Exclusive Interview with Jonathan Pollard
By Charley J. Levine - Hadassah Magazine - March 2006

America's best-known Jewish prisoner has passed the 20-year mark of his
unprecedented life term. Fervently supported by some, still vilified by
others, but largely ignored by most American Jews, he prays for the day that
will see his release. Charley Levine traveled to federal prison in Butner,
North Carolina-which Pollard good humouredly refers to as his 'gated
community'-to conduct this unprecedented, revealing interview.

Q. You pled guilty two decades ago to one count of passing classified
information to a friendly country, Israel. and have expressed remorse. But
who is guilty today that you are still in prison, serving more time for that
act than any other American citizen in history?

A. Unfortunately, I have to say the state of Israel. The political
leadership. The Mossad. Not the regular people. And the leadership of
American Jewry and those US government officials who exploit this case to
call into question both the loyalty of America's Jews and the value of
Israel's strategic alliance with the US. To this long list, I must add a
number of US Congressmen and Senators who do in fact understand the
miscarriage of justice that has taken place in my case, yet have chosen to
remain silent.

Q. There is more at stake here than 'just' Jonathan Pollard's imprisonment?

A. Yes. The essence of my case goes to the promise made by George Washington
centuries ago, in the historic Touro Synagogue, that America's Jewish
citizens will always be treated equally in this new society. My
constitutional rights have been grossly violated, for political reasons, but
principally because I am a Jew.
My main accuser was then Defense Secretary Casper Weinberger who has
subsequently admitted that my case was "a very minor matter " but that it
was blown up out of all proportion to serve other ends. President Clinton's
Mideast negotiator Dennis Ross has also acknowledged in his book that my
sentence was too harsh and that I deserve to be freed unconditionally..
Anyone interested can find the source materials and original quotes on our
website at www.jonathanpollard.org. Despite these critical admissions by key
American officials,, here I am, still sitting in prison. I have been reduced
to a kind of political currency. In my case, the legal process has sadly
been totally corrupted. This is not just me claiming this, it is Weinberger
and Ross-two people who definitely know the inside story-saying it for all
to hear. They have nothing to gain from their candor, yet they couldn't be
any clearer. What more do people need to bring them to confront the demons
of this case?

Q. Walk me through your typical day in Butner.

A. I wake up at 5 AM. I daven. I go to breakfast and come back to work as an
orderly in my unit. That means I preoccupy my time with washing windows,
waxing floors, cleaning toilets. I squeeze in radio time, mainly the BBC and
NPR. I have some breaks and read voraciously: The New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, Jerusalem Post, The Economist, Washington Post, MIT
Technology Review and a full range of Jewish publications. I read books. Now
I'm reading a biography of Orde Wingate, the Christian Zionist supporter of
the Yishuv before the state was created. He was a remarkable man. I write
every single day, in longhand, since we have no computer, much less Internet
access, about projects I want to do, things I would like to build in the
future. I call my wife Esther at least once a day, but only for a few
minutes since I'm limited to 300 minutes maximum each month. I have lunch,
and keep reading and writing once work finishes at 3:30 PM.

Q. Esther is very worried about your health.

A. Unfortunately there is cause for concern. My blood pressure is off the
scale. I have high cholesterol, Type II diabetes, chronic rheumatic
arthritis, symptoms of pre-glaucoma, severe gall bladder attacks, unbiopsied
growths in my sinus cavities, in addition to severe chronic sinusitis which
is often marked by bleeding, dizziness, nausea, and blinding headaches. Just
to name a few.

Q. Is there any sense of Jewish community in this facility?

A. No.. Regrettably all kinds of weird people here say they are Jews for
reasons that are spurious and self-serving. To the best of my knowledge,
there are only two or three actual Jews in this prison. I try to keep to
myself. I have learned that I cannot trust anyone, but I do have a very
small number of "friends".

