The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71872   Message #1232368
Posted By: Alonzo M. Zilch (inactive)
23-Jul-04 - 02:58 PM
Thread Name: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
Jack the Sailor,

I'm afraid that your ignorance of this case has been blinded by your attitude toward Israel.

I believe that he should have been sentenced and punished as an American. I think it is disgusting that the US let the Israelis grant him citizenship and take him out of the country.

Last time I checked, North Carolina was in the United States, not in Israel. Pollard has never been taken out of the country. He's in solitary confinement in the federal prison in Butner, NC.

Special treatment for Israel is wrong and it should stop immediately.

Israel is certainly not receiving any "special treatment" in this case. If anything, as Rabbi Zeller pointed out, Pollard's spying on behalf of Israel, has been dealt with in a much harsher manner than what has been done by spies out to damage the US.

BTW, allies spy on each other all the time. We spy on Canada, Great Britain, Israel, etc. It's part of the realpolitik of the post-WWII world. In most cases, when a spy is caught in another country, he or she is sent home. A typical sentence in a case like this is 3-10 years in prison. Not life.

Pollard's big sin was not that he was spying. The information that he passed to Israel was not terribly significant, or at all harmful to the US. Pollard's big sin is that he's a Jewish American.

The extreme punishment that was dealt to Pollard was to prove to people like you that, despite the close relationship we have with Israel, they receive NO special consideration.