Our Views
 

The Scary Captive
by: Moshe Feiglin
Founder and President, Manhigut Yehudit
Elul, 5766 (Sept., '06)
 

As another year draws to an end, Jonathan Pollard is still not with us. I looked for his name on the posters of the POWs and MIAs at last week's demonstration. All the other names were there, old and new -- Ron Arad, Guy Hever -- but Pollard, the most veteran captive, was missing. I don't think that it makes much of a difference in Heaven if our brothers are captive in countries that speak Arabic, English or Hebrew.  

We long to be normal. But Pollard destroys our illusion of normalcy. We want to believe that we are Western liberals, that America is our friend, that we have managed to create enlightened Israeli-ness in a country that has found its place among the nations. But then along comes Pollard and undermines all of those notions.

He forced Israel to deal with a paradox. On the one hand, the Israeli dream is to be American. But here comes an American Jew – someone who has already "made the grade" – and saves us from the very dream that we so want to identify with and depend upon. Pollard is the Jew who saved the Israeli from the Americans. The Israeli will never forgive him for that. 

If we regard Pollard as a captive, that means that America is not exactly our great friend. And if we regard him as a Prisoner of Zion, how can we reconcile that with our dream to be part of the "enlightened" West? 

We can have captives in Arab countries and Prisoners of Zion behind the Iron Curtain. But in America??? And so, Israel has missed no opportunity to renounce the man who sacrificed his life so that it can live. On the contrary. Even when the Americans bring up the possibility of Pollard's release, Israel does all it can to clarify that as far as it is concerned, it is better for Jonathan to die in prison. Bush wanted to release Pollard for a Passover furlough. All that was missing was an official Israeli request. 112 Knesset members signed a petition asking for his release, but Sharon "forgot" to take it with him to the US. At this point in time, Pollard is not in prison because of the Americans. He is in prison because of us. 

Jonathan Pollard has been in jail for 21 years. No spy convicted of an offense similar to his has ever been imprisoned in the U.S. for more than four years. He has never left the prison, even for a furlough. His wife – a cancer patient – receives no aid whatsoever from the State of Israel. I have visited Pollard twice. His body is broken but his spirit is steadfast and his mind is one of the sharpest that I have encountered. In his letter to the families of Israel's POWs Pollard writes as follows: 

We simply cannot afford to allow the culture of abandonment to continue. The Nation of Israel must find the strength to stand on its feet, to emerge from the chaos caused by lack of morality and find its way back to Jewish responsibility for our brothers. It is vital that we restore our strength as a unified nation – a nation rooted in its moral standard never to surrender to evil and never to abandon a brother in his time of need. If we succeed – and I believe that we can succeed – we will once again merit Heavenly blessing, as we did in Entebbe, and we will be worthy of greeting all of our captive brothers as they return home." 

Israel must return to the forefront of moral clarity. That is the key to the release of all its captive sons.