Free Jonathan Pollard? I don’t think so

By Noel Koch

Best Defense guest columnist

In the run-up to President Obama's trip to the
Middle East, apologists for Jonathan
Pollard, the U.S. Navy civilian convicted of spying
for Israel, urged Pollard's release. This has become a recurring event led, strikingly, by Israeli
leaders.

Here are two reasons why it is absurd to
consider ever releasing Jonathan Pollard:

First, the
Israelis have never told us who his co-conspirators were.

Second, the
Israelis have never told us how much of the information they obtained was
traded to nations hostile to the United States.

Pollard was arrested on November 21, 1985 while
trying to escape into the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. In March 1987 he
was convicted in a
plea bargain that permitted him to avoid a public trial, as a result of which there would be no public record
and thus no public awareness of the full extent of his crimes or why he
committed them.

The narrative
aggressively promoted by his supporters in Israel and the United States paints
Pollard as a committed Zionist prompted by his love for Israel and concern for
its security. It ignores other facts, e.g. before he began spying for Israel, he
had already reached out to other
foreign intelligence organizations, one of which actually was an enemy of
Israel, in an effort to capitalize on his position as an analyst with access to
classified U.S. information. The plea agreement also helped obscure the fact
that Pollard was bought and paid for by the Israelis; his motive was money, not
warm feelings for the Jewish state.

Israel's damage
control efforts included the contention that the Pollard escapade was a rogue
operation not carried out through the nation's normal espionage channels. This
much would prove to be true. Pollard was not being run by Mossad. As
is often the case with missteps between states, this one was rooted in personal
animus. Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger's reluctance to put the lives of
American military personnel at the disposal of Israel's interests promptly
produced the usual result: a smear campaign in which Weinberger was implied to
harbor anti-Semitic sentiments. Especially ill-disposed to Weinberger was his
Israeli counterpart, Ariel Sharon. Among other things, Sharon was convinced
Weinberger was refusing to share intelligence of interest to Israel.
Accordingly, Sharon set about to get the alleged intelligence on his own.

Sharon's agent in this endeavor was legendary
Israeli intelligence operative Rafi Eitan. Rafi found his dupe in the buyable
Jonathan Pollard. Here begins an aspect of the matter hidden from public view
by the manner in which Pollard was prosecuted. It has served the Israeli
narrative for Pollard to be seen as some sort of super spy. He was nothing of
the sort. He simply exploited his trusted access to Navy computers to withdraw
information his handlers instructed him to get. At least some of the documents
were secured behind alpha-numeric designators. Pollard had no idea what these
designators represented. He was simply told to extract the associated
documents.

Thereupon rests one reason Israel has from the
outset been anxious to retrieve Pollard, and one of several very good reasons
Pollard should remain in prison to the end of his life sentence. U.S.
intelligence personnel have long known that Pollard didn't act alone and that
there were other, still unidentified (or at least unprosecuted), traitors to
America involved in this undertaking. Who identified for Pollard the specific
documents he was to pull out of the computers? Israel hasn't told us.

In the netherworld of espionage, competent national
agencies trade information. It is known that the information Israel bought from
Pollard was exchanged with other national agencies to the detriment of U.S.
interests. Some of the damage to the United States is known. Some may not be.
In any case, Israel has never given the United States a complete accounting of
what was stolen (to be sure, Pollard himself doesn't know) and what was passed
to enemies of the United States.

Jonathan Pollard got what he wanted: money,
jewelry, and paid trips in exchange for his treachery; he got what he deserved:
life in prison. Unlike Judas, who had the grace to hang himself in shame, he
lives in the hope that his purchasers will spring him so he can enjoy the
apartment set aside for him, the money they have been banking for him, and the
hero's welcome they have promised him for betraying the United States.

Noel
Koch served in the U.S. Department of Defense from 1981 to 1986. During this
time he worked with Rafi Eitan, advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on
terrorism, and later with Amiram Nir, who held the same position with Prime
Minister Shimon Peres.