Vigil Held for Pollard Outside Kerry's Hotel

Wife Asks to Honor Rabin's Request

Hamodia - April 10, 2013

YERUSHALAYIM - On the 10,000th day of Jonathan Pollard's imprisonment, a vigil on hs behalf was held outside U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's hotel in Yerushalayim.

Over 300 Free-Jonathan-Pollard activists carried placards bearing the slogan "10,000 Days is Enough," to remind Kerry of Pollard's plight as he left for a meeting with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, International Relations, Strategic Affairs and Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni.

Pollard's wife Esther, the only speaker at the vigil on Monday night. She noted that in her last meeting with President Shimon Peres he spoke optimistically about the secretary of state's appointment, saying that he had known Kerry for many years as a man with strong moral values and a keen sense of justice.

Peres told Esther that Kerry would surely appreciate the great concern and desire that Israel has for Pollard's release.

"President Peres promised me that he would meet with Kerry and do his utmost to enlist his support for Jonathan's immediate release, whether as matter of justice or as a humanitarian issue," she said.

"I hope and pray that Mr. Peres' words will find their mark in Mr. Kerry's heart and that he will be an honest advocate for mercy and justice. I also hope and pray that Jonathan's release and swift return home as a matter of unequivocal Israeli national consensus will be meaningful to Mr. Kerry."

Esther Pollard appealed to Kerry to use his influence with U.S. President Barack Obama to return Jonathan home now, and "not be left to rot in prison." She stressed that because her husband exhausted his legal options, only presidential clemency could set him free.

"Jonathan has paid a terrible price for his offense, 28 years of his life - 10,000 days in prison as of today," she said. "It is impossible to wrap one's mind around the soul-crushing oppression which Jonathan has endured, day in day out, for 10,000 days. Jonathan is fighting to stay alive in the face of his deteriorating health, while also battling the terrible sense that he is crying out from the depths for help and no one is listening."

Mrs. Pollard recalled that 20 years ago, in September 1993, then-Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin referred to her husband when he spoke to President Bill Clinton in the Rose Garden at the White House after signing the Oslo accords. She said she hoped Obama would realize it was time to answer Rabin's request.

"Mr. President," Rabin said. "We are not asking for hundreds, or thousands, we are asking for one. Just one."