Q. What do you eat?

A. Real kosher food is virtually non-existent. I am able to buy some limited
items such as rice crackers and canned tuna from the commissary out of my
own pocket. If and when it is available on the prison menu, I try to eat
tofu and soy products,-- no matter how badly they massacre it in the
preparation.. Other than that I end up eating lots of rice and beans. I am
grateful to Rabbi Pesach Lerner of the National Council of Young Israel who,
in spite of endlesss obstacles, tries valiantly tries to help me maintain my
religious needs, ranging from financial assistance for buying kosher food to
holiday and spiritual needs.

Q. Is any of the material that passed through your hands in the 1980s still
relevant today, from an intelligence point of view?

A. Absolutely not. The very definition of intelligence must indicate that
there is no longer one shred of relevance today, more than two decades
later..

Q. Then why did the National Security Agency go to the trouble of sending
down an agent from Maryland today to monitor our conversation, who is
sitting here with us?

A. You'd have to ask him.

Q. What possible beef would the US intelligence community have with you
other than the obvious violation of their trust?

A. They made a conscious decision to use me as a weapon against the Jewish
community and especially against AIPAC [CL: the Israel lobby organization in
Washington, DC, some of whose former officials are today under indictment
for charges not unlike Pollard's]. These people oppose the 'special
relationship' that historically bound America and Israel together. My
treatment was a means to an end, a way to end the role of Israel as a
natural ally to the US. Why would this happen? One must ask who would want
to challenge the 'special relationship.' The answer could range from
traditional anti-Semites who disdain both American Jews and Israel, to
other interests that are players in the American foreign policy, be they
Arab regimes or oil interests.

Q: Do you have any idea where the idea originated of parlaying your sentence
from the usual 2 to 4 years, into a unprecedented life sentence? Who
initiated the plan to use your life sentence as means to call into question
Israel's reliability as an ally, and the loyalty of the American Jewish
community?

A. That question was actually answered publicly in 1998, in an article by
none other than JJ Goldberg, who is now the editor of the FORWARD. He wrote
quoting high level sources in Washington who indicated that it was the joint
Chiefs of Staff who engineered my sentence - working through Caspar
Weinberger to communicate with the sentencing judge. These high ranking
sources stated clearly that my sentence had nothing to do with my guilt or
innocence, but was intended solely to send a message to American Jews.

Q. In some pre-interview research, I came across a lot of invective-filled
articles in the press by Seymour Hersh. He is a well-known journalist. What
got him crusading against your very cold case?

A. He is a guy who facilitates agendas of various parties in exchange for
scoops. He writes diatribes in the guise of journalism. Hersh is a very
dangerous person: a liar whose reportage is devoid of an ounce of truth. He
turns leaks, lies and fables into alleged 'journalism'. And yet, ironically,
even HE quoted former CIA chief George Tenet confirming that no information
I ever gave Israel compromised the safety of any US agent or was released to
any third party beyond Israel. Even he did not distort this critically
important fact.

Q: Another thing that caught my attention during my research phase is the
sheer volume of letters of support from Jewish Organizations over the years
calling for your release. Can you comment?

A: These letters to the President and resolutions calling for my release
from every major Jewish Organization are quite a phenomenon. Not because so
many were written, but because of the consistent failure of the Jewish
leadership to follow up on what they had written. They issued these
statements to relieve pressure from their membership, pressure from the
grassroots, and then just walked away from them.
Lest there be any doubt, let me add: every year Jewish leaders are invited
to the White House to meet with the President to discuss issues of concern
to the Jewish Community. In the 20 years that I have been in prison, my name
has never once been on the official agenda of the Jewish leaders going into
the White House. The operative word here is "official". Successive
administrations have noted the Jewish leaders' lack of concern for me, have
drawn the appropriate conclusions and acted accordingly.

Q. What has been your lowest point in prison? Has there been any similar
high point that you can point to, also?

A. My low points were clear: the day my mom died. The day my mother-in-law
died. And the day that my wife Esther was diagnosed with breast cancer. The
high point was definitely my unauthorized marriage to Esther which has
sustained me ever since.

