'Israel mulls deal to extend freeze for Pollard's release'

[whosinpower]

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=188647

snip - Senior Israeli officials are considering a deal in which the moratorium on building starts in West Bank settlements would be extended for three months in exchange for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard from the United States, Army Radio reported Monday.

According to the report, Israeli sources submitted the potential deal to US sources in Washington, but it was not known if or how they reacted.



So - Israeli sources offered up the extension in exchange for Pollard.......convicted criminal. This reeks of extortion. Some ally.....

[closeupready]

1. Will never happen. They are just looking for a pretext to continue annexing land in the West Bank.

n/t

[aranthus]

10. How does not giving up Pollard give the Israelis a pretext to do anything? n/t

[Ken Burch]

11. It might be worth it if the Israelis also agreed to release Mordechai Vanunu as well

There's no way a person who was trying to stop nuclear war should be in prison while a person who wanted MORE nukes isn't.

Israel never had any good reason to be spying on the U.S. anyway. The U.S. was ALREADY telling them everything.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. I'd trade Pollard for the return of all settlement land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

[Recursion]

3. I wish I trusted the Israeli government to follow through

I just have this image of them getting Pollard back and continuing the settlement expansions.

[aranthus]

5. Do you think the Israelis are stupid or that the US is impotent?

The Pollard case is a sensitive one. There are quite a few people in high places who would want him to never be released. If the Israelis got him back on their word that they would freeze settlements (which isn't gonna happen in the first place), do you really think that they would risk the fallout from their reneging on the agreement?

[Recursion]

7. What fallout?

What would the US do?

[aranthus]

8. For starters,

end military cooperation. Stop loan guarantees. Stop supporting Israel at the UN. You think that the US would stand for being double crossed on something like the Pollard case? There would be Hell to pay, and I'm pretty sure that the Israelis know it.

[Ken Burch]

12. Well...would it be that terrible for Israel to actually LIVE up to the agreement?

There's clearly no good reason for them to keep expanding the settlements. The settlements are big enough already.

[aranthus]

15. Who said it would be terrible?

Follow the flow of the discussion. Recursion posted that he/she wouldn't trust the Israelis to keep their end of the deal, not that it was a bad idea. I responded by pointing out that the Israelis would be stupid to renege on that kind of a deal (assuming that we would ever let Pollard go in the first place, which isn't going to happen). No one said anything about it being a bad thing for Israel to live up to such an agreement.

[Ken Burch]

16. Well, if you didn't mean that, I'm glad

But if you re-read your own post, I think you could understand why someone else could make the interpretation of it that I did.

If you meant to say that Bibi wouldn't go there...well, of course not. And the problem is, you're likely to just get Bibi after Bibi after Bibi running Israel for the forseeable future, no matter who wins the election. Kadima, after all, were the party of OCL, and the pathetic remnant of Labor is now back under the control of the "war forever" crowd.

You'd think the last ten years or so would finally have shown Israelis that rigidity and delay aren't going to work for them anymore.

[whosinpower]

13. Which kind of makes a person wonder why

They would float this idea in the first place. Pollard has absolutely nothing to do with the palistinian/Israeli conflict. And, even if they did freeze settlements for an additional three months, there is no guarentee that anything will come out of those talks.

Why would they undermine their position in such a way? This makes no sense to me.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

14. Of course it would stand for it.

Too large a section of the US electorate views anything less than total, unqualified support for Israel as tantamount to supporting the holocaust for any of the consequences you suggest to have any chance of being politically viable.

Frankly, a lot of Americans, especially on the right, would be cheering Israel on if it got Pollard back and then reneged on its deal.

[Recursion]

22. Yes, I think the US would stand for being double crossed. Pollard is *already* a double cross

Why would a second double cross change anything?

[aranthus]

24. How is spying a double cross?

Countries spy on each other all the time. I'm not saying that I like it, but it's a fact of life. A double cross is promising one thing and then breaking your word. Spying certainly isn't that. Besides, how do you know that we stood for it? Isn't Pollard in prison?

[azurnoir]

25. Pollard did double cross the US as a person having access

to classified information he had to sign "pledges" or contracts promising to keep that information confidential, but I find your tacit acceptance of Israel's spying on the US intriguing would you be so accepting of India spying on the US?
Personally I think the story is BS however if true then I would like to see Obama convene a comity on this he could include a number of Congress people Nita Lowey and Anthony Weiner come to mind along with a others such as Keith Ellison and Jim Oberstar it could be truly interesting

[aranthus]

26. Except that the thread was about Israel supposedly double crossing the US. n/t

[azurnoir]

28. the sub-thread was about both n/t

[aranthus]

29. That doesn't make sense.

If the sub-thread included Pollard as a double crossing the US, then how did the US "stand for it?" Pollard was caught convicted and thrown in prison for life. Lucky for him we're pushovers. Go back and look at Recursion's post 22. The argumsnt there is that the US would stand for being double crossed by Israel, because Pollard was already a double cross. Except that the double cross there was by Pollard, not Israel. And in case, you missed it, the whole point being raised there was that it was an opportunity for some to trot out the double loyalty canard.

[azurnoir]

30. I did read post 22 prior to my first post and I missed nothing n/t

[atreides1]

4. F***k That

The bastard was willing to betray the US, he got paid for his treason by our "ally"! He also provided information to South Africa and tried to sell information to Pakistan as well

Besides, he has a chance of being paroled in November of 2015.

Also, Pollard was eligible to apply for parole after eight years and six months, though he has never done so.

