BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 05:32 PM

Rabbi Sol, If Jonathan Pollard was spying for any friendly nation other than Israel, let us say Great Britian, Canada, Australia, or Ireland and his name was let's say, Murphy instead of Pollard, I don't think anyone would have started a thread about it here in the Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Alonzo M. Zilch (inactive)
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 05:31 PM

I made a mistake in my first post to this thread when I said, "a typical sentence in a case like this is 3-10 years in prison. Not life."

I've since done some more checking and have found that a typical sentence for such an offence is actually 2-4 years.

Other than Pollard, the stiffest sentence ever handed out for spying on behalf of a friendly country was to Steven Lalas, who spied for Greece. He got 14 years.

Michael Schwartz spied for Saudi Arabia. He was discharged from the Navy with no time served.

Peter Lee spied for China. He got 1 year in a halfway house.

Samuel Morrison spied for Great Britain. He was sentenced to 2 years and was released after 3 months.

Philip Selden spied for El Salvador. He got 2 years.

Steven Baba spied for South Africa. He got an 8 year sentence that was reduced to 2 and was released after 5 months.

Sharon Scrange spied for Ghana. Her 5 year sentence was reduced to 2 years and she was released after 8 months.

Jean Baynes spied for the Phillipines. She was sentenced to 41 months and was relaesed after 15 months.

Abdul Kader Helmy spied for Egypt. He got 4 years and was released after 2.

Geneva Jones spied for Liberia and got a 37 month sentence.

Frederick Hamilton spied for Ecuador and also got 37 months.

Joseph Brown and Michael Allen both spied for the Phillipines and got 6 and 8 years respectively.

Robert Kim spied for South Korea. He got 9 years and was released after 7.

Thomas Dolce spied for South Africa and got 10 years. He was released after 5.

The maximum sentence for Pollard's offense is now 10 years. He's already served double that amount of time.

And how about Albert Sombolay. He spied for Iraq during the first Gulf War. He got 19 years. Pollard has already served longer than that.

As the Rabbi said. Nobody is saying that Pollard was innocent. However, justice demands a sentence that is proportionate to the crime. By any stretch of the imagination, Pollard has done his time and paid his debt to society.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 05:07 PM

This is America in which I believe the operative phrase is "Equal Justice Under The Law". If Walker was still in prison serving life, I would not even have contemplated starting this thread. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 05:03 PM

Good question. Does one injustice justify another?

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 04:55 PM

Walker did the same thing, for an enemy nation. Why should he be walking around a free man ? SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 04:51 PM

He betrayed a trust. Let him rot.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 04:39 PM

Carol and Jack: If Jonathan Pollard was spying for any friendly nation other than Israel, let us say Great Britian, Canada, Australia, or Ireland and his name was let's say, Murphy instead of Pollard, I don't think the 2 of you would even be on this thread now.
The fact that a person's father is Jewish does not automaticaly make him Jewish. Jewish law states that the deciding factor is matrilineal descent, not patrilinial. Therefore since his mother was not Jewish, neither is he. If Casper Weinberger was indeed Jewish I am sure that the Saudi Royal family would not have had such lucrative dealings with the Bechtel Corporation that he is such a prominent part of, much like Cheney is with Haliburton. Weinberger is in fact despised as an avowed anti-semite in the Jewish community. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who is Jewish was never involved in the case, because it never got higher than the district court level. The fact that Pollard's inept original lawyer never appealed the sentence in the first place is what caused the statute of limitations to kick in and precluded any further appeals. No one is arguing that Pollard was innocent. Everyone, including his own father, agrees that he was guilty of the crime and deserved to be punished. The question is; Should his punishment be more harsh than someone like Walker who spied for the Soviet Union, which at that time was an avowed enemy of the United States? The other question is; Why did the US government renege on a guilty plea deal, based solely on the basis of a secret memorandum by Casper Weinberger that Pollard's attorneys were not allowed to see and defend him against? This is the same Casper Weinberger who a little while later had his own serious legal problems with the Government and had to pay a heavy fine. SOL ZELLER

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:59 PM

From this quote from Ariel Sharon in Pollard's website, I get the impression that the reason Pollard is still in jail is because the US wants Israel to return the documents and information Pollard stole from the US and gave to Israel, but Israel refuses to do so. My guess is that if Israel would return the stolen materials, Pollard would probably have his sentence reduced.

