Obama most literally holds the key to Pollard’s cell. It behooves Peres to
persuade Obama to use it.

Another tack: Those who deny freedom
By SARAH HONIG The Jerusalem Post 06/07/2012 21:54
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=273113

US President Barack Obama fancies himself in grand Lincolnesque terms and
avers over and over that Abraham Lincoln is his model. Quite shamelessly
invoking the Great Emancipator, Obama chose to kick off his first
presidential bid on February 10, 2007, in Springfield, Illinois, just where
Lincoln voiced his historic challenge to slavery in June 1858. And honing
the comparison with a characteristic deficit of humility, after his
electoral victory Obama took his family with much pomp to the Lincoln
memorial.

But, for all of Obama’s blatant manipulation, it’s not that superficial
similarities don’t exist. Like Honest Abe, Obama cuts a thin, lanky figure
and sports oversized ears. None too- modestly Obama considers himself a
master-rhetorician, a supreme crisis-manager, if not the outright shining
beacon of liberty. There’s absolutely no denying that Obama is a dab hand at
stagecraft and expediency.

Milking the advantageous analogy for all it’s worth, Obama’s inauguration
speech theme was lifted with abundant conceit from a line in Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address: “a new birth of freedom.” Obama just loves the word
“freedom.” With theatrical flair he enunciates it liberally at every
occasion.

That in mind, it would therefore be reassuring to assume that never far from
Obama’s awareness is what Lincoln wrote in 1859: “Those who deny freedom to
others deserve it not for themselves.”

At this point in time the only man who denies Jonathan Pollard freedom is
Obama.

It’s in the power of the US president to finally do the long overdue right
thing and set free the man who now languishes in his 27th year of
imprisonment for passing American intelligence (about inimical third
countries – Iraq, Libya, and the then-PLO headquarters in Tunis) to a
friendly country (Israel). He should have been freed way back, without
linkage to his declining health.

Making a sadistic example of Pollard for nearly three decades intrinsically
contradicts the most elementary notions of justice and freedom.

This is something for our president, Shimon Peres, to be mindful of when he
is awarded the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom – America’s highest
civilian award – on June 13.

As a collective, we Israelis can convincingly conjecture about Obama’s
motives for thus honoring Peres precisely as the race for the White House
heats up. Nonetheless, we’d willingly suspend our not unjustified cynicism
were the mutually beneficial presidential ego massages accompanied by a
genuine gesture of freedom. We’d like nothing better than to set skepticism
somewhat aside and bask in the outwardly warm glow of rare affection for an
otherwise serially vilified nation.

Watching Peres wined and dined, feted and gloried (with all four living US
ex-presidents partaking in the gala event), could afford us such a nice
break from the disparagement and defamation that are our daily lot in the
international arena. It’s tempting to forget our own exasperations with the
real Peres as we knew him over the years (not always for the best) and join
carefree in the celebration.

But we’re not free from care.

According to the 1987 Eban Commission Report (the Knesset committee
appointed to investigate the Pollard affair), Peres – prime minister when
Pollard was arrested in 1985 – played a pivotal role in the evolving
misfortune.

When the story hit the press, Peres conversed with then-secretary of state
George Schulz in an attempt at damage control. He lamely denied any
knowledge of the operation and undertook to do everything in his power to
assist the Americans in prosecuting the suspect they had just apprehended.

Instead of defending Pollard – his agent – or negotiating for his release,
Peres essentially delivered Pollard to the prosecution. There’s no mincing
words. Peres lied barefaced when he told Americans that Pollard was a
freelancer who had purloined secrets for profit.

Also according to the Eban Commission Report, Peres was the one who handed
over to the Americans all of the documents that Pollard had provided to
Israel. These documents were surrendered, significantly, with Pollard’s
fingerprints still on them.

This was crucial. Without these documents, there would have been no case
against Pollard, no hard evidence. Without Peres’s direct collusion, Pollard
would have likely walked or had his wrist reprovingly slapped. He certainly
wouldn’t have been sentenced to life behind bars.

This is the first and only time in the recorded history of modern espionage
that a country had cooperated in the prosecution of its own agent abroad.

Assistant US attorney John R. Fisher underscored the centrality of the
evidence Israel handed over. Writing in the “Government’s Opposition to
Motion to Reduce Sentence” (June 17, 1987, p. 10) Fisher elucidated:
“Cooperation was not forthcoming in this case until several months after
[the] defendant’s arrest. Indeed, [the] defendant agreed to enter a guilty
plea and cooperate only after government attorneys and investigators
returned from Israel with additional evidence of [the] defendant’s guilt.”

