World Zionist Congress Urges Freedom For Pollard

New York

The resolution, which was introduced by the ZOA's delegation to the World Zionist Congress-- urged President Clinton to "commute Pollard's sentence to time served."

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said: "The length of the sentence given to Pollard was extraordinarily unfair, and the passage of this resolution by the World Zionist Congress is an impressive declaration of international Jewish solidarity with Jonathan Pollard, which the Clinton administration should not ignore."

At its most recent session, the ZOA's National Executive Committee passed a resolution stating:

Whereas Lieutenant-Commander Michael Schwartz was arrested for providing classified U.S. intelligence data to Saudi Arabia, indicted by a U.S. Navy grand jury on the charge of espionage, and then released with an 'other than honorable discharge';

And whereas Jonathan Pollard is now in his 12th year of incarceration for illegally passing U.S. data to Israel, while no other individual who was convicted of passing such data to other allies of the U.S. has ever served more than 5 years in prison;

Therefore be it resolved that the ZOA respectfully calls upon President Clinton to review the Pollard case in light of the handling of the Schwartz case, and grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard."