Arye L Ben Harav
28 December '10
(Excellent! Y.)
I was amazed to find a young Jewish College student today who argued articulately for the case to just leave Jonathan Pollard in jail and that due to Pollard’s own actions he pretty much deserved whatever he got and we should not spend time or resources on extricating him from prison. To this fellow’s credit, as a second year college student, I am impressed with the depth of his knowledge and research on the subject and I offer my advice as a professional legal recruiter that he should consider obtaining a law degree and thereafter practicing litigation as a prosecutor for the state or federal government.
My friend’s problem with Jonathan Pollard is that the man is not ‘pure enough’. He is not innocent enough. If only my friend could get his hands on a clean cut case of “Innocent Man Incarcerated” then he would be willing to add his support to that noble cause. Pollard broke laws, he violated his agreement to keep quiet and all of his dealings are classified, and so we must assume that the Government has a good enough reason to consider him a traitor and to lock Pollard up and throw away the key.
This is, in some strange way, reminiscent of the 1960’s. Jews were at the fore of the Civil rights movement. We worked for the human rights, and particularly the judicial rights of non-Jews to insure that they, although poor and less socially connected than the average middle class white man, or middle class Jew , would get a fair shake in court. Countless Jewish students and attorneys spent decades in the 60’s and 70’s building cases for the benefit of the indigent, the wronged indigenous, the formerly enslaved, the poorly raised, the drugged, the drunk, the confused and the insane.
Alan Dershowitz, in his book , Chutzpah , describes how the judge for whom he clerked for would constantly beg Alan to find a little loophole, a little ‘Rachmones’ (mercy in Yiddish), for each poor soul who would appeal to his court. The judge took into account the fact that the defendant was poor, non-white, uneducated or had endured severe family hardships or a nasty childhood. It was only later when Dershowitz asked Angela Davis, (whom he had defended) an avowed anti American Communist, to assist with the case for Soviet Jews, that he received the standard anti Semitic slap in the face; the Jews in question weren’t worthy of support or defense based on their status as educated members of the upper class and obviously counter revolutionary, reactionary and anti Soviet (from whence came her political and monetary support). It is interesting to note that few of the Jewish individuals or groups involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s made efforts on behalf of 3 million Soviet Jews, who were systematically discriminated against in education, employment, housing and political positions. They were systematically denied the right to religious freedom and upon asking to leave the country were summarily fired from their jobs and left destitute and harassed by the KGB. Many were imprisoned. Natan Sharansky, former Israel MK and now head of the Jewish Agency was one who spent 8, (eight) years in solitary confinement in the Gulag. The first groups to make the plight of Soviet Jews into a worldwide Jewish struggle were Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Chabad , and Meir Kehanah’s group of followers. The State of Israel was indeed always active if mostly in a quiet way, on behalf of Soviet Jews during those years, if for no other reason than to try to convince a few more poor Jewish refugees to make Aliyah to the struggling Jewish State.
The Damning of Jonathan Pollard, by my friend, follows a litany of charges from treason to spying to outright avarice. His contributions to Israel’s security are insignificant to my friend and as for the reason he's spent so much time, that's his fault - his fault because he *didn't* keep his mouth shut , his prolonged sentence is now, his own fault. (“As for the reason he's spent so much time, that's his fault - his fault because he *didn't* keep his mouth shut not because he did.”) (“In exchange for violating his plea deal he received a harsh sentencing, as is usually the case when people violate their plea deals.) Yes, my friend, and there are those who despite having broken every single law and plea deal, have served little or no time and they are afforded attorneys at the expense of the state to defend and appeal their cases.
