We really ought to curse or something as this is the Pit. Still, it is a sad situation in the Middle East that will end with blood and fire. We all know this, we all know we ought to avoid it. But events in the past bind us to a gruesome future.
Darn shame.
What kind of scenario are you envisioning, exactly? It stills seems to me that Israel is in a position to dish out just as nasty as anything it gets, and far from obvious that it faces any kind of inevitable defeat. If you’re talking about Iran, I imagine the Saudis and others would be (secretly, obviously) in support of Israel; they’d hardly ally themselves with the intruding Persian to kick out the Jew right next door to (and upwind of) them. And in any event there’d be a lot more blood and fire and radioactive glass over Tehran way. “Can you swim,” indeed.
Not to say that the Israelis aren’t jerks at times, but hey, maybe so is Chuck Norris. You gonna tell him so?
I dunno. Massive growth in the non-military (Orthodox and Arab) populations in Israel combined with a end of all the American money. Add that to Europe no longer giving a damn and Arab nations that no longer bother to constrain their radical elements.
Israel would become another Lebanon.
Or not, disasters are almost alway horrible in unique, unpredictable ways.
Updating this 3 1/2 year old thread there is a New York Times article that the Obama administration is discussing his release, American officials said Monday, as it struggles to avert a collapse in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Outrage aside, I see no reason why the US should continue to burden itself with Pollard’s care, particularly in light of his declining health. Let him go to Israel. The idea that it would be a “threat to national security” is laughable. He has no useful intel to share after 30 years in the clink.
Or to put it this way: if you’re an uber-patriotic American and you think the US is the greatest country on earth then what could be a worse punishment than being permanently exiled from that country?
Let him go. There’s nothing further to gain by keeping him in jail, there’s nothing to lose by exiling him (like some future spy is going say “29 years in jail and then exile to the other side of the earth? Where do I sign up!”) and some progress might even be made on an issue that needs it. The taxpayers win. The situation becomes resolved. The peace process lurches forward. None of this happens if he continues to rot in jail.
There are very few people whose crimes merit 30 years in jail. I’ve barely thought about this case, and have different views on treason to most, but I’d say he should have been released after 10 disregarding any emotion over whom he spied for or why he spied.
In the most famous case of Col. Redl, he was permitted to suicide ( to the annoyance of HRH Franz Ferdinand, who as a catholic, felt this was bad for Alfred’s soul ), whilst this seems uncongenial, I’d take it over 10 years in any jail then or now.
… but Pollard is not Israeli ? Well, he is *now *for PR reasons, but he wasn’t then. He peddled his secrets to whoever would take them, and Israel would where (IIRC) Australia wouldn’t and raised a fuss.
It’s really not like he was a Mossad goon or anything of the sort, and you didn’t send him nowhere - he was already there, he wanted cash, he met an Israeli agent and y’all gave him some. He’s a purely mercenary traitor, not a spy. He sold or tried to sell himself to everyone - Israel, Pakistan, China, South Africa…
As for the long sentence (relative to other spies, though I’d note the Rosenbergs got the chair for a similar act of treason so YMMV…), it’s also his own damn fault.
He signed a nondisclosure agreement with the US gov as part of his plea bargain, and agreed to not give away any information on the whole affair in exchange for a lighter sentence. He agreed to this. Then he turned around and gave interviews to the Washington goddamn *Post *(presumably for some more pocket change).
So I can see why the American government would have something of a beef with the guy, is what I’m saying.
It’s the deterrent value. There may be people in the CIA, DIA or NSA now who feel that there is some worthy cause they’d be willing to pay 10 years of their lives for, in exchange for helping that cause with information they’ve sworn to keep classified. But 30 years might make them think twice.
Sorry, didn’t realize this was a zombie. Carry on.
That’s easy: being in prison is worse than exile.
This.
Most spies don’t do 30 years, so there’s no reason to expect them to see Pollard as representative.
I don’t understand Alessan’s “one of us” stuff at all (though as ever, I am grateful for his perspective.) I understand the people who take Pollard’s existence as a personal outrage even less, though.
