The Kafka-esque Story of Jonathan Pollard that Never Ends

Hatzofeh - October 5, 1999 - Translated from Hebrew
By Yaffa Goldstein

Esther Pollard is back in Jerusalem. I have no idea how she gets the strength to go on fighting for the release of her husband, Jonathan Pollard, in spite of the overwhelming indifference of this nation to the fate of our agent, who has now spent nearly fifteen years languishing in an American prison.

A feature story in next week's Hatzofeh Weekend Magazine will go into detail not only about the indifference of this government to the plight of Jonathan Pollard, but also into its sabotage of recent efforts to secure his release.

It is now perfectly obvious that Clinton is more anxious than anyone else that a deal be finalized with the Palestinians so that he can create his historical legacy as a statesman - unfortunately at our expense. So he keeps playing the Pollard card as a bargaining chip to apply pressure on Israel to make more painful concessions, as he did at Wye to secure the release of additional Palestinian security prisoners. Netanyahu paid for Pollard twice at Wye but he never received the merchandise. Terrorist Ghazi Jabali - still chief of police in Gaza walks free and even visits Israel as he did yesterday, and the Palestinian prisoners with blood on their hands are now out of prison. Only Pollard is still in prison - in serious need of appropriate medical care, and without even funds to pay his attorney.

And what does Barak have to say? That Pollard is an internal American issue. Up to this day Barak has not even sent a government representative to visit our agent, the famous prisoner who has been forgotten by everyone. So how, pray tell, how can our issue - our Israeli agent - be an American internal issue? And why should they even care about him when our silence is so deafening?