Jonathan Pollard is an "itch" that just does not go away! America’s Prisoner of Zion is almost ten thousand days in prison with no end in sight. Soon after his sentencing Reagan Administration insiders dropped hints that Pollard could get out if only he would surrender his US government source, the mysterious "Agent X." Since Pollard’s only connection was with LAKAM, Israel’s Scientific Liaison Bureau, there was never an American in place feeding him “instructions.” And, of course, administration insiders knew as much. But PR didn’t end with the spy behind bars.
Much has been made regarding Pollard’s asserted compromising US interests to the Soviets, to the South Africans and Australians, etc. The organization, The National Security Archive, recently forced the government to release several hundred pages of “classified documents” and that report’s introduction clearly defines the limits of Pollard’s espionage:
“The damage assessment includes new details on the specific subjects and documents sought by Pollard''s Israeli handlers (pages 36-43), such as Syrian drones and central communications, Egyptian missile programs, and Soviet air defenses. The Israelis specifically asked for a signals intelligence manual that they needed to listen in on Soviet advisers in Syria.”
Was there something involving Russia, yes. Israel needed the signals manual to listen in “on Soviet advisers in Syria” And would the Russians have paid for such information. Of course. But Pollard was a Zionist, over the years rejected freedom in exchange for that of terrorists in Israeli jails. And, despite charges by his enemies, and fearful others, Jonathan was never in it for the money.
Wolf Blitzer in his book Territory of Lies describes Pollard a romantic and a Zionist and an unlikely choice for an agency of the US government hiring for a national security position. And the CIA turned him down for a job. But not Casper Weinberger’s Defense Department. When Pollard applied to Naval Intelligence he was hired without so much as a polygraph exam. According to the CIA damage assessment included in the released documents,
“Pollard''s personal life and professional career, including his work for the Israelis, highlight[ed] more than a dozen examples of unusual behavior [that should have] alerted his supervisors that he was a security risk. Prominent on the list were false statements by Pollard during a 1980 assignment with Task Force 168, the naval intelligence element responsible for HUMINT collection.”
Jonathan Pollard strikes a nerve among American Jewry, and for good reason: his arrest and continuing punishment open us, at least those of us less secure about our situation as American-Jews to the charge of "dual loyalty." Although I am not aware of any other "hyphenated" Americans threatened by the "hyphen (German-, Italian-, Irish-,)" I would be the last to not appreciate that 2000 years of persecution; that the Holocaust but 68 past: Jews should be wary of being too prominent. Especially when our "loyalty" is brought into question.
If we accept that Pollard, described by that CIA risk assessment as a “security risk,” how then explain the ease with which Naval Intelligence welcomed him aboard? But even if we accept an innocent hiring that still does not explain how Jonathan Pollard passed "vetting" and was hired as a Naval Intelligence analyst, how this proud Jew and outspoken Zionist found himself in a job that precisely allowed him access to such information and even placed him in the intel team dealing with, you guessed it, Israel, providing first-hand knowledge that the Weinberger Defense Department was violating America''s Memorandum of Agreement. Interesting that a dedicated Zionist would by "chance" find himself at the precise time and place to know that Israel was being denied information regarding Iraq''s nuclear bomb program and arms shipments destined for PLO terrorists.
In fact Pollard''s behavior did raise red flags by his superiors at NI from the beginning. That he was recommended for dismissal or at least be relieved of his security clearance is a matter of record. Instead he was serially promoted with ever higher security clearance, assigned to track Arab terrorism and even found himself a member of precisely the team tasked to exchange intel with ISRAEL. How might any rational and unbiased person interpret this chain of events except as a purposeful manipulation of Jonathan''s employment?
Of course we could always write it off to rank stupidity, blindness, ignorance, incompetence.... And clearly the recent fiasco in Boston Marathon demonstrates that US intelligence is capable of all the above. But the links in Pollard''s short career at Naval Intelligence are just too obvious to be missed, to not be purposive. And if, as I have understood for more than twenty years, it was intentional, that Jonathan was "serially promoted" until tasked with tracking Arab terrorism, etc; pardon me for considering the one obvious motive in this otherwise unlikely chain of inexplicable events as pointing to him being chosen to serve a purpose other than his obvious intellect and talents would provide.
Pollard and, by extension, Israel, was set up for a "higher purpose:" fall guys available if and when Reagan administration criminality in Iran-Contra, otherwise known as Irangate, came apart and went to press.
We might come up with a dozen, perhaps hundreds of explanations for the Pollard Affair. And all might be believable. But Occam’s Razor holds that when a simple explanation fits, it''s likely correct. And nobody can deny that the Pollard Affair distracted well the press from Reagan to Pollard, from Iran and Nicaragua to Israel. As regards the calumny of Pollard as mercenary, that he was "in it for the money": Aldrich Ames sold American personnel and methods to Russia at the cost of lives; Pollard provided Israel with immediately necessary intelligence that was intentionally withheld, possibly by order of Weinberger or administration policy. But Pollard never sold the information. Was he paid, yes. But that is standard procedure, I was told by an Israeli intelligence source, by all intelligence services. It was something to hang over a volunteer, a “walk-in” to keep him from changing his mind and “walking out.”
And in the end Ames and Pollard received the same consideration in sentencing!
Let''s keep it simple, shall we? Antisemitism and anti-Zionism is as alive and well in the US Government bureaucracy and any Western country.
Jonathan Pollard is no less an American Prisoner of Zion than was Sharansky in Russia.