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Thursday, December 18, 2014
JPost OpEd: Obama's Tin Ear by Kenneth Lasson

Obama’s tin ear
By Kenneth Lasson - The Jerusalem Post – December 17, 2014
http://www.jpost.com/landedpages/printarticle.aspx?id=384995

Jonathan Pollard is being severely punished for deeds he never committed.

In this season of peace and good will President Barack Obama seems to have a
tin ear – aptly defined by Webster’s at “a lack of ability to hear something
in an accurate and sensitive way.” When it comes to hearing our staunchest
ally in the Middle East, he appears to be cold-stone deaf.

Virtually all Israeli leaders and a large number of Americans in high places
have made pointedly pleas urging the president to free an ailing Jonathan
Pollard from prison.

The former navy intelligence agent was convicted in 1985 for having passed
classified information to Israel. He has already served 30 years of a life
sentence which was by far the harshest ever meted out for the offense he
committed (the average term for which is a fine or two to four years’
imprisonment).

On this issue Obama has failed even to offer the courtesy of a reasoned
response, much less commit an act of clemency that would both improve
US-Israeli relations and serve our traditional values of fairness and
justice. In fact the president has rarely exercised clemency, a unique
constitutional power that has been used liberally by many of his
predecessors, including those for whom he has expressed great admiration.
Abraham Lincoln, for example, pardoned, commuted or rescinded the
convictions of 343 people during his four years as president. Franklin
Roosevelt released an average of 900 during each of his terms. Ronald
Reagan, a total of 406. In stark contrast, Obama has to date pardoned only
61 people, fewer than any president since James Garfield (who served only
four months before being assassinated in 1881).

The exercise of clemency should rightfully reflect a measure of compassion,
but also conscientiously consider the facts. The official “victim impact
statement” offered by prosecutors in Pollard’s case did not impute to him
any significant damage to American interests – a conclusion publicly
conceded by the intelligence community only last year. It is now widely
acknowledged that the vague charges initially leveled against him for
somehow causing the then-unexplained loss of US agents were for crimes
actually committed by two others: Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. (Mr. Ames
was finally caught and convicted in 1994, Mr. Hanssen in 2001.) The real
reason that the intelligence community persisted so long in its anti-Pollard
whispers was more likely its lingering antipathy toward Israel for having
destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981 – shortly after which the Israelis
were cut off from their traditional access to American intelligence. Pollard
wrongly took it upon himself to remedy that failure.

The widespread claims that he committed treason were gratuitous opinions
devoid of any factual basis and never a part of the criminal case against
him. Treason has a Constitutional definition – consorting with the enemy
during wartime – which is wholly inapplicable here. Likewise, it was never
either alleged or proven in court that Pollard was paid handsomely for his
efforts. He was acting solely on behalf of Israel, which has long been the
lone reflection of American-style democracy in the Middle East. That fact
itself should be more than enough to justify clemency.

Many of the major decision-makers who were intimately involved in the
Pollard case have come forward to issue public calls for his release. They
include over 40 members of Congress, former secretaries of state Henry
Kissinger and George Shultz, former senators Dennis DeConcini and David
Durenberger (both of whom served on intelligence committees), former
assistant secretary of defense Lawrence Korb, former FBI director William
Webster, and James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, undersecretary of
the navy and US negotiator with the Soviet Union.

Virtually the whole of the Israeli Knesset – including, remarkably,
representatives of the Arab parties – have joined the chorus for clemency,
along with hundreds of religious leaders of different faiths from around the
world. Many have noted the recently disclosed hypocrisy of America’s spying
on Israel over the past quarter-century during all of which time our
intelligence community was piously condemning Pollard’s alleged perfidy. In
fact it is now more clear than ever that he is being severely punished for
deeds he never committed nor was ever charged with committing.

You don’t have to go to law school to understand how much this violates
bedrock American principles. Jonathan Pollard’s life sentence makes “equal
justice under law” seem like little more than a palsied proverb. Obama
should open his ears to the pleas for clemency. With a simple flourish of
his pen, he can demonstrate heretofore hidden qualities of courage,
character and compassion.

The author is a professor of law at the University of Baltimore. His email
is klasson@ubalt.edu.

​SEE ALSO:
Editorial: Prisoner of Zion in the US
http://www.jonathanpollard.org/2014/120314.htm
Letter by Eight US Officials: Pollard remains in prison because of "patently
false" ​charge
http://jonathanpollard.org/2014/111414.pdf
Video: Ex-CIA Chief: US wrong to deny Pollard freedom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FIgUvVTgFo&feature=youtu.be

JUSTICE FOR JONATHAN POLLARD
Website: http://www.JonathanPollard.org
Follow J4JP on Twitter:http://twitter.com/J4JPollard
Follow J4JP on Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/justice4jp

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