And can Jews get a fair shake in the United States?
The entire Jonathan Pollard saga is an allegory of Jewish and Israel relations/status with the United States of America.
al·le·go·ry noun \ˈa-lə-ˌgȯr-ē\: a story in which the characters and events are symbols that stand for ideas about human life or for a political or historical situation
I could see George Orwell, author of Animal Farm and 1984, Nineteen Eighty-Four, writing the Jonathan Pollard story as if it was fiction.
So many people, even thirty years after Pollard’s arrest, still consider the USA as Israel’s greatest friend and ally. If a more modern George Orwell-type had written the story as “fiction” thirty-five or forty years ago, people would have considered it unthinkable that:
America would refuse to reveal security information to Israel, although they have a treaty guaranteeing Israel such intelligence information. Israel would have to rely on an American Jew for intelligence information. When that Jewish employed is arrested by the Americans he’s treated worse than any communist spy. The Americans renege on pretrial agreement. That Jew is given a harsher sentence than any enemy spy. The convicted Jew is refused parole, even though he has served a longer sentence than those convicted of more serious security offenses. The convicted Jew is refused parole, even though he is seriously ill.
Pollard, who has been jailed on charges of passing classified information to Israel on regional threats to the country, has suffered multiple health problems over the years, for which he was finally hospitalized in March and underwent a surgery then…Late last month, as Pollard started his 30th year in a US jail, the Parole Board of the US Justice Department rejected Pollard’s parole, with senior US officials involved in the case writing to US President Barack Obama to complain that the decision was “deeply flawed.”They noted that the length of his sentence was unprecedented compared to others who were held on similar charges of spying for an ally nation, and that the legal justifications for the decision were based on clear mistakes. Last Friday with Pollard’s hospitalization the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations Chairman Robert G. Sugarman, and Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein, wrote of “the need for immediate action for his release.” “It is regrettable and inexplicable that the Parole Board denied his application after serving 30 years, much of it in solitary confinement, far beyond anyone accused of a comparable crime,” wrote the two, backing the letter sent by senior officials to Obama…. (Arutz 7)