The Pollard-Wye Fiasco A Blow To The Jewish Right

Somewhere in early October, news of Pollard's imminent release were circulating. The Clinton administration was floating trial balloons for sometime to gauge the media reaction to such a move. According to sources in both Netanyahu's and Clinton's administration, Jonathan Pollard was supposed to receive a pardon few weeks after the signing of the Way Memorandum.

Brimming with confidence, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu  "leaked" to the press Clinton’s intentions to review Jonathan Pollard’s case and eventually pardon the spy.  Shortly after this revelation an avalanche of phone calls, faxes, and letters flooded the White House communications centers as well as Congress calling for the rejection of any review or pardon.

With quite diplomacy eliminated, the Clinton administration was left with no choice but to retract in the face of mounting public outcry. That was not the end of the Pollard-Wye affair.

The outcry was so enormous against the release of Pollard even right wing Republicans called upon the president to reject the notion of a review. Putting the administration on the spot did not endear Netanyahu to key Clinton advisors who saw it as political black mail at the eleventh hour of the Wye negotiations.

Even when aggressively courting the Jewish vote, the Republicans knew where to draw the line. Jewish votes and financial support are highly coveted but not at the expense of the mainstream vote that views Jonathan Pollard as a pariah which needs to be punished for his treason.

As a spy for Israel, Pollard leaked secret US satellite images including those of the Palestine National Council complex in Tunis. The photos enabled Israeli warplanes to violate Tunisian airspace and bomb PNC's headquarters in a 1985 raid that resulted in numerous Palestinian and Tunisian civilian deaths.

The classified documents Pollard handed to the Israelis included sensitive data on American intelligence networks in the Middle East. This effectively put every US operative in the Middle East, including Arab operatives, at the mercy of Israel.

Combined, CIA mole Aldridge Ames and American spy Jonathan Pollard debacles have severely undermined US intelligence efforts at recruiting operatives around the world and have exposed US intelligence assets to danger. To the underground world, no covert operation will be secure in the hands of US intelligence bureaucrats. In Pollard’s case, no one knows the extent of the damage yet but it was described as incalculable by US intelligence experts.

Political pressure by the Jewish right was applied to stop or contain the release of such damage reports in an effort to win Pollard’s release. To muddy the waters on the legal front, Pollard was granted Israeli citizenship by Netanyahu in 1996 hoping to win his release as a foreign spy instead of his current status as an American traitor.

Jewish political leaders have relentlessly lobbied successive US administrations for Pollard’s release to no avail. The political risks are too high for any American official to undertake this unprecedented step and pardon a US spy. Few wish to go down in US history on Pollard’s account.

So serious is the Pollard's preach of national security that even Newt Gingrich, a darling of the Jewish right, dubbed Jonathan Pollard the most dangerous traitor in American history. Then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger described the damage caused by Pollard as the greatest the US ever suffered.

But in reality the greatest damage to US national security was dealt by American spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and Morris and Lona Cohen who sold US nuclear technology to the Soviets in the 50s. Shortly thereafter, the USSR detonated their first atomic bomb followed by a hydrogen bomb breaking the American monopoly on nuclear armament and setting in motion the dynamics of the Cold War.

Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence officer was later apprehended by US authorities in 1985 as he rushed to the entrance of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. His former wife was also arrested for being an accessory.  He has been serving a life sentence since 1987, when he was convicted on charges of treason and espionage for passing sensitive US information to a foreign government. Pollard is currently serving his life sentence in federal prison in Butner, North Carolina.

Sources close to the Pollard investigation left little doubt as to the dire consequences of releasing the US spy to the Israelis. They insist even after his release, Pollard can undoubtedly cause severe damage to US national security given what he knows and who he knows.

While Netanyahu's impertinence is to blame for the administration’s swift rejection for a pardon, Jewish leaders saw the Republicans undermine whatever chances they had in winning Pollard’s release. With Gingrich leading the pack against any review or pardon, Jewish leaders were disillusioned at their abandonment by the Republicans whom they though would jump at the opportunity to win Jewish votes in an election season.

The Republicans proved conventional wisdom wrong in no uncertain terms. Embracing Pollard would have been political suicide in the 1998 elections. Both parties have decided it's safer to sacrifice the Jewish vote in 1998 than to alienate the mainstream vote. Instead of a partisan race to win Pollard's release as the Israelis hoped for, both parties were racing to condemn any such moves. The shock of rejection and its aftermath still reverberates in the Jewish American community.

The Pollard-Wye faux pas has undoubtedly left a bitter taste for the Jewish American community. It fed into their concerns that all politics are local and transient. Winning Pollard’s release has been a central issue for the Jewish community in the US. And after the wave of negative publicity, it seems less tenable than ever for an American administration to stick its neck for a spy let alone one of Pollard’s caliber.

In the aftermath of the Pollard affair, many Jewish American leaders have been exposed to troublesome questions of loyalty. Admittedly, it is rare for loyal citizens of a country to campaign for the release of a traitor. It was also a reality check for mainstream Americans both Democrats and Republicans as to the political perils of unconditional support for Israel at the expense of US security.

The failed bid to release the Jewish spy has led the Jewish American leadership to reevaluate its presuppositions as to how far it can or should go in twisting arms. Some Jewish Americans have expressed concern at what they consider a reckless and misguided attempt to channel Jewish American clout in full view of the American public in a bid to win the release of what most Americans legitimately consider a traitor.

After decades of success at yanking the US out of international consensus on issues pertaining to the Arab-Israeli conflict often at a great cost to US stature and interest, the sense of overconfidence led right wing Jewish leaders to assume they can wield similar influence over the release of an American traitor such as Pollard. They were proven wrong.