‘Free Pollard’ hunger-striker going strong

Likud adviser Michael Foa joined by another protester who is also foregoing food over a week after beginning strike.

By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
Hunger striker for Pollard Michael Foa 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Hunger striker for Pollard Michael Foa 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Over one week after beginning a one-man hunger strike under Jerusalem’s Bridge of Strings to free Jonathan Pollard, Michael Foa, 52, a member of Likud, remains resilient, and has been joined by another protester who is also foregoing food.
Sitting with two young supporters at a table flanked by a sheet with US President Barack Obama and Jonathan Pollard’s opposing images stenciled on it, along with the words “Yes you can!” Foa looks considerably thinner and slightly pale compared to the previous week.
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“I feel like I have succeeded, but I wish I had succeeded more,” said Foa, who said he has only consumed water and grape juice over the past week. “It made headlines in The Jerusalem Post and New York Times, but I did hope for more.”
An adviser to former communications minister Moshe Kahlon, Foa said that while only one other person has joined him in the hunger strike, he is gratified by the support he has engendered.
“Lots of people have come to visit me,” he said. “Policemen come to say kol hakavod, [well done] as well as random people, friends and family. I’ve had many well-wishers.”
One of them is Ahron Horovitz, 28, a social work student from Beit- El, who joined Foa’s protest and stopped eating four days ago.
“This is an issue that’s in my bones,” said Horovitz. “[Pollard’s treatment] boils my blood because I view it as a very big moral failure and crime against humanity to keep him in jail. It’s torture on a personal level – and even more than that, it bothers me that Israel betrayed him. It makes me ashamed to be an Israeli.”
While police removed Foa’s tent from under the bridge several days ago, both men said they plan to continue their hunger strike indefinitely.
“We are sleeping at the homes of family from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., but come back here every day,” said Horovitz.