Pollard Sues: Cabinet Appointment of Rafi Eitran Forfeits My Life

Hillel Fendel - Arutz Sheva News Service - May 2, 2006, 4 Iyar 5766

A High Court suit has been filed on behalf of Jonathan Pollard demanding that Pensioner Party leader Rafi Eitan, Pollard's former handler and control officer, not be appointed as a gov't minister.

The suit outlines why Eitan is not suited to be a Cabinet minister and should not be entrusted with the responsibility for Israeli citizens. Among the points mentioned are the following:

• Eitan falsely told the Americans that Pollard had acted on his own and without Israeli knowledge or supervision. This lie deflected all responsibility for the Pollard affair away from the Government of Israel. Throughout the nearly 21 years that Pollard has remained in jail, Eitan has never corrected this lie. His ongoing silence about official Israeli involvement has helped to keep Pollard, an Israeli agent, in U.S. prison throughout this time.

• For 21 years, Eitan has withheld a critical document, refusing to release it to the Americans. He has also refused to provide it to the appropriate authorities in Israel so that they might use it to save the life of the Israeli agent.

  The document, showing exactly what information Pollard did and did not supply to Israel, would have prevented the false accusations against him in this regard and would have allowed the Americans to close the case years ago. Eitan has hidden this document for 21 years, knowing full well that he was sacrificing the life of Pollard, an Israeli agent, by doing so.

• Rafi Eitan made a clear and calculated choice over the past 21 years to protect the political careers of his friends by sacrificing a soldier in the field. He has refused numerous appeals from Pollard and from his wife, Esther, to come to the aid of his agent quietly behind the scenes.

• Eitan claimed that the Americans are angered when they hear his name, and that the less that they hear the name "Eitan" the better it is for Pollard - and therefore he refused to help at all. Despite this, he ran for Knesset and now expects to be named a Cabinet minister - angering the Americans all over again and leaving Pollard to take the blame again.

• Eitan told Esther Pollard, in the presence of witnesses, that his only regret in this case was that he did not succeed in killing Pollard before he sought refuge at the Embassy so that there never would have been a Pollard affair.

• A commander who callously abandons his agent in the field for 21 years, and then steps on him all over again after 21 years to further his own career should not be entrusted with public office and the responsibility that governs the lives of our citizens.

Pollard's petition to the Supreme Court concludes:

"The State of Israel has no right to forfeit Pollard's life and cause it to end behind bars. The appointment of Rafi Eitan as a Government Minister will preclude attempts to bring about Pollard's release and will thus be tantamount to imposing a death sentence on Pollard. The State of Israel has no right to do this."

MK Uri Ariel (National Union) called upon Interim Prime Minister Olmert not to wait for the Supreme Court's ruling on the issue, and to withdraw his appointment of Rafi Eitan immediately. "People who are connected with criminal or unethical activity should not be appointed to public positions," Ariel said. "It is inconceivable that a person who bears the shame of the abandonment of Jonathan Pollard should serve as a minister in Israel's government."

Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison for his conviction of passing classified information to Israel, an American ally - information that helped Israel in its defense against Iraqi attacks. His case has been compared to that of Captain Alfred Dreyfus of France - a world-famous case which has become the hallmark of anti-Semitism. Dreyfus was imprisoned for only five years until he was pardoned in 1899.

Pollard is in ill health, and his wife has intimated that it could cost him his life. In a letter he wrote just before the Pesach holiday, Pollard wrote of his high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic arthritis, symptoms of glaucoma, and problems with his gall bladder and sinuses.