevent him from passing classified information. But he has had no access to classified information for 30 years, and anything he knew back then would be worthless now. What sort of charade is this?

Pollard’s lawyers will be challenging these terms. He is prepared to renounce US citizenship, if allowed to come to Israel; there is precedence for this.

Journalists do get very foolish, sometimes, when seeking a line for a story. “How does it feel to be out?” he was asked. Brilliant question. How do these journalists think it feels?

My opinion is that we should leave him alone for some period of time. Allow him to re-adjust. Wish him many years ahead – years of reasonable health, and much contentment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I wrote my “reluctant posting” on Thursday, immediately informing readers about the latest terror attacks, I did not yet have much information. That information followed later.

I had written that one American Jew had been killed. Now I can tell you that it was Ezra Schwartz, 18. And what was he doing near the entrance to Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion when he was killed? He was volunteering to hand out food to soldiers.

Say again: He was handing out food to soldiers.

This is beyond our ability to comprehend.

Courtesy

Ezra, who was from Sharon Massachusetts and had recently graduated from the Maimonides School in Brookline, was studying this year at Yeshivat Ashreinu in Beit Shemesh.

His body was brought home for burial. May he rest in peace.

Also dying in that attack was Ya’akov Don of Alon Shvut, a father of four and a teacher who worked as an educational coordinator at the Derech Avot high school in Efrat.

Alon Shvut put out a statement: “He loved education and more than anything loved his students. A man of education and smiles.”

Courtesy

Don’s wife is a teacher in a high school in Alon Shvut – as it happens, the high school from which my granddaughter graduated this past June. And so she travelled to the funeral, and I was filled with an enormous sadness, that our young people – growing up so quickly – do this routinely. The outside world does not know, I thought. Does not know.

At the funeral, his wife said, “I thank God for the 22 happy years we had together. From heaven, please pray to God to give us strength.”

While his son said, “I don’t understand why and how you aren’t here anymore. How a person like you could be murdered because of this evil. Teach me how to be optimistic at times like these.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/at-funeral-slain-teacher-remembered-for-warmth-dedication-to-students/

You’ve heard me speak again and again about the extraordinary strength of the Israeli people. And here you have it.

And please note, not once do you hear a cry of surrender, a determination to leave this land and be done. In the face of this ultimate hardship there is determination.

There is so much else I had intended to write about, but in the end decided it could all wait. I would not be properly honoring those who died – and those who loved them – if I didn’t focus on them for just one posting: and perhaps helped people outside of Israel to understand.

© Arlene Kushner. This material is produced by Arlene Kushner, functioning as an independent journalist. Permission is granted for it to be reproduced only with proper attribution. If it is reproduced and emphasis is added, the fact that it has been added must be noted. See my website at www.arlenefromisrael.info Contact Arlene at akushner18@gmail.com

TimesOfIsrael 4.Ahead of release, Pollard supporters pan tough restrictions

US spy for Israel is barred from leaving country, banned from using Internet, will reportedly be forced to wear GPS tracker

BY AP November 20, 2015, 5:26 am 5

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2015 KISLEV 9, 5776 11:09 PM IST

MORE ON THIS STORY

NEW YORK — Former spy Jonathan Pollard is set to be released from a federal prison in North Carolina on Friday, 30 years after he was caught selling American intelligence secrets to Israel. But he’ll be on a short leash as he rebuilds his life as a free man.

Pollard, 61, was given a life sentence in 1987 in a case that has complicated diplomacy between the two countries.

He’s expected to settle in the New York area while he spends at least the next five years on parole. He will be barred from traveling outside the country, including to Israel, without permission. Many in Israel view him as a hero.

Both the Justice Department and Pollard’s lawyers have so far declined to discuss his parole conditions, but one longtime supporter, Rabbi Pesach Lerner of New York, told a radio interviewer this month that Pollard would have to abide by a curfew and wear a GPS unit to track his movements.

He has also been ordered to stay off the Internet, Lerner said, which could complicate his ability to hold a job.

