Pollard Pardon

January 28, 1993 - The Jerusalem Post

Sir, - I am writing in regard to you editorial of December 28, "Pollard pardon due." Unfortunately a pardon will never occur. All the names you mention of those who spied and received lighter sentences for a greater crime are not Jewish. Had Anne and Jonathan Pollard spied for the Soviet Union, they would have been executed. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are the only spies executed for spying for the Soviet Union by the US. In the words of American district attorney Joseph E. Di Genova, " ... Putting the Pollards away will teach the Jewish community a lesson ..."

The trial was one that could have taken place in the Soviet Union or a banana republic. Weinberger tells the court " ... I can't tell you the extent of harm caused to the US by Israel receiving this information, but you have to believe me when I say the Pollards deserve the death sentence."

The US has a double standard for the Jews of Israel. Why should it treat Jews in its own country any differently?

The Anti-Defamation League won't plead on Pollard's behalf, because the organization fights antisemitism, and doing so, they believe, would promote it. The American Jewish Congress won't because it would hurt their tour business. AIPAC won't because it would lose friends on Capitol Hill. Rabbi Waldmann, the Executive Director of the Philadelphia Jewish Community Relations Council, could not have said it better: "We can not help a man who was found guilty by the courts."

Murdering Jews in the US is not a crime. Rabbi Meir Kahane's assassin got seven years on a weapons charge and is eligible for parole in two and a half years. The assassin of a Crown Heights rabbinical student is free of any charges of murder.

Jonathan Pollard's release should be on the agenda of every democracy-loving person. The greater tragedy is that there are still many people who did not learn the lessons of the Holocaust.

Marty Mensch,
Cherry Hill, N.J.