On the basis of a document production from the federal government that he sought, Grant Smith at Antiwar.com predicts that Obama will pardon Jonathan Pollard, imprisoned since 1987 for espionage for Israel, so as to please the Israel lobby. The documents create a sense of a culminating campaign, Smith says. Excerpt:
June 18 could mark the culmination of a massive lobbying campaign for release. Obama’s dismal record on Israeli accountability suggests Pollard will soon walk free.
Released documents reveal that the Rabbinical Assembly — claiming to represent “1.5 million Jews worldwide” — passed a formal resolution asking Obama to commute Pollard’s sentence. Rabbi David Zwiebel of Agudath Israel of America and Moshe Kantor of the European Jewish Congress also urged Pollard’s release. Letters demanding release also continue to flood in from former and current members of the US Congress. Steve Symms, Matt Salmon, Alan Simpson, Robert Wexler, Barney Frank, and Gary Ackerman joined the ranks of fellow representatives already demanding release. Moshe Kahalon, Israel’s Minister of Communications, gushed to Obama “I have no doubt that your decision to release Jonathan Pollard now as a humanitarian expression of justice and compassion will bring great relief to many, and will remove this impediment to the friendship between our nations.” Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins is also now rooting for Pollard’s release. Upping the ante, Israeli President Shimon Peres has explicitly linked his receipt of a US Presidential Medal of Freedom during a special June 18 White House dinner to Pollard’s freedom gambit — channeling even more intense pressure on Obama to take action in a specific context, place and time.
The linkage to Obama’s reelection bid is obvious….
I presume Jane Harman is also pushing to spring the spy Pollard.
No word on freeing Shamai Leibowitz for catching a spy.
The House and Home section (page 2) of the weekend (June 9/10, 2012) US edition of the Financial Times has a flattering profile of former Congresswoman Jane Harman who is now Director, President, and CEO of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC. No author for the puff piece is listed but it does not mention that Shamai Leibowitz is in Federal Prison for revealing that, as translator for the FBI he reported to his bosses that Congresswoman Harman had shared classified information with Israeli agents, going public because the FBI refused to take action against her.
I think it is safe to say that the Wilson Center was well aware that they were putting an Israeli agent in charge. That a “liberal” Democrat is in charge of a right wing foundation that supports drone warfare and promotes the notion that Arab women are losers in the Arab Spring, is something we have come to expect in our wacky world where most of Americans’ misinformation comes from the top.
What kind of reporter for the Financial Times would omit mention of Shamai Leibowitz or is the FT, like the NY Times, NPR, etc., a mouthpiece for the Israel Lobby?
link to mondoweiss.net
Oh gee, my oh my, why oh why is there anti-semitism in the world? It’s just such an inexplicable conundrum.
I hope Pollard is freed.
Faster please, we need the zios to go faster and further……we need them to go all the way.
More rope.
Richard Falk, UN Rapporteur on Palestine, spoke in Seattle last night. He reminded us of the anniversary of the USS Liberty attack [June 8, 1967] and the outrageous government and media repression of this deliberately fatal attack on U.S. service people by Israel.
Falk basically said the current state of corruption in U.S. policies stems from cover-ups like this. Pandering to Israel is one of the worms in the rotting American apple.
He said international law is degraded by the U.S.’s unequal treatment of global actors and makes global interactions about power and might. I guess this seems obvious, but Mr. Falk is very well placed to confirm this degradation with his long career trying to uphold fairness in international law.
Although I am against capital punishment, I think the death penalty should be reserved for traitors and war criminals. Jonathan Pollard should have gotten the death penalty and executed by lethal injection a long time ago.
Besides, since Timothy McVeigh got the death penalty, surely the damage caused by Pollard should have warranted a similar sentence.