Jonathan Pollard: Bill Clinton's Lies Are Savaging Me Because of Sharansky

Statement of Jonathan Pollard - June 22, 2004 - Justice4JP Release

Six years of complicit silence by Minister Natan Sharansky - a key player at the 1998 Wye Summit - has enabled Bill Clinton to revive all the old lies and canards about me in his new book, "My Life" which was released today (06/22/04.)

For the last 6 years, Sharansky has kept his lips sealed about what really happened at Wye, leaving Bibi Netanyahu twisting in the wind, and me to rot in prison. In Clinton's book, Netanyahu is ridiculed as the only one to insist that my release is an integral part of the Wye Accords.

This is stunning in light of what Sharansky told me, my wife Esther, and Rabbi Pesach Lerner at our 4 February 2004 prison meeting. His account tracked with first-hand reports that Esther and I had heard previously from key officials at Wye, including then-Prime Minister Netanyahu and then-Cabinet Secretary Dani Naveh.

Here is what Sharansky told us:

He declared that Israel "had crossed all its red lines" in negotiating my release at Wye; for the first time agreeing to free murderers with blood on their hands in payment for my release, "because we thought you were worth it." He also confirmed that my release was the deal-maker which sealed the Wye Accords.

Sharansky spoke with annoyance of how, in the aftermath of Wye, the White House falsely accused Bibi of injecting the issue into the Wye Accords at the last minute, in order to coerce my release, when in fact it was negotiated as an integral part of the Accords.

Now get this! Sharansky told us that he personally called the State Department after the Wye Summit to protest these lies, which the U.S. was officially disseminating. He told us that he received personal reassurances from the State Department that the lies would stop.

But the U.S. lies never did stop. And Sharansky just let the subject drop. Never mentioned it again publicly - never protested privately. Never really talked about it again, until he told this story to us - a small private audience at FCI Butner - six hellish years after the fact!

To this day, official U.S. sources do not acknowledge that my release was an integral part of the Wye Accords; that it was the deal-maker, and that the US has yet to fulfill its end of the deal. Israel fulfilled its part of the bargain - regrettably --- freeing 750 terrorists and murderers and getting nothing in return.

It is six years too late to stop the new round of lies in Clinton's book. But the "moral imperative" (Sharansky's own words) demands that he end his complicity, and come forward and tell the truth about what really happened at Wye.

For Sharansky to maintain his silence even a moment longer, is unforgivable.