Jonathan Pollard has written an emotional appeal on behalf of Noam Federman, whose ‘administrative detention’ was recently renewed for another six-month period. Federman is currently being held without formal charges against him.
In his letter, written from his U.S. prison cell, Pollard declared that, “the imprisonment of Noam Federman, without recourse to due process, blurs the moral distinction between Israel and her non-democratic neighbors in the region.”
Pollard warns that if Federman can be jailed for his beliefs then no Israeli citizen is safe from such treatment. “If, without having broken any law, Federman can be deprived of his freedom, his family, and his livelihood indefinitely, merely because his belief system differs from that of the largely non-religious, non-nationalist political and security establishment,” writes Pollard, “ then no citizen of Israel is safe from persecution.
The incarceration of Noam Federman “calls into question the very raison d'etre of the state of Israel,” according to Pollard’s broad condemnation. “The State of Israel came into being upon the ashes of the Holocaust – which witnessed the humiliation, incarceration and murder of 6 million Jews,” Pollard writes. “The new state was conceived as a haven for Jews, a place where we could finally live without fear of being hunted or persecuted for our beliefs. Federman has committed no crime. He was never indicted, never tried. But he has been jailed for two successive terms in ‘administrative detention’ and subjected to the harshest conditions the Israeli penal system can mete out.”
“Are his religious and political convictions now reason to lock him away without
charges?” asks Pollard. “To afflict him? To deprive his family of husband and father? To prevent him from earning a livelihood? To cancel all social security benefits for his wife and children - a punishment that even the families of (Israeli) Arab suicide bombers are not subjected to?”
“The imprisonment of a nation begins with the unjust detention of a single individual,” concludes Pollard. “If the State of Israel is permitted to select - according to narrowly defined personal or political interests - whom it will afflict, whom it will uproot, whom it will betray, whom it will abandon, whom it will detain, and whom it will punish without due process, then it will effectively undermine its very foundations.”
Pollards complete letter can be read on the IMRA web site.
In his letter, written from his U.S. prison cell, Pollard declared that, “the imprisonment of Noam Federman, without recourse to due process, blurs the moral distinction between Israel and her non-democratic neighbors in the region.”
Pollard warns that if Federman can be jailed for his beliefs then no Israeli citizen is safe from such treatment. “If, without having broken any law, Federman can be deprived of his freedom, his family, and his livelihood indefinitely, merely because his belief system differs from that of the largely non-religious, non-nationalist political and security establishment,” writes Pollard, “ then no citizen of Israel is safe from persecution.
The incarceration of Noam Federman “calls into question the very raison d'etre of the state of Israel,” according to Pollard’s broad condemnation. “The State of Israel came into being upon the ashes of the Holocaust – which witnessed the humiliation, incarceration and murder of 6 million Jews,” Pollard writes. “The new state was conceived as a haven for Jews, a place where we could finally live without fear of being hunted or persecuted for our beliefs. Federman has committed no crime. He was never indicted, never tried. But he has been jailed for two successive terms in ‘administrative detention’ and subjected to the harshest conditions the Israeli penal system can mete out.”
“Are his religious and political convictions now reason to lock him away without
charges?” asks Pollard. “To afflict him? To deprive his family of husband and father? To prevent him from earning a livelihood? To cancel all social security benefits for his wife and children - a punishment that even the families of (Israeli) Arab suicide bombers are not subjected to?”
“The imprisonment of a nation begins with the unjust detention of a single individual,” concludes Pollard. “If the State of Israel is permitted to select - according to narrowly defined personal or political interests - whom it will afflict, whom it will uproot, whom it will betray, whom it will abandon, whom it will detain, and whom it will punish without due process, then it will effectively undermine its very foundations.”
Pollards complete letter can be read on the IMRA web site.