The President of the United States, George W. Bush, came to visit Israel and the local Natives Council was beside itself with joy. Ratings-shocked broadcasters and self-proclaimed experts became hoarse competing with each other, trying to come up with new and more original superlatives. Public activists (a.k.a. "leaders") knocked themselves out to outdo each other with even more exalted expressions of ecstatic flattery.


It is not every day that the president of the mightiest nation in the world comes here and

The state's disregard for Jonathan Pollard is a piece with the incredible callousness it demonstrates to his family.

tries to blow wind into the sails of a sinking ship of state by promoting the sale of political "visions"; and through blatant interference in local government affairs, influencing ministers and public opinion.


This was a well-planned visit, orchestrated right down to the last detail, to such an extent that the guest of honor was immediately able to single out Minister Eli Yishai amongst all the hand-shakers greeting him at Ben-Gurion Airport. Bush let Yishai know that he understands that he is supposed to have a long "intensive conversation" with the minister to convince him not to leave the government.


Amidst a frenzy of adulation and nauseating flattery surrounding the guest of honor, it seems as if one issue were forgotten - an issue more important than all the gala dinners and cocktails, an issue that is the most basic foundation stone at the heart of relations between the two nations; an issue more important than all the bombastic and sententious speeches in view of the cameras.


One issue was dispatched to oblivion as if forgotten; one issue was not raised during all the smiling meetings. It is now more than 8,000 days that Jonathan Pollard has been languishing in an American prison - a Jew who put his career and his freedom on the line when he passed information to Israel, information about non-conventional weapons of war being prepared by neighboring Arab states for use against the Jewish State. Vital information. Information of inestimable value that the government of the United States did not share with Israel despite its contractual obligation to do so.
The State of Israel rewarded Pollard by throwing him out of the Israeli Embassy (inside which he could not have been arrested) right into the waiting arms of the FBI, and into the maelstrom of an abandonment unprecedented in the annals of modern espionage. It is difficult to wrap your mind around the abandonment - providing evidence against him and denying all connection with him - which has been ongoing for 23 years.


At official meetings of this sort in the past, prime ministers have usually acquitted themselves by mumbling a few non-committal words about the issue for the record. Ariel Sharon went a step further when he refused to relay a petition to the US president signed by 112 members of Knesset (himself included). If Sharon successfully intensified the abandonment Jonathan Pollard, then his student and political heir, Ehud Olmert, had to outdo him by trying to prevent Minister Yishai from even delivering a letter on the issue from Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to the visiting president.


Even more disgraceful, it is not that Jonathan Pollard has merely been forgotten; he has been deliberately forgotten. The state's disregard for Jonathan Pollard is a piece with the incredible callousness it demonstrates to his family.


Even after Jonathan succeeded (by suing in Israel's Supreme Court) in gaining official recognition as an agent 13 years after he was captured, Pollard's name was never added to the list of captives at the Ministry of Defense. The State also refused to recognize him as a Prisoner of Zion. Thus, in both cases depriving him of all of his rights as an agent in captivity and absolving the government of all its responsibilities towards him. As a result, on the one hand, the American prison authorities are able to go on treating him like a common felon; while on the other hand, the State of Israel gets away with providing no assistance whatsoever, legal or financial, to him and his wife.


Other captives, as a matter of course, receive unlimited financial support from the state without any real reckoning. This occurs to such an extent that in the case of Elchanan Tanenbaum, a drug dealer who did business with the terrorist group Hizbullah and was held captive by the organization, his family (and his mistress) received full financial support while he was held in Lebanon. Only Esther Pollard, Jonathan's wife, does not receive any financial assistance whatsoever. She lives in a room in the apartment of a good-hearted Jerusalem widow who took her in.


Esther Pollard fell ill with cancer and the State of Israel - which, during the Second Lebanon War, generously offered free medical treatment to the Lebanese enemy who fought it - did not trouble itself to provide funding for her medical treatment.


Jonathan Pollard's legal case also receives no Israeli funding. Ever since Israel paid the lawyer who torpedoed Jonathan's case two decades ago - gaining for him a life sentence instead of the usual two-to-four years, and failing to file a notice of intent to appeal within 10 days, forever depriving Pollard of the right to appeal his life sentence - Israel has refused to fund any of the attorneys who fight for Pollard's freedom. Esther and Jonathan Pollard believe that the State of Israel has diminished Jonathan's status to that of a person who no longer exists, one whose existence can be completely ignored.


Jonathan Pollard is a captive. It's just his luck that he's no media darling, simply a captive with no star rating. The demand for his release dares to raise its head before our

Jonathan Pollard is a captive. It's just his luck that he's no media darling.

"greatest friend," the United States. That's why our Foreign Minister won't be standing outside the United Nations building making speeches on his behalf; and the Jewish Agency won't be launching an overseas campaign against indifference to his plight; and the post-modern State of Israel, divested of morality, continues to abandon its important agent to his fate.


Jonathan Pollard, the longest-held Israeli captive, in the friendliest (?) country, is now in very poor health. His long years of captivity in solitary confinement, in harsh conditions, sometimes in intense heat and sometimes in freezing cold, endless afflictions and living in a violent environment, have all taken their toll. His immune system has been destroyed, resulting in a host of serious ailments, including diabetes, high blood pressure and growths in his sinuses. He continues to be subjected to terrible afflictions, both physical and emotional.


From his miserable and distant prison cell at FCI Butner, Pollard hears the braying of the Israeli politicians heaping praise upon "the good friend" who could free him with a single stroke of a pen; watches the ingratiating embraces at the gala receptions, and feels abandoned all over again, for the who-knows-how-many thousandth time.


Israel's disgraceful treatment of Jonathan Pollard is a badge of shame for every Jew and for the People of Israel.


Originally appeared in Hebrew on the NFC website on January 16, 2008. Translated to English by Justice for Jonathan Pollard (J4JP).