What's So Special About Him?
Boaz Moscovitz - NFC News - March 16, 2005
Translated from Hebrew by Justice4JP
YNET News Headline 15/03/05: Judge to Pollard Attorneys: "He is not special."
In the US Court of Appeals on March 15, 2005, Judge David Sentelle declared: "The trouble is that Mr. Pollard thinks he is special..." Sentelle continued, saying that allowing the Pollard case to be revived would mean that "you've opened the floodgates" for thousands of other prisoners sentenced long ago.
The absence of official Israeli representation at the latest court hearing of Jonathan Pollard is not surprising. Neither is his abandonment for the last 20 years by successive Israeli governments.
The abandonment of Prisoners of Zion by the Israeli establishment was deeply entrenched even up to the not-so-gay 1980's. Which is to say that in Israel there was, of course, empathy and promises to act, and sympathy was expressed at gatherings in bleeding heart speeches, but the real day-to-day action came from the Jewish organizations in the United States.
The welfare of the former Refusniks and Prisoners of Zion in the Soviet Union was, in a large measure, dependent upon the grassroots publicizing the evil which was being done to them and upon the strength of public reaction in the West. But whenever anything new would happen, we knew that, first of all, we had to immediately alert the activists in the U.S., not in Israel. At the office of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the attitude was always lackadaisical: 'No big deal if they wait, what difference does it make if we do something about it today or two days from now?'
Somehow, it seems that that amongst intensive pursuers of justice, there is always a preponderance of Jews in any given population - and this really bothers the perpetrators of injustice. "What, again you think you're special?" This statement which issued from the mouth of the American judge at the Pollard hearing was not invented by him. We have heard this kind of thing from the Cossacks, from the Bolsheviks, and the Communists among others. 'We've socked it to lots of others and they aren't protesting," said the Pollard judge, "so why are YOU making noise? You dare to waste our precious time?!'
The ones who are of course most angered by this, are those others who have been similarly shafted, who know the ire of the Government and judicial system and who are sitting quietly not making any noise: "What, you again? We are already sunk deep into the garbage, the filth is up to our eyeballs, why are you making waves?"
There are basically two kinds of approaches to this situation. There are those who invented the sweet solution of silence, who are able to turn their backs and resolve every situation by ignoring it; and then there are those who make waves because their conscience simply will not allow them to do otherwise. The Government of Israel is among the former.
It is only recently that we learned the fate of Harry Hiram Bingham, who at the beginning of the Second World War saved thousands of Jews, despite the strong opposition of his superiors at the State Department. In 1941 he was transferred to Argentina. From there, according to reports, he interfered with the activities of the Nazi Party in South America until he was finally forced to leave the service.
He never received any recognition for his life-saving work. Bingham died in 1988 completely destitute. For 50 years the US State Department refused to acknowledge or express gratitude to him. That is until a few months ago, when Colin Powell awarded him a posthumous medal of distinction "for constructive dissent."
The way things go, many years from now, when this current generation has long since disappeared from the face of the Earth, no doubt the Powers-That -Be will open the "secret" documents on Jonathan Pollard, and officially come to the same conclusion which everyone already knows today: Pollard did what he out of deep patriotic concern for both nations, in alphabetical order: America and Israel.
It being the case that the political establishment loves to practice doing justice to dead heroes, Pollard's indictment will then be cancelled and a ceremony led by the Israeli Foreign Minister will be arranged, at which the American Secretary of State will solemnly lay a medal on the grave of Jonathan Pollard.
All that remains to ask is who the next victim will be.