This is very odd.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert surprised participants at Thursday’s working meal of Israeli ministers with US President George W. Bush when he said that it was not the appropriate occasion to discuss the fate of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

The meal was attended by eight ministers, the heads of the Mossad and Shin-Bet (Israel Security Agency), US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other top American officials. Olmert asked Bush to pardon Pollard when he met with the president on Wednesday, but he was turned down.

Pollard’s wife Esther said she was disappointed that Olmert refrained from discussing her husband, because in Judaism, redeeming captives defers any other issue. She said she was not impressed by Olmert raising the issue the day before either.

“That’s not how a serious request is made to secure the release of an Israeli agent in peril after 23 years in jail,” Pollard said. “It’s not something you casually bring up and then leak to the press. It reeks of a feeble attempt to discourage the massive public outcry for Jonathan’s release. That’s the best possible sign that the effort is succeeding and the Jewish people needs to redouble its efforts and press even harder to bring him home.”

• Jonathan Pollard is the only person in the history of the United States to receive a life sentence for spying for an American ally.
• On November 21, 2007, Pollard entered the 23rd year of his life sentence, with no end in sight.
• The maximum sentence today for such an offence is 10 years.
• The median sentence for this offence is 2 to 4 years.

All the members of the Jerusalem city council signed a letter calling for Pollard’s release, which was hand delivered to Bush by Jerusalem mayor Uri Lupoliansky on Wednesday.

Shas chairman Eli Yishai delivered to Bush a letter from Esther Pollard and another from Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef asking for Pollard’s release. The rabbi said that if Bush answered his request affirmatively, he would be blessed with a long life.

Aldrich Ames who spied for an enemy nation (the Soviet Union), committed treason, and was responsible for the deaths of at least 11 American agents, received the same sentence as Jonathan Pollard. Pollard’s only indictment was one count of passing classified information to an ally. Pollard spent 7 years in solitary confinement, in the harshest unit of the harshest prison in the Federal system - FCI Marion.

Aldrich Ames’ treatment was far more benign, and (except for a relatively short period of time during debriefing) did not include the rigours of long years of solitary; nor was he ever subjected to the harsh conditions of “K” Unit at Marion - even though his offence was far more serious.

Comparative Sentences

“One of the most important mitzvot in Judaism is redeeming captives,” Yosef wrote. “At this opportune time, I offer my humble request on behalf of the Jews of Zion that Your Excellency release our brother, the prisoner Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a sentence for spying on behalf of the State of Israel. His health is deteriorating.”

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Pollard’s story is an upsetting one, when you take the time to put it all together. He received a life sentence for ’spying’ for Israel, America’s ally. To put it into perspective, another ’spy’ who received a life sentence was Robert Hansen, who was spying for the Soviet Union, our enemy, and passing classified information over a 20-year period. Jonathan saw warnings in advance of terrorist attacks against Jewish schoolchildren riding buses and that sort of thing. I’m not sure specifically what he did-but the circumstances and punishment dealt to him seem unfair in comparison to others that were done on a grander scale and for longer periods of time-and for enemies of America. Why he’s in jail - and the fact that there was a plea bargain and Jonathan held his end up-and the American government renigged on their end of the agreement- is astonishing and reprehensible. I intend to keep studying up on this and reading about it.

But after reading the court documents of what happened with Jack Idema, anything is possible - government is too big, it’s a runaway train, and there is a fifth column in place working against us and appeasing our enemies. Sometimes I just feel as though we are doomed.

Especially when I look at what I feel is our last hope - as Fred Thompson puts it, -this election is the battle for the soul of the Republican party. And look at the loser candidates we have.

Ugh.

As if Carter’s antisemitism isn’t bad enough, we’ve got BUSH playing footsie with Abbas and the rest of them, and ignoring pleas for Pollard’s release…it’s enough to make a person long for the days when treason was a punishable offense. (And I mean Aldrich Ames [and others] should have been handled like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.) Now they do it every day, and try to do it on the front page of the New York Times…and guys like Pollard somehow are treated like worse criminals than enemy spies.

Makes one kind of wonder who the enemy really is in the eyes of our government.