Four past directors of Naval Intelligence, William Studeman, Sumner Shapiro, John L. Butts, and Thomas Brooks, authored a response to the talk of clemency and what they termed "the myths that have arisen from this clever public relations campaign... aimed at transforming Pollard from greedy, arrogant betrayer of the American national trust into Pollard, committed Israeli patriot".<58> They asserted that Pollard passed information to three other countries before engaging in espionage activity on behalf of Israel, and that he had offered his services to a fourth country while he was spying for Israel.<58> They continued,

“ We... feel obligated to go on record with the facts regarding Pollard in order to dispel the myths that have arisen from this clever public relations campaign... aimed at transforming Pollard from greedy, arrogant betrayer of the American national trust in to Pollard, committed Israeli patriot
Pollard pleaded guilty and therefore never was publicly tried. Thus, the American people never came to know that he offered classified information to three other countries before working for the Israelis and that he offered his services to a fourth country while he was spying for Israel. They also never came to understand that he was being highly paid for his services....

Pollard and his apologists argue he turned over to the Israelis information they were being denied that was critical to their security. The fact is, however, Pollard had no way of knowing what the Israeli government was already receiving by way of official intelligence exchange agreements... Some of the data he compromised had nothing to do with Israeli security or even with the Middle East. He betrayed worldwide intelligence data, including sources and methods developed at significant cost to the U.S. taxpayer. As a result of his perfidy, some of those sources are lost forever.

...Another claim Pollard made is that the U.S. government reneged on its bargain not to seek the life sentence. What is not heard is that Pollard's part of the bargain was to cooperate fully in an assessment of the damage he had done and to refrain from talking to the press prior to the completion of his sentencing. He blatantly and contemptuously failed to live up to either part of the plea agreement... It was this coupled with the magnitude and consequences of his criminal actions that resulted in the judge imposing a life sentence... The appellate court subsequently upheld the life sentence.

If, as Pollard and his supporters claim, he has "suffered enough" for his crimes, he is free to apply for parole as the American judicial system provides. In his arrogance, he has refused to do so, but insists on being granted clemency or a pardon.

[aranthus]

6. Nice try, but no.

I don't blame people for asking for things we won't give them, but we won't give them Pollard.

[Dick Dastardly]

9. The bastard should rot in prison for the rest of his life. All those who commit treason

while in positions of public service/national security such as military, FBI, CIA etc etc should spend the rest of thier lives in prison.

[Ken Burch]

17. Odd that you'd say that.

I thought all pro-Israeli hardliners considered Pollard a folk hero.

The part that still gets me is that his actions were pointless. The Americans wern't hiding anything from the Israelis on anything.

[Dick Dastardly]

23. As usual you thought wrong n/t

[Ken Burch]

27. Not really.

It's obvious from every post you've ever made here that, if you actually lived in Israel you'd vote Likud or Beitenyu. There's no way a person who's expressed the views you've expressed about Palestinians could be progressive about anything.

[shaayecanaan]

18. Sounds like a deal to me

The US isn't willing to use the stick and aside from providing money or military kit handing over Pollard seems like an obvious carrot.

To be honest the deal would be pretty embarrassing for all concerned if it ever came to light. But such is life.

[shaayecanaan]

20. From the Guardian:-

Netanyahu's office initially said: "We know of no query to the Americans on this matter", but later was more equivocal. Israeli officials dismissed the prospect of a deal for Pollard's release over such a short time frame but, given that Netanyahu has attempted to attach the convicted spy's freedom to earlier peace talks, it is likely that the issue is being broached.

Danny Dayan, head of the Yesha Council of Jewish settlers, condemned any proposal to swap Pollard for an extension of the settlement freeze: "The very idea is an ugly form of blackmail. Should we also agree to give up the Golan Heights in exchange for Gilad Shalit ?"

However, any deal is likely to meet stiff resistance from US intelligence which has previously scuppered plans to free Pollard. Netanyahu has said Israel does not plan to extend the moratorium on settlement building, and officials are not commenting on how the issue might be resolved, saying only that Israel "does not want people leaving the table".

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, told a French news agency that peace talks would be over if Israel abandoned the settlement freeze. "The negotiations will continue as long as the settlement remains frozen," he said. "I am not prepared to negotiate an agreement for a single day more."

Pollard's supporters in Israel and the US have tried to portray his actions as motivated by loyalty to the Jewish state. However, that position has been undermined because he was paid for the information and the FBI has claimed he also sold secrets to apartheid South Africa and attempted to pass them to Pakistan.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/20/israel-spy-release-settlement-freeze

[whosinpower]

21. Except the US isn't offering it

Israel wants Pollard in exchange for 3 months negotiations and settlement freeze.

It is for lack of a better word.....extortion.

[azurnoir]

19. this just gets "better and better"

now the claim is Bill linton made the offer in 1998

Former US president Bill Clinton said in a recent conversation with a prominent US Jewish leader that when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went to the Wye River Plantation talks in 1998 with Yasser Arafat, he thought that he would return to Israel with Jonathan Pollard, according to Israeli diplomatic sources.

According to these sources, this is the first time Clinton has acknowledged that Netanyahu went to the talks thinking he had Pollard’s freedom in hand.

In the end, a deal to release Pollard as part of the agreements with Arafat was scuttled when then-CIA director George Tenet threatened to resign if the deal went through.

The revelation by sources in Jerusalem of a private conversation Clinton had with a Jewish leader regarding an episode that took place more than a decade ago took on increased significance Monday amid reports – or perhaps trial balloons – that one idea being discussed by Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Washington regarding how to deal with the imminent end of the settlement construction moratorium would be that Israel would extend the moratorium if Pollard, who has been in a US prison for 25 years, were released.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=188647