Q. Speaking of family, I understand there is a strong Hadassah connection?

A. For sure! My grandmother Yetta Klein, of blessed memory, was a big
regional founder and leader in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in her day. The
women on both sides of the family were heavily into Hadassah and most,
including my own mom, were life members. Both parents in fact were always
Hadassah boosters.

Q. You've had a long time to envision your first day of freedom. What does
that look like?

A. I want to be alone with Esther and talk to her. Without time constraints,
without constant supervision. I want to embrace Esther and kiss her the way
a man should when he is holding his reason for living in his arms. I want to
take her by the hand and walk towards our future together, under an
incredibly blue Jewish sky. I hope to create a Jewish home and family in
Israel.

Q. And your longer-range goals?

A. I want to be a productive Israeli. I would love to pursue projects
involving effective utilization of water and energy, and I study these
issues in depth in prison to prepare for that day. I very much want to
create a work environment for me in our home in Israel, as a means of
enabling me to be close to Esther. In this way and through these efforts, I
intend to leave a better legacy for the name Jonathan Pollard than I have
done until now.

Q. Back to the Middle East. What concerns you most in the region to which
you hope to move?

A. I am especially troubled by Iran's march to nuclear weaponry. I realize
that this is a function of its quest to secure domestic energy needs, but
the dark side is definitely the destructive powers they covet acquiring. In
the 30's Hitler told everyone who would listen what he wanted to do to both
the world's democracies and to the Jewish people. The world paid no
attention to his threats. Today the world has a second chance to prevent the
kind of death and insanity represented by Iran's current leadership before
they have a chance to carry out their wild threats. But the world needs the
will to enforce effective economic embargoes and sanctions and the
willingness to act immediately to prevent the Iranian nuclear option. This
is an American challenge more than any other.

Q. You see no Israel initiative looming, such as Begin's strike against
Iraqi atomic work at Osirak?

A. I have little faith in Israel's political or military leadership to act
unilaterally, and this in and of itself is a great failing, a tragedy. But
our hopes must lie in this case with the international community's will to
take action. I am also not insensitive to the regular people in Iran, many
of whom favor democracy. The US must reach out and strengthen them. But this
must be divorced from the more muscular strategies required to contain and
prevent Iran's going nuclear, strategies which only America is capable of
leading. There is also an extremely important and related need to develop
alternative energy capabilities in places like China and India which would
go a long way toward lessening Iran's influence amongst other countries. To
the extent that practical, abundant alternatives to Iranian natural gas are
created, it will be increasingly easier to deny Iran political as well as
practical support.

Q. What's your take on the war in Iraq?

A. I think it is incredible that this is the very first American President
since John F. Kennedy who has made building democracies around the world a
national US priority. People may disagree over the tactics, but I don't see
how anyone can deny that this is one of the noblest goals that America can
possibly have.

Q. Do I detect a positive reading for President George Bush?

A. I have no doubt that the President means well. He is trying to do his
best in the face of very difficult challenges. I think we should cut him a
little slack as he does his utmost to strategically defend the United States
both domestically and internationally.

Q. I don't usually offer the microphone to our interviewees, but in light of
the circumstances, what message would you like to tell the people reading
this?

A. I am asking every single person to become actively involved and to help
in whatever way they can to secure a measure of justice in my case. Doing so
will bring honor to both the United States and the American Jewish
community. I also urge every reader to communicate their concerns about the
injustice of this case to their Congressman and Senators. As well, I
implore everyone who is in a position to do so, to support the heroic
efforts of my pro bono attorneys, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, in
their valiant struggle to secure my constitutional rights as an American
citizen. May we, as a People, merit to see justice speedily and finally
done, and the open wound which has festered for 20 years be healed, for the
good of both America and Israel. .Thank you!

About the author: Charley J. Levine, a veteran media relations consultant
based in Jerusalem serves as CEO of Ruder Finn Israel. He writes for a
number of publications, including the Jerusalem Post and Hadassah Magazine,
where this exclusive interview was originally published (March 2006).

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