Ten days ago, Tablet called for the release of Jonathan Pollard, who spied on the U.S. for Israel, after 27 years in prison and said that his continued imprisonment reflects anti-Semitism, inasmuch as the government is imputing dual loyalty to all American Jews.
Abe Foxman agrees. The 73-year-old leader of the Anti-Defamation League published a response, January 16, saying that he has reversed his earlier view that the government’s case was not anti-Semitic. No, it’s a “vendetta” against Jews to “intimidate” them and communicate that they are more loyal to Israel than the U.S. Excerpt:
I am not one to equate what Pollard did, to betray his country, to the recent revelations that the United States has been spying on top Israeli leaders. Here too, however, these revelations add further context to the absurdity of the ongoing vendetta against this one man.
Yes, I use that word because that’s what it seems like at this point. If it were only a vendetta against one individual it would be bad enough. But it has now become one against the American Jewish community.
In effect, the continuing imprisonment of this person long after he should have been paroled on humanitarian grounds can only be read as an effort to intimidate American Jews. And, it is an intimidation that can only be based on an anti-Semitic stereotype about the Jewish community, one that we have seen confirmed in our public opinion polls over the years, the belief that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country, the United States.In other words, the underlying concept which fuels the ongoing Pollard incarceration is the notion that he is only the tip of the iceberg in the community. So Pollard stays in prison as a message to American Jews: don’t even think about doing what he did.
I come to this conclusion with much sorrow and, as noted, as someone who resisted efforts early on to connect the Pollard affair to anti-Semitism. It is harder and harder to do so any longer.
I’d only point out that this is a man who is regularly invited to the White House to confer with Obama about our Iran policy, and then slams the president publicly in what his organization describes as “a series of media interviews in Israel.” Then he had a gala at which he slammed the US government even as Vice President Biden was hugging him. That access reflects the power of the lobby, and Foxman’s claims about Jewish persecution bespeak some degree of entitlement, or nuttiness. I wonder how Obama gets through those meetings.
Foxman is so full of s$it at this stage.
You won’t let a traitor out because you hate Jews
You talk about the destruction of the Ukrainian kulak population because you hate Jews. If you didn’t you would only talk about the Shoah.
You support human rights for Palestinians because you hate Jews.
I don’t give a rat’s ass about Panamanians and whether or not they feel okay. Most of them are probably doing okay. I trust them to manage their own affairs. why do we have to bring everything else back to Foxman and the working class Jews he doesn’t care about ? why doesn’t he act to steer Israeli spending away from the IDF so the next time there’s a carmel fire they have enough helicopters ? Does he ever lobby for better childcare in Orthodox areas or social care for elderly Shoah survivors ? Why are Israeli maths scores so poor? Why do the rabbis have such a hold over whether or not poor women can divorce ? Does Foxman care about any of that ?
No, it’s always Abe the paranoid Jewish wife with his “if you say my ass looks big in this white skirt it means you hate all Jews”
Please leave the stage , Abe. The joke isn’t funny any more
I am all for clemency and not keeping people in prison for more than 15 years barring clearly dangerous individuals, but the arguments raised by Foxman are weird indeed:
So Pollard stays in prison as a message to American Jews: don’t even think about doing what he did.
I come to this conclusion with much sorrow
So American Jews should think about doing what Pollard did?
“So Pollard stays in prison as a message to American Jews: don’t even think about doing what he did.”abe
So thousands of Palestinians stay in Israeli dungeons as a message to Palestinians : Don,t even think about protesting or looking crooked at a Jew.
Would someone stop the planet and kick this […] off.
…
Talk about cynicism and reaching the absurd limits of self-victimization. Abe Foxman and his ilk are absolutely shameless about exploiting the anti-semitism card to force the American government into releasing this convicted criminal so he can be hailed as a hero by Israel and American jewish neocons. Had Pollard been an Arab American spying for an arab country, Foxman would undoubtably be all for keeping him in jail to serve as an “example” of the consequences facing potential perpetrators of anti-american activities within the US government. All of this of course while the Israel lobby, of which Foxman is one of its most influential representatives, exercises near absolute control in American foreign policy on matters related to the Israel/palestine issue.
It truly makes me sick.
>> But after this long imprisonment, the fact that it was such a close ally who received his information should have influenced a positive response when the subject of parole arose.
So, spying on your country is bad…unless you’re spying on behalf of a “close ally”.
I wonder if Foxman would advocate the release of an American convicted of passing classified information to “close ally” Saudi Arabia or, perhaps in the future, Iran.