If ever evidence were needed that Jonathan Pollard is not a Jewish hero, check his public newspaper interview of March 25 on dual loyalty: “The bottom line on this charge of dual loyalty is, I’m sorry, we’re Jews, and if we’re Jews, we will always have dual loyalty.”
The fact that the 30-year sentence of Pollard who, as an American citizen, spied for Israel was excessive should not have diminished the severity of his crime in the eyes of a wide swath of Jewish leaders in the US. Yet it did. Now Pollard shows his true colors — again. There is nothing new about Pollard in his recent statement, only that it is made not under the shadow of an unjust sentence.
That his sentence was likely imposed as a result of anti-Semitic bias somewhere along the line of his prosecution does not change his crime, his perspective, or his personality. Here is Pollard in full daylight, which was clear when he was convicted but afterward obscured by the claim that since he spied for an ally, it was no big deal; then by his excessive sentence.
Pollard’s crime was not a technicality, “spying for an ally.” The illogic in this exculpatory claim is this: Once one illegally passes confidential intelligence to anyone, including an ally, one does not know with whom the recipient might subsequently share the information — including an enemy of the US. With whom Israel did or did not share the information that Pollard provided will never be known. This is the nature of intelligence; and this is why Pollard’s crime was not a de facto technicality, why he should never have been accorded the status of a hero.
The bottom line is: Pollard compromised the most important diplomatic relationship Israel has — a penchant he has just done again. He has cast aspersions on every Jew in the US, just for being Jewish. He has validated the “dual loyalty” charge. That his words reflect only his own perverted sense of a Diaspora’s Jew’s citizenship in a democratic country does not limit the damage of his words. Israel’s enemies will have a field day.
Pollard further said in his interview, “If you’re outside Israel, then you live in a society in which you are basically considered unreliable.” As if it were possible to characterize every single society “outside Israel” with the same extremely broad brush. As if Jews in the United States have not enjoyed freedom on an historically unprecedented scale. Pollard’s own individual, personal, civic unreliability is again on display for all to see. Please, away with the spurious halo above his head!
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