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PrintDecember 22, 2010
Pardon Pollard
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday that he had asked Barack Obama to release convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, who has been in prison for twenty-five years now, "half a dozen times," and would continue to bring up the issue.
That is good news. Pollard needs an advocate. He is seriously ill. Over the last few months he has faced very serious health problems. Just last week he was sent to the prison hospital three times.
That makes Netanyahu's advocacy for Pollard's case not just a simple act of justice -- which it is, since Pollard's punitive punishment is draconian, but also an act of mercy. This is a matter of saving a life, a Jewish life -- the life of a man worth saving.
Jonathan Pollard has now languished in prison for over twenty-five years, and for what? His life sentence for espionage is an abomination. Pure antisemitism. Pollard received his life sentence without a trial, as a result of a plea bargain, which he honored and the U.S. government violated.
And let's be frank, shall we? If Israel really wanted to spy on the United States, it wouldn't use a Jewish guy. There are numerous questionable aspects about Pollard's case, and yet this is his twenty-sixth year in prison, making Pollard the longest-imprisoned convicted spy in American history. The median sentence for the offense Pollard committed -- one count of passing classified information to an ally -- is two to four years.
So why has Pollard served so long?
Yet instead of releasing Pollard, Obama keeps releasing jihad terrorist murderers from Guantanamo. None of them had served as long as Pollard, and they were all sworn enemies of the United States, dedicating their lives to our destruction. And obviously, the Obama Gitmo release program is not working: ex-Gitmo inmates are returning to jihad in record numbers. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, or a community organizer, for that matter, to see that the soldiers for Allah, once released from Gitmo, are going right back to the battlefield to commit jihad for Allah and the domination of Islam.
And meanwhile, the Lockerbie Muslim bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, although he was convicted of the murder of 270 people with a jihad bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, was released last September, to cheers and crowds and the open arms of Libyan President Qadafi. Now he is in Libya, living the luxurious life of a Muslim celeb-jihadi.
At that time al-Megrahi was released (when he should have been executed), I called for Obama's impeachment, knowing full well that the Obama administration had to have known, had to have signed off on it, had to have approved his release. At the time, the Obama spin was that Megrahi's release blindsided Washington, and that the Obama Administration was appalled by the decision.
That turned out to be another lie, another betrayal and crime against the American people by the Post-American president.
Last summer, it was revealed that Obama Administration officials secretly advised Scottish ministers that it would be "far preferable" to free the Lockerbie bomber than to jail him in Libya.
More of Obama's transparency. He knew. He knew al-Megrahi was going to be released, and he didn't stop it.
Compare the case of al-Megrahi with that of Pollard. Remember also: al-Megrahi was supposed to be gravely ill - he wasn't. But Pollard really is. Where are our leaders calling for a special investigation into why Pollard languishes in prison while al-Megrahi lives in celebrity luxury? Where are the good and the decent and honorable elected officials who took an oath to protect and defend the American people? Who is watching out for the people? Americans were murdered in one of the most notorious Islamic attacks on America and the West, and Obama is compassionate to the jihadi while allowing the alleged agent of an ally to rot in prison?
This is anti-human and morally depraved.
Please call the White House -- several times a day if you can -- and ask Obama to do what's right and just, and grant an immediate pardon to Jonathan Pollard. The numbers are either 202-456-1414 or 202-456-1111 -- and make sure you speak to someone, don't just leave a message.
Please call the White House. Ask them to show some mercy.
Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author of The Post-American Presidency.
Pamela Geller is the editor and publisher of the Atlas Shrugs website and former associate publisher of the New York Observer. She is the author of The Post-American Presidency.
