Perfidy - Pollard & The Secret War Against The Jews

March 22, 1995 - Bernard J. Shapiro

Last week I received a large parcel with Jonathan Pollard's return address complete with his prisoner number 09185-016. Inside I found about 500 photo-copied documents including virtually every op-ed written about his case plus copies of hundreds of letters written to President Bill Clinton on his behalf by important personalities, Jewish organizations, Senators, Congressmen, and lawyers. The sheer volume and diversity of the material was quite overwhelming. I had long been a supporter in the "justice for Pollard battle." In short, I didn't need convincing. There was no cover letter with the material and I wondered about Pollard's motive for sending it to me.

I started looking through the material anxiously searching for a clue as to why it was sent. First skimming rapidly and then reading intently, slowly the missing pieces began to appear in the puzzle. The answer is closely tied to a new book by John Loftus and Mark Aarons entitled, THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE JEWS: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People (St. Martins Press, 1994). Pollard had included among the papers several book reviews of this monumental book (658 pages) which exposes many of the dark secrets of the CIA, British Intelligence (M16), and our own State Department. Here are just a few samples of the startling revelations:

1. In order to entice Sadat to sign a treaty with Israel at Camp David, the CIA provided Egypt with satellite photos, intercepts, the location of Israel's nuclear force, and virtually every Israeli military secret. Carter had no knowledge that his Camp David Accords were supplemented by intelligence given to Egypt that betrayed Israel.

2. To evade the laws requiring proper authorization for wire taps, the CIA and M16 would bug each others targets and regularly exchange information. A favorite target of the CIA were politically active American supporters of Israel. Files were even kept on every Jewish child attending summer camp in Israel.

3. In order to spy on Arab terrorists, M16 infiltrated many organization and even took a leading role in planning and training terrorists for attacks on Israel. Although they had advance notice of a planned attack on a Pan Am or El Al plane in Rome in 1973, they "forgot" to mention it to the Mossad, with whom they were supposed to share intelligence.

4. The CIA set up a special "Jew room" in 1945-6 devoted to spying on Israel and Jewish Americans. No Jew was allowed to work there. The US Navy banned Jews from serving in their surveillance ships.

5. In 1967 Israel notified America of its planned attack. The Americans promptly tried to warn the Egypt and Syria. As the battles progressed the Americans did everything possible to spy on Israel and provide that information to Israel's enemies. The USS Liberty, a CIA surveillance ship, sailed close to the southern Israeli shore and close to northern Sinai, and began monitoring the battles there. The gathered information was sent to a British listening post in Cyprus, complete with precise electronic maps of the holes in Israeli lines. It was then relayed to the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian military. Fortunately the short duration of the war prevented the Arabs from utilizing the intelligence. The fact of American perfidy remains.

Pollard's misfortune was to land right in the middle of this dark and dirty game of betraying Israel. As a naval intelligence officer, he began to notice a large flow of extremely important intelligence from the Middle East which was not being shared with Israel as agreed to in numerous American-Israeli agreements. During his trial Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger told the Judges that Pollard's spying had greatly damaged American security. Aldrige Ames had yet to be uncovered but had already left a trail of dead US agents in Europe. Weinberger knew that Pollard could not have been responsible for compromising American agents, but took advantage of this information to successfully get Pollard a life sentence despite an earlier plea bargain. Later when Pollard was up for parole last year, the CIA leaked the story that Pollard was continuing to be a danger to American security. President Bill Clinton ignored a massive amount of high level appeals to commute Pollard's sentence, despite the fact that he had promised during the election campaign to be lenient.

Why is it so important to certain government agencies like State and the CIA to keep Pollard locked up? The answer is clearly a desire to protect those agencies from too much scrutiny concerning their anti-Israel bias and actions.

Most of the American people and their elected representative are quite friendly to Israel. The Jewish community has always considered America a friend and ally. I believe that a tremendous revulsion would sweep this country, if the truth about America's treachery toward Israel gained wide exposure. Pollard was in the "belly of the beast" and knows the awful truth. I believe that Weinberger among others at the CIA and State Department would do anything to keep Pollard from being able to tell his story on TV or in the Op-Ed columns of newspapers. Can you imagine Pollard on Nightline telling Ted Koppel how the US has been giving Israel's military secrets to her enemies or how the State Department plotted to deprive Israel of the fruits of its military victories?

I believe that pro-Israel activists need to begin demanding that all the branches of the US government live up to the friendship for Israel expressed by the electorate.