PM Sharon: I instructed the Ambassador to visit Pollard
Justice4JP Release - August 1, 2004
Excerpted from Zeraim [The Newspaper of the Bnei Akiva Movement]:
"A Special Interview with Prime Minister Sharon" - March 4, 2004
In a special interview with Zeraim, March 4, 2004, to mark the annual National Convention of Bnei Akiva, Prime Minister Sharon stated that he had instructed the Israeli Ambassador in Washington to visit Jonathan Pollard in prison "from time to time." In all the ensuing time since then, no visit to Pollard from the ambassador, Dani Ayalon, has ever occurred.
Recently Ambassador Ayalon was asked about this via discrete diplomatic channels. Ayalon responded that he is ready to visit Jonathan Pollard as soon as he receives instructions to do so.
To date, Ambassador Ayalon has not received any such instructions from the Prime Minister or from the Foreign Minister.
English Translation of excerpt, Zeraim - March 4, 2004:
[Hebrew original followsbelow
.]
Bnei Akiva:
On another subject, many Bnei Akiva educators are involved in activities to free Jonathan Pollard. What is your position on the subject?
Prime Minister Sharon:
I would be very happy that Jonathan Pollard will be free and there is no trip or meeting that I have with the heads of the administration in the United States that the subject is not raised by me and alsoI have given instructions to our Ambassador to visit him in prison from time to time
. But it is necessary to understand that this is a very complex and complicated problem and this is one of the kind of things that action on them is in fact more quietly. Certainly it is necessary to do and to continue to do and I hope that some day we will succeed.
