What we’re doing, they haven’t attempted to do. They haven’t pressured the Israeli government.
A new grassroots organization is petitioning the Israeli government for the release of Jonathan Pollard. The Chicago-based New Jonathan Pollard Committee, part of the Eretz Yisrael Committee is pushing a petition, which has already received 500 signatures since going online on Tuesday.
Leaders of the two committees intend to present the petition to Gershon Kedar, the Midwest’s Deputy Consul General of Israel, after his planned speech on February 21 in Chicago.
There have been objections to the new campaign from Rabbi Pesach Lerner of the National Council of Young Israel, and the Committee to bring Jonathan Pollard Home. However, both organizations refuse to give clear reasoning for their objections.
“They call me dangerous to Jonathan Pollard’s release,” Yosef Rabin, spokesman of the grassroots organizations, told Israel National News. “They told me to stay out of it. I assured them that I would remain silent until the end of President Bush’s term,” Rabin said.
Rabin was hoping until the last minute of President Bush’s term that Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying for Israel, would receive a presidential pardon. The grassroots leader feels that American Jewish organizations should pressure Israel to secure Pollard’s release. “After all, he was their spy, their operative,” Rabin stated. “What we’re doing, they haven’t attempted to do. They haven’t pressured the Israeli government. All the Israeli government has to say to the American President is chatanu, we have sinned,” Rabin clarified.
Rabin feels that recent statements from the official Pollard camp have indicated that the new unofficial campaign is on the right track in its attempt to pressure the Israeli government.
An email sent on Thursday by the official Jonathan Pollard website stated, “Jonathan Pollard is right to blame Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni especially for the failure to obtain his release from prison after over 22 years in prison. The Pollard case must become an imperative for the Israeli government and the entire U.S. Jewish community; and its leaders must reflect that urgency beginning right now."
Jonathan Pollard told his wife Esther on January 21 that he was "very disappointed" that Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni did not act to help bring about his release during her meeting with President Bush during his last days in office. In spite of the massive campaign to pressure Bush to pardon Pollard, the former president left Pollard to continue serving his life sentence.
Pollard blamed President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Livni for his remaining in jail since November 1985. He especially singled out Livni because of her positive relationship with the Bush administration.
"Regarding government leaders such as Olmert, Barak, Livni and Peres, their disinterest in an Israeli agent was stunning," Esther Pollack quoted her husband as saying.
When Esther Pollard was asked on Radio Kol Chai this past January what is missing in the equation to secure her husband’s release, Esther Pollard responded that the support of the Government of Israel was lacking. "We had every advantage in the world, but we had no support and no participation from the Government of Israel...If the Government of Israel has no interest in the release of its agent, why should Bush bother?" Esther Pollard asked.
Rabin stated that the last serious attempt of the Israeli government to release Pollard was when Binyamin Netanyahu, as part of the Wye Summit, requested it from the U.S. president. "The same Jewish government gave thousands of terrorists for two dead soldiers. What is wrong to make a request to get back Pollard alive?" Rabin added, “If we don't put immense pressure on the Israeli Government, how will the Pollard case become an imperative for the Israeli government? In any event, we are marching forward and all are welcome to join us in trying to redeem our imprisoned brother, Jonathan Pollard.”