When President Obama lands in Israel on Wednesday, he may encounter some Israelis staging a hunger strike in support of Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American serving a life term in a North Carolina prison for spying for Israel.
But the call for Mr. Pollard’s release will not be restricted to the strident, right-wing protests that have previously greeted American officials.
Instead, it will come from Israel’s dovish president, Shimon Peres, and some of the country’s most respected public figures: Nobel Prize-winning scientists, retired generals, celebrated authors and intellectuals who have signed, along with more than 175,000 other citizens, an online petition appealing for clemency for Mr. Pollard.
After years of being viewed as a somewhat marginal and divisive issue here, the campaign to free Mr. Pollard has become a mainstream crusade. Prominent Israelis are shedding the shame long felt over the affair, one of the most damaging, painful episodes in the annals of the American-Israeli relationship, and recasting it as a humanitarian issue ready to be resolved.
The effort has gathered momentum, and many Israelis consider Mr. Obama’s visit to be the perfect opportunity for a gesture of good will.
Read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES.
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A German doctor says, “Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in 6 weeks.” A British doctor says, “That is nothing; we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in 4 weeks.” A Canadian doctor says, “In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in 2 weeks.” An American doctor, not to be outdone, says, “You guys are way behind…We just took a man with NO brain, made him President, and now the whole country is looking for work.
can someone post where to sign…..
Here we go again. Every time we make a big tumult and put this on the front page we make his release that much further away. Elected officials and judges can’t allow themselves to be perceived as open to this kind of pressure. People would say, “Oh, he caved in to the Jewish lobby.” The old-fashioned way of working quietly behind the scenes is what works. PR grandstanding does not.
pathetic our president is obviously antisemetic if he can free thousands of illegal fellons (jailed because the wwere a danger to soceity)but cant free one guy who is no danger to society