For the first time since he was released, Jonathan Pollard, has landed in Israel. He has done more for Israel than Israel did for him, and what's more, he loves the country more than we love him.
Although the public battle to secure his release that went on for years did not manage to get his sentence commuted or shorten the period of time in which he was not allowed to leave New York, it's good that Pollard knew that the Israeli public and the government were able to value what he did for them. At least in this matter, it's good that Prime Minister Netanyahu went to the airport to welcome him.
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This was a strange saga that seemed to belong to another time. Pollard himself is a greeting from the time when Shimon Peres was prime minister in a unity government with Yitzhak Shamir.
In contrast to how things look now, the two sandals that afflicted Israel-US relations in the 1980s were much more extreme than any of the clashes and conflicts we've seen in the past two decades. The Pollard affair and Iran-gate, in which Israel was a partner in a back-door weapons deal that funded the Contras in Nicaragua – created a serious crisis in the time of President Ronald Reagan, who was friendly to Israel.
The affair also complicated American Jewry's relations with American society and with Israel. The American administration and US intelligence services created a picture of serious treason, resurrecting the old double loyalty demon for American Jews. Even notable friends of Israel on the American Right stuck to the narrative that Pollard had seriously compromised US intelligence, and was a traitor by any criterion – a spy who had done major damage to America.
Compared to espionage affairs for which Americans paid with their lives, or cost the lives of agents, Pollard was given an especially harsh, disproportional sentence.
What was interesting was that Pollard became an icon for parts of the Israeli public, especially the religious Right. He became a symbol. He represents a kind of Zionism and unconditional love for Israel, without the false pangs of conscience of many American Jews.
Jonathan was not given the made-up status of "our son" that Israelis use for captive or missing soldiers or civilians. He wasn't a child. He was a fighter on a more important front. A damage report by American intelligence services claimed that Pollard's recruitment in 1984 had to do with what they called a "Pyrrhic victory" in the First Lebanon War, or to put it simply – the failure of the Frist Lebanon War which combined with the economic catastrophe at the time led Israel to take unacceptable, perhaps desperate, steps. His returns home came very late, but not too late.
He served Israel behind the intelligence lines for only a year (until the end of 1985), but his service was important, and Israel owes him its thanks.
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