Word: pollards
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...been on the battlefront for Israel too long for anyone to throw that crap at us." That was the reaction of Hyman Bookbinder, 71, a longtime leader of the American Jewish Committee, to Israeli criticism of U.S. Jewish leaders in the wake of the painful case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, 32; the American intelligence analyst was sentenced to life imprisonment earlier this month as an Israeli spy. Few could remember a previous dispute that had produced such tension between Israel and its closest friends in the U.S. But then, as Morris Abram, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major...
...spite of the unprecedented flak he was getting from the 65 U.S. Jewish leaders who visited Israel last week, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir still insisted that the Pollard affair had been a "rogue" operation undertaken without the government's knowledge. Two weeks ago, the Israeli Cabinet reluctantly appointed a two-member committee to investigate the case, but failed to give it the power to subpoena witnesses. Last week the committee appeared to be near collapse after an attorney for three Israelis implicated in the case advised his clients not to testify. In the meantime, a second official inquiry, conducted...
...Pollard affair has led to renewed criticism of Shamir and his Labor partners in the national unity government, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin. One newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, published photos depicting the trio under the caption "Everyone covering up for everyone." In Ha'aretz, Commentator B. Michael wrote that the spy case, along with the Israeli role in Iranscam, was part of a pattern in which Israeli leaders have taken the position that "We did not know, did not hear, did not see, did not report, and we are not responsible...
Other Israelis lashed out bitterly at U.S. Jews for failing to stand up for the Pollards. One broadside, published in the Jerusalem Post, came from Political Science Professor Shlomo Avineri, a former director general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Addressing U.S. Jews, Avineri declared, "When the going gets tough, your leaders react like trembling Israelites in the shtetl, not like the proud and mighty citizens of a free democratic society . . . America, it now appears, may not be your promised land." Days later the Post reported that U.S. Senator David Durenberger had said privately that the Pollard affair may have...
Attacks like Avineri's enraged many U.S. Jewish leaders. They felt that Israel should never have exploited an ardent young American Zionist and should now show far more awareness of U.S. feelings. Said Bookbinder bluntly: "Pollard is a criminal found guilty in our system of justice, it's as simple as that. If it was perceived in America that we had come to the defense of Pollard because he's a Jew, our credibility as a Jewish community would be down to zero overnight, and Israel would be the loser." In Washington, the staunchly pro-Israel New Republic called...