Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Chairman Abraham Foxman was quoted by Maariv Tuesday as having called the US’s refusal to release Jonathan Pollard as a form of “revenge” against the American Jewish community.
According to the daily, Foxman revealed in a Tablet interview that his personal views on the Pollard case have changed over the years, after US officials in the last government publicly stated that the Israeli spy’s punishment is “unjust.”
“When Pollard’s case first became public 28 years ago, there were those who believed that his punishment – life imprisonment – was rife with anti-Semitism,” Foxman explained. “We at the ADL took the accusation very seriously, launched our own investigation, and concluded that no anti-Semitism was involved in the sentence whatsoever. Calls to release the prisoner escalated, but they fell on deaf ears. It became clear to everyone that the US had nothing to gain from Pollard, that he had no new information from him that could advance American interests. The fact that Pollard has shared information with US’s ally Israel justifies punishment, but not such a long imprisonment, and the fact that information was passed to such a close ally garners the need for a more positive response to calls for his early release.” Read more at Arutz Sheva.
{Matzav.com Israel}
Foxman’s comments are way off base.
In fact, his statements incite anti-Semitism.