Fast forward 27-plus years: The man who arranged for the delivery of
evidence essential to forcing Pollard to plead guilty is ironically to
receive a “freedom” medal from the man who continues to deprive Pollard of
his freedom. That sadly is the dishonorable bottom line of the travesty. But
it’s hardly all of it.

The punishment meted out to Pollard was from the outset scandalous. It was
disproportionate in the extreme, especially considering the fact that he
never put American agents or interests at risk, that he never divulged
anything involving America but clued in a fellow democracy about the
machinations of its enemies, which happened to have also been America’s
enemies.

Appreciably lighter punishment was meted to assorted US spies for greater
offenses, including those involving tangible and severe security hazards to
America.

The fact that Pollard was treated so ultra-harshly by any existing legal
yardsticks and the fact that his tribulation is still ongoing, despite his
age and infirmity, isn’t just pointlessly cruel. The departure from all
punitive precedents in his case smells foul. It’s difficult to escape the
impression that the only reason Pollard was over-punished and is still
denied his freedom is because he’s Jewish.

Although Pollard’s life term is unparalleled for transferring classified
material to an ally, no US administration in nearly three decades
countenanced pardoning him. This, despite the fact that in 1991, Pollard
publicly apologized and expressed further remorse in a 1996 open letter to
then-president Bill Clinton. In 1998, Binyamin Netanyahu admitted Pollard
spied for Israel and sought to free him as part of the Wye River deal.
Clinton reneged on the agreement.

The demonstrated inequity in Pollard’s case should trouble anyone who
profoundly cherishes actual freedom – not just the presidential Medal of
Freedom and accruing accolades.

The profuse praises about to be showered upon Peres would all ring hollow
should Peres be acclaimed and exalted in the august name of freedom while
Pollard is still most literally denied freedom.

Obama most literally holds the key to Pollard’s cell. It behooves Peres to
persuade Obama to use it. Peres, thus far, has been true to his promise and
did formally ask for Pollard’s release.

The Obama administration issued an ambiguous statement which news outlets
spontaneously interpreted as an unconditional rejection of Peres’s request.
In response, Peres released a communiqué stressing that he still awaits
authorized word from the White House. From that point on nothing further has
been heard on the matter.

The stalemate is strange considering that the tributes Obama plans to heap
upon Peres aren’t without ulterior motive. Consequently, to rebuff Peres
outrightly would constitute a massive discourtesy, effusive blandishments
notwithstanding.

As things stand, the last word hadn’t yet been spoken, notably because Obama
said nothing personally or officially. Hence, the ball is still presumably
in play.

For Obama, releasing Pollard is risk-free, rife with potential reward and
wholly without political detriment. Nobody can credibly persevere in the
sham that Pollard threatens American national security interests.

Indeed, the pendulum has swung hard and many former US higherups now support
Pollard’s release and have appealed to Obama to end Pollard’s overlong
ordeal. In their words, this is a matter of simple fairness because his
sentence is “grossly disproportionate,” quite apart from humanitarian
concerns about his age and precarious medical status.

Pollard, they say, has already more than paid his debt to society. Any
additional incarceration is a miscarriage of justice. This is the opinion
of, among others, former secretary of state George Shultz, former secretary
of state Henry Kissinger, former White House legal counsel Bernard Nussbaum,
former attorney-general Michael Mukasey, former deputy attorney-general
Philip Heymann, former Senate intelligence chairman Dennis DeConcini, former
CIA director James Woolsey and many more.

Everything now hinges on Peres’s pluck. If he acquiesces in allowing Pollard’s
tragedy to be overlooked, then the denial of freedom which Peres facilitated
will continue while Peres is pronounced the prince of freedom.

But if Peres musters sufficient courage, he’ll confer upon himself the most
exceptional of opportunities. More popular among foreigners than any other
Israeli, he can, in the unique circumstance orchestrated by Obama, conjure
up prospects for rectifying his own the past. Peres can correct a wrong in
which he played a critical part. He can help set things right... if he only
truly wants to.

And if Peres is wary of introducing controversy into his dialogue with
Obama, the soon-to-be Medal of Freedom recipient would do well to recall
that George Orwell defined freedom as “the right to tell people what they do
not want to hear.”

www.sarahhonig.com