“We’re concerned that maybe they are trying to set him up so they can say he broke his parole and send him back,” Lerner told Nachum Segal, who hosts a program on Jewish affairs on WFMU in New Jersey. “They’re keeping the reins on him very tightly.”

Standard rules for federal parolees would also restrict Pollard’s travel within the US.

Pollard’s lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said in late July that they had secured employment and housing for him “in the New York area,” but they haven’t revealed any details.

Several of Pollard’s longtime supporters declined to talk about their thoughts on his impending release or his plans for the future this week, saying they didn’t want to say anything potentially provocative when he was so close to freedom.

“After all this time, we want him to get out without any difficulties of any comments in the press,” said Kenneth Lasson, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who supported Pollard’s bid to have his sentence shortened.

The details of when he will travel to New York, following his release from the federal prison in Butner, North Carolina, or where he will be living and working, are still being kept private.

“I’ve been working with Mr. Pollard for 20 years, and even I don’t know where he is going or what he will be doing,” said Farley Weiss, the president of the National Council of Young Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the US to allow Pollard to move immediately to Israel, Israel Hayom reported Thursday.

Two New York congressmen, Reps. Eliot Engel and Jerrold Nadler, have also written US Attorney General Loretta Lynch, saying that Pollard should be allowed to renounce his American citizenship and emigrate to Israel.

Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy, was arrested in 1985. He pleaded guilty a year later. Over the decades, the possibility of his early release had been dangled as a bargaining chip in the Middle East peace process.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press.

‘It is something that has broken my heart to this day’

30 years after she and her then-husband were arrested for spying for Israel, as he finally goes free, Anne Pollard says she wants to ‘see, talk and meet with Jonathan’

BY TIMES OF ISRAEL STAFF November 20, 2015, 10:24 pm

Anne Pollard, the former wife of Jonathan Pollard, returns to Washington for the first time in 30 years, in an interview aired November 20, 2015. (screen capture: Channel 2)

MORE ON THIS STORY

Anne Pollard was jailed for five years for spying for Israel, alongside her then-husband, Jonathan Pollard, who received a life sentence. When she was released, she told Channel 2 television in a special interview aired Friday, she received divorce papers out of the blue, with no prior warning.

The Pollards were arrested in 1985 in the US for espionage. She served three and a half years, and her former husband was released Friday morning, after serving 30 years. To mark the occasion, Anne Pollard returned from Israel, where she now lives, to Washington, DC, where they were both arrested almost exactly 30 years ago.

“I came here with a purpose, to see Jonathan,” she said. “Not just to see Jonathan; I came here to see, talk and meet with Jonathan.”

After Anne’s parole, Pollard filed for divorce, apparently claiming that he did not want her to wait for him as he expected to spend the remainder of his life in jail. But once the divorce finalized, Pollard married his current wife, Esther, who had worked on the campaign to secure his release.

“It is something that has broken my heart to this day, because I sat for years in jail, focused on getting out, focused on having a life, a future with my then-husband, having a family with him and moving forward with our lives,” Anne Pollard told Channel 2. “I never… envisioned being divorced today. And coming here back today to watch Jonathan leaving prison after seeing 30 years. It’s mind-boggling.”

She said she had never spoken to Pollard about the end of their marriage. “I have no closure with the divorce.”

With a Channel 2 camera crew accompanying her, Anne Pollard returned to the Israeli embassy that she said threw them out when they had been discovered by American law enforcement officials, and left them to pay the price for spying for Israel.

“It’s very hard for me to go back to this spot,” she said. “Because my whole life changed. Everything changed from this place.”

Standing outside the embassy, Anne Pollard accused Israel of abandoning her and her then-husband. “This is where the knife really went deep into the back,” she said. “That’s how I would describe it.”

She recalled the moment that they were apprehended. “You know it’s bizarre, it’s 30 years and I remember it like yesterday,” she said.

On the day that they were discovered, she said, their Israeli handler telephoned her as FBI agents were “tearing the house apart.” She told him that they had “very unexpected company” and deliberately called him by the wrong name. “He understood,” she said, claiming that he got on a plane to Israel immediately after the call.

She said that they were clearly told what to do: “‘Go to the Israeli embassy, at 10 am,’… and that’s exactly what we did.”

