Jonathan Pollard
By
Matt Plen
On the morning of November 21, 1985, on the instructions of
Israeli officials, Jonathan Jay Pollard and his wife Anne made their way to
Israel's embassy in Washington, DC. They were admitted to the embassy compound,
but after several minutes asked to leave.
Upon exiting, they were arrested by waiting FBI agents.
Jonathan was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and Anne was accused
of unauthorized possession of classified documents; both were imprisoned. Anne
was released after serving three years of a five-year sentence. Jonathan was
sentenced to life without parole and, to date, remains in a federal prison.
Intelligence Leak
Jonathan Pollard was raised in South Bend, Indiana, in a
staunchly Zionist family. While working as an analyst for the U.S. Naval
Intelligence Service, he became convinced that the United States was reneging
on its commitment to provide Israel with vital intelligence at a time of
increased security threats to the Jewish state.
In May 1985, after protests to his superiors were cursorily
dismissed, he made contact with Colonel Aviem Sella of the Israeli Air Force,
then on sabbatical in Washington. Pollard offered to provide him with
intelligence material that would then be transmitted to LAKAM, Israel's Office
of Scientific Liaison, headed by former Mossad agent Rafael Eitan.
Over the following months, Pollard provided Sella with more
than 1,000 classified documents, containing information on Soviet arms
shipments, Syrian missile technology, Iraqi chemical weapons production,
Pakistan's nuclear program, Libyan air defenses, and assessments of PLO forces.
Despite Pollard's ideological motivation, Sella
"corrupted" Pollard by giving him cash payments. Changes in Pollard's
spending habits aroused his superiors' suspicions, and he was placed under
surveillance. Fearing arrest, he notified Sella, who immediately fled the
United States. Sella left no contingency plans for the Pollards.
Government Reactions
The Pollard case had potentially serious repercussions for
the special relationship between Israel and the United States. While the United
States may not have complied with its intelligence commitments to Israel, the
Israelis had engaged in a serious breach of trust by spying on their ally. At
first, Israeli leaders--including Prime Minister Shimon Peres and Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin--refused to take responsibility for the affair, claiming
that it was a rogue operation.
Yet far from being disciplined, Pollard's handlers were
promoted: Sella was appointed commander of Israel's second largest airbase,
while Eitan was named CEO of Israel Chemicals, the largest government owned
corporation. The government failed to return stolen documents to the Americans
and rejected calls to establish a commission of inquiry. An investigation by
the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee headed by Abba Eban found
that grave errors had been made, but for security reasons did not release
detailed findings.
The US government reacted with more severity. Pollard was
held in solitary confinement and, while connected to a polygraph, pressed to
identify other Israeli spies from lists of leading American Jews.
Although Pollard had been promised leniency in return for
full cooperation with the government, in the wake of Israel's provocative response,
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger submitted a secret affidavit to the
sentencing judge. Although the contents of this affidavit have never been
disclosed, some claim that it exaggerated the extent of the damage caused by
Pollard to American security.
Its impact was clear: both Pollards were given exceptionally
severe sentences, on par with those handed down to enemy spies (for example the
Walkers who, in the mid-1980s, were convicted of espionage for the Soviet
Union).
Pollard is the only person to have received a life sentence
for spying for an American ally. Against Pollard's claim that his intention had
been to help Israel and the United States, the Justice Department responded
that the laws on espionage did not distinguish between allies and enemy
countries.
But in the long run, despite anger among administration
officials and lawmakers, the Pollard affair did little long-term damage to
Israeli-United States relations. In March 1987, President Reagan reaffirmed
America's commitment to a strategic alliance between the two countries. Later
that year, Congress renewed a $3 billion aid package and the administration
formally accorded Israel the status of a major non-NATO ally.
The Jewish Community's Outrage
The implications for American Jews and their relationship
with Israel were more harmful. According to a New York Times poll
conducted in 1987, 61% of US Jews experienced anger and embarrassment over the
Pollard case, while 54% believed the episode would trigger an increase in
anti-Semitism.
Jewish leaders, including Tom Dine, director of the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at the time, castigated Israel for its
conduct during the affair. During a mission to Israel in March 1987, 60
prominent American Jewish leaders met face to face with Israeli officials and
bluntly expressed their disapproval.
Writing the same month in the Jerusalem Post, Hebrew University political scientist Shlomo
Avineri criticized the reactions of the American Jewish community. Rather than
being motivated by concern for Israel, he claimed American Jews' reactions had
more to do with fear of anti-Semitism and unease about their position in
American society.
In contrast to the widespread sense that American Jewry had
attained an unprecedented level of integration and security, the Pollard affair
suggested to Avineri that US Jews felt no less vulnerable than their
coreligionists elsewhere in the Diaspora.
Other Israelis, notably Abba Eban and Teddy Kollek, mayor of
Jerusalem, disagreed, noting that U.S. Jews had a genuine grievance: Israel had
compromised their loyalty to the U.S. in the eyes of the American public. The
Pollard case contributed to ending the silence of US Jewish leaders on
criticizing Israel in public. This change was to become evident after the
outbreak of the first intifada in December 1987, when American Jews felt
freer than ever to challenge Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Continued Developments
Pollard's ongoing incarceration continues to impact Israeli
politics. Hundreds of Israeli and American politicians, religious leaders, and
organizations have issued calls for his sentence to be commuted. His name is frequently linked to campaigns
for the release of kidnapped soldiers and MIAs and, indeed, he has been used as
a bargaining chip in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. President Clinton
pledged to release Pollard in the course of the Oslo peace process, but reneged
on his promise after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin in 1995.
Releasing Pollard in exchange for Palestinian prisoners was
floated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the 1998 Wye Plantation
summit, but Middle East envoy Dennis Ross advised Clinton to continue holding
Pollard as a valuable bargaining chip.
Pollard argues that Israel has not done enough to secure his
release or even show support. His 1995 request for Israeli citizenship was
turned down by Interior Minister Ehud Barak, and was only granted after the
intervention of the Israeli Supreme Court. It took until 1998 for Israel to
admit that Pollard had been an Israeli agent--again, as the result of the
court's intervention--and even then this information was not presented
officially to the American government.
In a November 2007 interview with Israeli daily Yediot
Aharonot, Pollard claimed that Barak--then leader of the Labor Party--had
lied to cover up military intelligence's involvement in the affair, and that
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has done nothing to help him, despite Olmert's
claims that he is working secretly for Pollard's release.
Pollard is opposed to being freed in exchange for
Palestinian terrorist prisoners; he has called on Israeli leaders to demand his
unconditional release. "Nonetheless," he comments, "I have great
respect and appreciation for the Palestinian leadership's dedication to freeing
its prisoners. It is amazing to see how the Palestinians do not forget their
own people. That is a lot more than I can say about the Government of
Israel."
Matt Plen teaches history and modern Jewish thought at
the Masorti high school and the Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem. He is a
doctoral candidate in Jewish education at the Hebrew University, where his
research topic is Critical Pedagogy and Israeli Ideologies of Social Justice.
