I should not be surprised but still I cringe when it happens.
Thank God, our brother Yehonatan Pollard is finally out of the US prison and the worst part of his thirty years of physical and mental torture are behind him.
But how disgusting it is now to hear how certain politicians and media mavens still dump on him. It certainly not surprising that the Left media in Israel chooses just those who will keep throwing dirt on our brother’s head even as he is about to spend his first Shabbat without the company of his criminal inmates and jailers. The media here know how to choose their “experts” to enlighten us. about the “real story”
Take Yossi Beilin for example. Beilin (the architect of the Oslo treachery along with his mentor, Shimon Peres) said that the Pollard incident was the very worst thing to happen to Israel and to American Jewry. Pollard embarrassed and threatened our relationship with our best friend, the US. He downplayed the value of the information he brought to Israel and justified all the punishment that he got.How dare Israeli spy on our best friend! Hello? Israel has caught US spies here and meekly let them return to the US.
He also said that Shimon Peres who was prime minister at the time, did not know about the situation until Pollard sought asylum in the israeli embassy as instructed by his handlers . Pollard wrote a letter in which he has a totally different take on the role Peres played in his incarnation.
Maybe that is why, even after being awarded two of the highest medals from his good friend Obama, he still could not convince the president to grant clemency to an ill man who has served far more time than US Judicial practice ever demanded from others in similar circumstances.
Another political observer explained that Pollard is to the USA as Mordechai Vanunu (the spy who revealed Israel’s nuclear secrets) is to Israel
Quoting such reliable experts as Casper Weinberger, he said that the information given to Israel compromised the most essential US military secrets.
Pollard claimed, and later US officials admitted that the information was only about Israel’s enemy neighbors;information that the US had agreed to share with Israel but then reneged on their word. His help to Israel can not be overestimated. It was totally not a danger to US security. Us diplomacy, perhaps, but not security..
Rafi Etan, Yehonatan’s direct boss at the time gave a long interview about the affair. He said that Yehonatan aggressively demanded money for his service. Yehonatan denies it. He says he offered his help when he realized that Israel was in danger and the US was not fulfilling their promises.
Esther Pollard long ago claimed that when she and their lawyer approached Eytan for help, they were told by him,”If I were in the embassy that day, I would have put a bullet in his head and finish the whole affair.” Eytan denied ever meeting Esther.
Evil tongues wagged incessantly for decades while our brother languished deep in the pit.
Those same tongues need to justify their malicious libels as, to their deep disappointment, God has brought our brother out of the pit – alive and sane. Their greatest fear now is that he might speak.
Does one believe those who have sold Yehonatan down the river and maligned him, or do we believe the one who rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu (former chief rabbi of Israel who often visited him in jail) described as the ‘Yosef Hatzadik of our time.
Yehonatan; know that we love you and thank you and await your home coming with bated breath.