He didn’t rape a baby or kick an old lady down the stairs. He sold a foreign government some information about hydrophones. Isn’t it time to let it go?
On the other hand, in negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians why is the arbitrator being asked to make concessions?
Because the arbitrator has its own interest in the Israel/Palestine kerfuffle (namely, stability in the Middle East and a freer foreign policy hand allowed by the Arab states not being angry at Israel.)
If it came down to the release of Pollard being the last sticking point before a total agreement on creation of a Palestinians state with appropriate security guarantees for Israel, I would probably say that release of a deranged spy is the cost for peace in the region.
But no, it sounds like his release is being negotiated in order for the talks to simply continue. That is total bullshit. The White House is giving a huge concession for the slimmest glimmer of hope that something will happen that could lead to the possibility of further negotiations on a topic which may or may not have a modicum of a chance of making incremental progress on a matter that has been on the table for 35 years but may or may not be settled within the next decade – we hope.
This kind of negotiating makes me think that the President and the Secretary of State probably always buy the extended auto warranty that Jennifer from account services called them about.
WTF? I’ll never understand U.S-Israel relations. The U.S steals from the poorest of its citizens to give to one of the richest, most prosperous countries on the planet in what can only be described as a contemporary equivalent of tribute. In turn, we’re rewarded with a blunted peace process, spies being sent to our country, very little political influence, and quid pro quo between the one of the parties and the arbitrator in regard to negotiations. What a fucking joke.
Here’s a novel idea: let’s leave Israel alone. Let them settle their own problems without us endlessly meddling in their affairs. If they bring thermonuclear war to the Middle East, then fuck it, its on their hands, not ours. Stop wasting our tax dollars on jet fuel between Washington and Tel Aviv and bring Kerry back home; have him focus on things that can be solved diplomatically, like Ukraine or North Korea. Israel is wasting our time and money with this bullshit. The fact they want their spy to be released as a prelude to negotiations means they are not serious about the peace process, they’re just dragging their god damn feet which they’ve been doing for decades.
We can’t ignore them. They won’t leave us alone.
Frankly I think concerns over a nuclear Iran are overblown. I would suggest that the North Korean regime is a metric fuckload crazier than Iran and they have at least as much of a burning hatred for Japan as Iran has for Israel and yet they have not blown up a nuclear bomb in Japan. The only thing nuclear weapons has done for North korea is make them invasion-proof and if you were Iran and saw the USA invade the country to your west and the country to your east, invasion-proofing yourself might seem like a good idea.
I think i have a pretty balanced views of Israel, the good and the not so good. I also have no particular beef with releasing and expelling Pollard after 29 years, that seems about right. However, I agree with Honesty and** Raveman** that it seems like a crazy part of a Peace Process. Our annual aid to Israel should be more than sufficient to keep them at the table (and to stop settlements) without sweetening the pot.
Hey, I’m cool with zombies.
I need cites, though, about your allegations. And nothing from the CIA or DoD investigations - I have trouble believing anything those are two organizations say. It would be very typical of them to make up false allegations to support their case, especially back in the bad old days of the 1980s. Given the choice between believing the American intelligence services and believing the Israeli intelligence services, I tend to do the latter.
That said, even in the unlikely event that everything they said is true, Israelis would still feel responsible for him. For whatever reason, he did something for us, and we owe him for it. Why is that hard to understand?
I can assure you, there are plenty of right-wing Israelis who would like nothing more than for the world to shut its eyes for a few months and let us deal with matters our own way. As far as they’re concerned, they’d resolve the Palestinian issue quickly, effectively and terminally.
I think you should consider not just how much American support pushes Israel forward, but also how much it holds us back.
Israel didn’t send Pollard to the United States. He was a domestic traitor.
So is all foreign aid “steal(ing) from the poorest” or just aid to countries you despise?
Israel owes something to its main ally and to itself not to dredge up bad feeling over this case. It should STFU about Pollard.
Let him rot.