SHARON: "This is the worst problem. To tell the truth, it did not have to be handled this way. I can only say that it happened many years ago. At the time I had nothing whatsoever to do with the affair. It happened when I was no longer the Minister of Defense. I opposed commissioning an official investigation in Israel, but they told me that we had already promised [the US] that we would have one. Afterwards there was a discussion [in the Cabinet] and the idea came up about returning the documents. I was opposed and I said that we are sealing his fate to at least a life sentence. I don't want to say at this time what the other responses were, even from our own [Likud] people, because I do not want to cause any further pain."

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:43 PM

tried and convicted as an American but was sentenced and punished as a Jew.

Please explain this Rabbi-Sol.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:41 PM

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

No, my "ignorance" is in the small details and comes from Rabbi-Sol's assretation that he was being "punished as a jew". And from Pottard's website which seems to be blaming the Sharon governmnet for his confinement.

Does it matter whether he is in Tel Aviv or Tennessee? Previous Israeli governments have had the gall to request his release. They have made him a citizen and offer him haven upon his release. No doubt he will be treated as a hero if he is ever free in Israel. Forget justice, for a moment, think of harm it would do for US security if this were allowed to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:14 PM

I'm having some difficulty figuring out how this boils down to his being Jewish. Caspar Weinberger's father was Jewish, and Ruth Ginsberg, who is Jewish, was one of the Supreme Court Justices who upheld the sentance when it was appealed. Are you sure there aren't some other factors contributing to the severity of his sentance?

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 03:00 PM

Rabbi, I respect you and your learning.

I lived for sixteen years in South Bend, Indiana, where Pollard's father, Morris (an emeritus professor of biology), ran the Lobund Laboratory. Morris Pollard has worked for his son's release or, at least, a reduction to his sentence upon the same premise you make. Morris Pollard is a very, very nice and educated man.

While I cannot support injustice, neither can I support treason. Betraying the secrets of a country, whether or not you are a citizen of that country, is treason to the country you betray. It doesn't matter if the country you supply the secrets TO is a friend or foe.

J. Pollard was entrusted with certain secrets. He supplied those secrets, of his own free will, to Israel. He was convicted of that, and in my opinion his conviction was just and as I read your post you do not dispute that (neither does Morris Pollard).

Whether or not his sentence was just is a different story. If the punishment meted out to the Walkers was less than that given to Pollard, there is injustice. I suggest that the Walkers' punishment be the same as Pollard's.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Alonzo M. Zilch (inactive)
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 02:58 PM

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.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 02:25 PM

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. If Justice is to be served it will be by punishing the Walkers more, not Pollard less. Giving secrets to a so called ally, is much more worse than giving them to an enemy. We can't have every analyst second guessing their supierors. How could we stop someone from giving secrets to the Saudis, The Egyptians or any of our other allies? If that happens should the spying government be allowed to take the person under their wing and start working on his early release? Special treatment for Israel is wrong and it should stop immediately. Low level analysts have no business deciding what information another country is allowed to have. It is cowardly and foolish to allow so called allies to try to make heroes and martyrs of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 02:24 PM

If Israel is our friend and ally, why is she spying on us?

Subject: BS: Justice For Jonathan Pollard
From: Rabbi-Sol
Date: 23 Jul 04 - 01:51 PM

I would like to get all of your opinions on the plight of Jonathan Pollard, a man who was tried and convicted as an American but was sentenced and punished as a Jew. Pollard was convicted for espionage. He spied for Israel, a friend and ally of the United States. He pleaded guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence, but after a secret memorandum from Casper Weinberger, the judge threw out the deal and sentenced Pollard to a life prison term in solitary confinement. By contrast, people who have spied for the Soviet Union, an enemy of the United states (such as the Walkers), were allowed to walk free after serving only 10 years. Pollard, who has already served 20 years can not get access to the documents needed to appeal his sentence, even though his new lawyers have top security clearance. Do you think this is fair ? SOL ZELLER