When the media began reporting a few weeks ago – just as the Obama administration began its push for approval of the nuclear deal with Iran – that Jonathan Pollard likely would be released this November, there were those who expressed the thought that the administration was cynically seeking to curry favor with members of the Jewish community opposed to the Iran nuclear deal.
After almost 30 years of Mr. Pollard’s incarceration, they argued, it was all too much of a coincidence, and they accused the government of making the long-suffering Mr. Pollard a mere pawn in the president’s pursuit of a golden legacy.
While we believe there was a connection in play, it was of a slightly different sort. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons maintains a website that tracks all inmates in the federal prison system. Included among the information provided is the projected release date for each prisoner. Therefore, Jonathan Pollard’s presumptive release in mid-November 2015 had long been a matter of public record, though many may not have been aware of it.
So Mr. Pollard’s release date apparently was not connected to the controversy over the Iran deal. On the other hand, since the release date has been a matter of public record for so long, why did it suddenly surface in the middle of the Iran nuclear imbroglio?
It seems the timing of the announcement – some four months prior to the release date – was indeed aimed at the Jewish community, for whom Mr. Pollard and his excessive sentence symbolized the anti-Israel animus harbored by key officials in several administrations beginning with Caspar Weinberger, President Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary.