----- Original Message -----

 Canada's new Minister of Justice (appointed today, 12 December,
2003) Zionist law professor Irwin Cotler is an advocate for the
notorious Israeli spy and American traitor, Jonathan Pollard.

It is a matter of public record that military intelligence Jonathan
Pollard both stole and sold during the 1980s was given by Israel's
Shamir government to America's arch-foe and rival, the Soviet Union.

Jerusalem Post | Thursday, January 10, 2001

Pardon Pollard, Mr. President

AS he spends his last days in office working to secure some semblance of a
productive dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians, US President Bill
Clinton should pause and remember Jonathan Pollard. Pardoning the convicted
Israeli spy would not garner the same glory as international peacemaking,
to be sure, nor could it win the outgoing president any political gain. It
would be little more than a pure humanitarian act -- and what more could
there be?

There is no question that Pollard's crime of passing classified information
to Israel while working as a US Navy analyst was serious -- it was. Nor is
it in question that he deserved to be punished -- he has been. Indeed, he
himself expressed "deep remorse" in a letter to Clinton last month. The
issue is: After 15 years in maximum security prisons, including seven in
solitary confinement, further incarceration of Pollard would be a
miscarriage of justice.

Alan Dershowitz, Irwin Cotler, Kenneth Lasson (all law professors), and
Angelo Codevilla (professor and former Senate Intelligence Committee
staffer) pointed out in a Washington Post op-ed last year that Pollard was
neither charged nor convicted of the crime of treason. "Nor was there
anything in his indictment to suggest that he intended to harm America --
or that he compromised the nation's intelligence-gathering capabilities or
caused injury to any of its agents," the op-ed continued.

As unseemly as it may be, allies spy on each other all the time. When they
are caught, the rules of the game dictate that the matter be settled
quietly, usually by expulsion. In no case has the punishment for spying for
an ally carried anywhere near as harsh a sentence as the one Pollard is
serving.

Pollard was charged with one count of passing classified information to an
ally, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. The current maximum
sentence for this offense is 10 years, and the median sentence is about
three years. Pollard, by contrast, is being treated more harshly than
Aldridge Ames, who was held responsible for the deaths of 10 American
agents, convicted of treason -- and sentenced to life in prison. Ames did
not serve for years in solitary confinement, nor was he confined in as
harsh a prison environment as Pollard's.

Pollard's life sentence, besides being considerably disproportionate to
other sentences for similar crimes, was in gross violation of his plea
agreement with the government. Under that agreement, according to which
Pollard pled guilty and cooperated with the prosecution, the government
pledged not to call for a life sentence. Though two judges on a three-judge
panel upheld Pollard's sentence by ruling against his appeal on technical
grounds, the third judge found that the government's breach of its plea
agreement was "a complete and gross miscarriage of justice."

It is clear that Pollard violated his oaths to secrecy and unjustifiably
took the law into his own hands. However, he did so not to harm the United
States, but to provide Israel with intelligence that he believed the US
should have been sharing with its close ally. In doing so, Pollard harmed
that alliance, as did those Israelis who acted recklessly in cooperating
with him.

In Israel, Pollard's fate is a matter of national concern. He is not
lionized for his crime, but he is embraced as a patriot across the
political spectrum, as a rare joint letter signed by Binyamin Netanyahu and
Ehud Barak last year illustrates. The letter stated: "Concerning Mr.
Pollard, the people of Israel and virtually all its political parties stand
as one."

That is why Pollard has featured prominently in almost every US-brokered
peace summit, with his pardon mooted by the Israelis as part of a
comprehensive accord, but rejected by the Americans. In these situations,
Clinton was swayed by the US intelligence community, with its unrelenting
antipathy toward Pollard. Indeed, he is understood to have declined
Netanyahu's appeal during the 1999 Wye River talks after CIA chief George
Tenet threatened to quit if Pollard was released.

There is no more such pressure. On January 20 [2001] the US administration
will change, and with it the entire upper echelon. Those working to free
Pollard will have to renew and redouble their efforts, facing a White House
likely less sympathetic to the cause than Clinton's. The outgoing
president, who has professed and proven his affection for Israel, now has a
chance to demonstrate this by giving an American native and Israeli
national his liberty. This simple act would redress a grave injustice, and
serve as a valedictory gesture that would be long remembered. <end>