Kleiner: A Fifth of Israelis and a Quarter of Young Don't Know Who Jonathan Pollard Is
IMRA - December 1, 2002
The following is IMRA's translation of a press release issued by Herut Chairman MK Michael Kleiner:
IMRA Preface: It is noteworthy that Jonathan and Esther Pollard have made numerous requests to both the Government and to Education Minister Limor Livat to place Jonathan Pollard on the Israeli Educational Curriculum. This request has been repeatedly rebuffed.Mentioning Pollard would, of coure, raise many questions in the minds of the students: explaining for example, why Pollard, an Israeli agent, was thrown out of the Israeli Embassy 18 years ago, and why he is still rotting in prison today.
Pollard has yet to announce whether he will accept MK Kleiner's offer to run as a Herut Party candidate in the upcoming elections.
Herut Media Release 30 November 2002 [Translated from Hebrew]
After Herut Chairman, MK Michael Kleiner's surprise offer to Jonathan Pollard to join the "Herut" list in any position on the list he chooses, Kleiner comes out with another surprise: Those who claimed that Kleiner's offer was an election gimmick will be surprise to learn that already this past July, considerably before it was decided to have elections, Kleiner checked how many people in the Jewish Israeli population remembered who Pollard was in a public opinion poll.
This poll was carried out by the Smith Research Institute among a representative sample of 501 adult Israelis. It revealed that the propensity to know who Pollard is inversely related to the age of the respondents. Over a fifth of the adult Jewish Israeli population did not know who Pollard was: 6% thought he was an American agent who operated in Iraq, less than 1% that he was an American movie actor, 2% other and 14% simply didn't know. Among the young up to age 30, the number was considerably higher. A quarter of those surveyed up to age 30 did not know who Pollard was.
As a result of the findings of the survey MK Kleiner asked the Minister of Education that a day of learning about Pollard and his contribution to the State of Israel be integrated into the educational program. As of today, a response has been yet to be received from the Minister of Education.
Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
***