“The gate [to the embassy] was open at exactly 10 o’clock. They [Israeli officials] told us to come… They knew exactly who Jonathan and I were that day… No Israeli embassy in the universe leaves their gate open and lets a car drive through unless they know crystal clear who you are.”

But when they arrived, she said, armed Israeli officials told them to leave, and they were forced to face the FBI agents waiting for them outside the gates.

“It was obvious they were going to arrest us,” she said. “I feel like they really stole our lives.”

Anne Pollard also had damning words for the “top echelons” of Israel at the time. “Not one of them extended a hand,” she said.

In the interview, Pollard pointed out the apartment in which she and her husband had lived, and where they began to transfer classified data to the Israeli government.

“I was very, very happy here,” she said, before correcting herself as she recalled the espionage: “In retrospect, that’s not happy at all,” she said.

She said she remembered the first time that Jonathan came home with documents to be copied. “He brought it to meetings that they had in an apartment [near the Israeli embassy]. He would bring the information up there, they would copy it and return it here,” she said.

Anne Pollard said that she remembers what the material was, but told her interviewer repeatedly: “I can’t tell you.”

The deception came to light when one of Pollard’s colleagues reported seeing him removing documents from his office. The Pollards were seen to be living a lifestyle beyond their means, and the FBI began to investigate.

The two were arrested outside the embassy & Jonathan Pollard remained in jail for 30 years, until Friday.

6.Analysis: Pollard’s tragedy of errors By GIL HOFFMAN

JPost.com 11/20/2015 15:11

Jonathan Pollard on forthcoming release: ‘I’m looking forward to being reunited with my wife’

Jonathan Pollard, the last spy

After a ‘perfect storm’ of mistakes on multiple sides, it’s the mundane legal act of parole that will grant Pollard his freedom this weekend.

Dictionaries define William Shakespeare’s tragedies as his plays dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, especially one concerning the downfall of the main character.
Shakespearean comedies, by contrast, are defined as his plays that have happy endings.
Plays have already been performed about Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard, and a Hollywood film is said to be in the works. But his story does not fit either category.

Pollard’s life story has been absolutely tragic until now. There could still be a happy ending for him, but nothing can erase the events of the past three decades.
Pollard was released from Butner, North Carolina, prison after serving one day less than 30 years of his life sentence for passing classified information to an ally.
There could still be a last-minute change of plans by the US parole commission, which would not be surprising, only because Pollard has been about to be released so many times in the past.
The conditions for Pollard’s parole were not revealed officially at press time, but they were expected to include limitations on his movement and communication. He will not be giving interviews, which he did not want to do anyway, and he will be banned from using the Internet, which is virtually impossible to enforce.
The most serious limitation set to be imposed on Pollard is that, barring unforeseen circumstances, he will be prohibited from leaving America for at least five years. Unless Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request of US President Barack Obama to allow Pollard to move to Israel unexpectedly bears fruit, Pollard’s dream of moving to Israel will apparently have to wait.
If that will indeed be the case, the campaign for Pollard’s freedom that has gone on for 25 years will shift to a struggle for his freedom of movement to the Jewish state. Perhaps Pollard himself will lead that effort, after his voice was unheard for so long, but he will most likely stay silent.
“Jonathan is not free yet,” his rabbi, National Council of Young Israel emeritus executive vice president Pesach Lerner, told Hamodia. “He won’t be free until he is standing in Jerusalem at the Western Wall, making his blessing of thanksgiving to God, with the people of Israel standing behind him to answer Amen.”
A campaign urging Obama to allow Pollard to move to Israel would not have a good chance of success, after decades of lobbying Democratic and Republican presidents to commute his sentence failed completely. In retrospect, neither of the two scenarios that were seen as most likely to bring about Pollard’s early release materialized.
There was no successful presidential persuasion, despite efforts by Israeli and American politicians, former heads of the CIA and FBI, and past confidants of Obama. Nor was Pollard freed as part of a prisoner exchange involving Palestinian terrorists or Israeli diplomatic concessions to an American president, which nearly happened at least twice.
Instead, what apparently will enable Pollard’s release is a dry legal procedure, known as parole. Parole is defined as the release of a prisoner before the completion of a sentence, on the promise of good behavior.
In this case, Pollard cannot go free completely, because although American life sentences are currently for 30 years, when he was sentenced they were for 45.
“Nothing in this case with the government is automatic,” Pollard’s lawyer Eliot Lauer told The Jerusalem Post.
“The statute required parole after 30 years, unless the government would establish to the satisfaction of the parole commission that there is a reasonable probability that Jonathan would commit a new crime upon release.”
Lauer said that for several months he and his fellow pro bono attorney Jacques Semmelman pressed the government and made several submissions, but it was not until six days before Pollard’s July 7 parole hearing that the government finally acknowledged it would not contend that upon release he would commit new crimes.
The parole commission at that point said it did not have to follow what the government was submitting, and the decision needed to be made by the parole commission aided by a full hearing. The hearing proceeded and on July 28 the commission rendered its decision for parole.
The decision was surprising, in light of the unsuccessful effort to bring about parole for Pollard a year ago.
Despite intervention by former president Shimon Peres with Obama, the parole commission’s rejection letter, which the Post exclusively obtained, was harsh in tone.
“The breadth and scope of the classified information that you sold to the Israelis was the greatest compromise of US security to that date,” the letter said. “You passed thousands of Top Secret documents to Israeli agents, threatening US relations in the Middle East among the Arab countries.”
The parole commission complained that had it not been for Pollard, the US could have received intelligence from Israel in return for the information he had provided. Given all this information, “…paroling you at this time would depreciate the seriousness of the offense and promote disrespect for the law,” the letter concluded.
When Lauer asked then whether the US government would once again oppose Pollard’s parole this July, a commission official replied, “Absolutely, vigorously” – indicating that it would be no different than the hearing that had just concluded.
Former senior US officials with firsthand knowledge of the classified files in the Pollard case wrote Obama protesting the parole commission’s verdict and its reasoning. They wrote that the parole process was flawed and unjust, and that the charges the commission leveled at Pollard were not supported by any evidence in the public record or the classified file.
It is unlikely the letter was the reason the parole commission did an 180-degree about face from one year to the next. The more likely reason is that last year’s review was a special one requested by Pollard’s lawyers, while the review after 30 years is standard.
Obama made clear when he came to Israel in March 2013 that Pollard’s release would come about via standard legal procedures.
“I have no plans for releasing Jonathan Pollard immediately, but what I am going to be doing is make sure that he – like every other American who has been sentenced – is accorded the same kinds of review and same examination of the equities that any other individual would be provided,” Obama told Channel 2 anchorwoman Yonit Levi in an interview on his visit.
The fact that others who committed the same crime as Pollard on behalf of different countries received sentences of two to four years did not appear to move Obama.
Nor did years of legal mistakes and alleged misconduct that resulted in Pollard never having a trial or an appeal.
The list goes on an on: The plea agreement the US prosecution violated by seeking a life sentence; the one-page appeal request form his lawyer of Lebanese descent, Richard Hibey, did not file on time; and the repeated failure to persuade the courts to reopen the case all kept Pollard in prison unnecessarily.
There were also political errors that resulted in the backfiring of two attempts by Netanyahu to bring about Pollard’s release in return for Israeli diplomatic concessions to US administrations, which preferred to keep holding him as a bargaining chip. Pollard himself also missed opportunities where he apparently could have helped himself had he behaved differently.
Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai, who heads the Knesset’s pro-Pollard caucus, said Israeli governments could have cooperated better with American legal authorities following Pollard’s 1985 arrest.
“The Americans see him as a special case,” he said. “Maybe it was because it’s Israel, and maybe because of the quality of the information he provided. What he did deeply upset the US, and I have never understood why.”
World-renowned criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who represented Pollard after his appeal was not filed, blamed Pollard’s 30 years in prison on a toxic combination of American injustice and politics and US Jews’ indifference.
“It’s all about politics,” Dershowitz said in a phone interview. “He should have been out after five years. This is not a man who received justice.”
Dershowitz singled out the plea agreement with Pollard that was breached by the prosecution at the request of then-defense secretary Caspar Weinberger, & CIA chief George Tenet threatening to quit if Pollard was released as part of the 1998 Wye River Accords. Dershowitz told US president Bill Clinton at the time that Tenet’s objection was political & illegal, & the CIA head should have been fired for it.
According to Dershowitz, American Jewish leaders also cannot escape responsibility, because they were initially frightened by charges of dual loyalty, which caused them to fail to stand up for their fellow Jew. The Jewish leaders eventually changed their tune and united for Pollard’s release, but it was much too late by then.
“In this case, everybody made mistakes,” Dershowitz concluded. “It was a perfect storm.”

MK Nahman Shai: Committee ‘won’t rest’ until ex-spy [NOT A SPY] allowed to move to Israel, but Knesset speaker limitations may be lifted ‘if we don’t make waves’ By Marissa Newman & Agencies TimesOfIsrael.com 11/20/15, 10:23 am

[We always have to “Not Make Waves”]

Religious Jews in Israel, the most vocal and consistent backers of clemency for Pollard, at a protest on March 19, 2013 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Marissa Newman is The Times of Israel political correspondent.

RELATED TOPICS

MORE ON THIS STORY

The Knesset caucus dedicated to Israeli-American spy [NOT SPY] Jonathan Pollard vowed on Friday that it would continue to work to ease Pollard’s parole restrictions which, among other things, prevent him from moving to Israel.

In a letter to Pollard, who was freed on Friday morning from a North Carolina federal prison after serving a 30-year jail sentence, caucus chairman MK Nahman Shai congratulated him on his release and pledged to combat any “violation” of his rights.

“Jonathan, the Caucus will not cease its activity until we remove the limitations imposed on you upon your release. We continue to demand the removal of any restriction on your freedom of movement, communication or other violation of your rights,” he wrote.

“We will not rest until you are free to depart the United States for any destination of your choosing, first and foremost — Israel.”

Jonathan Pollard is freed from prison after 30 years. November 20, 2015 (Courtesy/Justice for Jonathan Pollard)

Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein, who has visited Pollard twice in prison, told Army Radio he hoped to see the released spy “whenever he chooses, whenever he is able to, here in the State of Israel.”

Edelstein said Friday was a “happy day filled with sadness,” adding that Pollard should have been freed long ago. “It’s too little, too late,” he said.

Jonathan Pollard, pictured December 17, 1997, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina. (AP Photo/Ayala Bar)

The Knesset speaker hailed the low-profile release and said that “if we don’t make waves” then “it’s possible that he will be able to fulfill his dream and come here, leaving behind all the suffering he endured.”

As part of the restrictions, Pollard cannot leave the US for five years. The American-Israeli spy is said to be willing to renounce his US citizenship in order to immigrate to Israel. While Pollard’s attorney had expressed hope that the president would use his executive powers to let his client leave the US, administration officials said last week that Obama would not intervene.

Both the Justice Department and Pollard’s lawyers have so far declined to discuss Pollard’s parole conditions, but one longtime supporter, Rabbi Pesach Lerner of New York, told a radio interviewer this month that Pollard would have to abide by a curfew and wear a GPS unit to track his movements.

He has also been ordered to stay off the Internet, Lerner said, which could complicate his ability to hold a job.

“We’re concerned that maybe they are trying to set him up so they can say he broke his parole and send him back,” Lerner told Nachum Segal, who hosts a program on Jewish affairs on WFMU in New Jersey. “They’re keeping the reins on him very tightly.”

Standard rules for federal parolees would also restrict Pollard’s travel within the US.

Pollard’s lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, said in late July that they had secured employment and housing for him “in the New York area,” but they haven’t revealed any details.

Ahead of Pollard’s release, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu barred his ministers this week from publicly discussing the parole, government sources told Hebrew-language media on Wednesday. Sources close to Netanyahu said the prime minister considered the matter to be a “very sensitive issue,” and the directive was an effort to prevent a spat with Obama for not commuting Pollard’s life sentence.