Gross injustice
Obama should have worked to keep Pollard jailed
American-born Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard will walk free from a U.S. prison in November, and the decision of the Obama administration not to stop him is a gross injustice to the American people.
Pollard, who has served nearly 30 years of a life sentence for espionage against his own country, was a U.S. civilian intelligence analyst who sold thousands of classified documents to Israel and other countries. He disclosed some of the intelligence community’s most highly guarded information on sources and methods and he endangered the lives of undercover agents.
A succession of presidents have resisted major pressure by Israel, where many consider Pollard a hero, to have the spy released. Although that policy continued last year when the Obama Justice Department vociferously opposed his request for parole, the executive branch was conspicuously silent several weeks ago, when Pollard had his latest hearing before the U.S. Parole Commission. The commission had even invited the administration, months earlier, to tell what impact Pollard’s parole would have.
The prisoner’s lawyers put on a full-court press this time, using letters and statistics to argue that he had met the conditions for release — good behavior in prison and no likelihood of espionage again. The Obama administration, through the Justice Department and its intelligence agencies, could have mounted the obvious counter-argument: that Pollard was so skilled and resourceful as one of the nation’s most notorious spies that he could still be a conduit of classified material. The slightest risk of that would make the case for keeping him behind bars for life.
But the administration was silent, and the parole commission announced Tuesday that Pollard had satisfied his legal obligations for release. He will leave the federal prison in Butner, N.C., on Nov. 20.
Speculation about why the administration broke with its past opposition to Pollard’s parole centers on President Barack Obama’s desire for approval of the agreement reached between world powers and Iran on scaling back its nuclear program. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vehemently opposed the deal and lobbied Congress heavily on it.
Whether Pollard’s freedom mollifies Mr. Netanyahu or not (we don’t think it will), it’s a raw deal for Americans. They were betrayed for a sack of silver by one of their countrymen, and Mr. Obama should have held his ground on keeping Pollard locked up. This would have been the perfect time to argue that life in prison means life.