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violent prison environment.
"There was a sustained period of factual misrepresentation
on the part of a number of advocates of the Pollard cause," said
Jerome Chanes, principal author of the NJCRAC report. "At
a certain point, NJCRAC felt this called for a response. It was
time to set the record straight, if we were going to have an open
exploration of the issue."
The pattern of distortion, he said, was intensified by the fact
that the government's actions in the case — including its reneg-
ing in the case of Mr. Pollard's plea bargain — looked suspi-
cious even to many who had little sympathy for the convicted
spy.
"You had a ready made set of villains," he said. Weinberg-
er was a clearly identified villain in terms of Jews. That made
it easy to exaggerate."
Those factors also moved some Pollard activists to weave
elaborate conspiracy theories, which held that elements in
the government set Mr. Pollard up from the outset as a way
of embarrassing Israel and weakening U.S.-Israeli strategic
ties.
Not surprisingly, Pollard backers responded by asserting
that it was NJCRAC that was bending the facts to cover its
own timidity in the affair. Still, even some supporters privately
admit that some members of their movement have occasion-
ally played it fast and loose with the facts.
On a broader level, the free-Pollard effort has been compli-
cated by the moral implications of Mr. Pollard's actions.
Inevitably, there was a built-in tension between those in the
movement acting out of compassion toward a fellow Jew in
trouble, and those who viewed Mr. Pollard as a hero who put
concern for Israel and the Jewish people above loyalty to the
U.S. government.
Morris Pollard, Jonathan's father, admitted that there are
some in the movement who have tried to portray Jonathan as
a hero — and that such arguments have hurt his son's chances
for commutation.
"We haven't argued that he's innocent," he said. "I can't jus-
tify what he did. I don't think anybody can. But people have
different agendas. There are some Jews who are so intent on
anything having to do with Israel that they have declared him
a hero. That's wrong. As Jonathan has said, he was misguid-
ed."
However, the elder Mr. Pollard repeated the argument that
Jonathan's spying came, in part, as a result of the withhold-
ing of vital information from Israel despite a 1983 Jerusalem-
Washington intelligence-sharing agreement.
The argument is cited by Mr. Pollard's supporters who say
they understand why he spied for Israel, although they don't
condone it. But that is a perilously fine distinction.
"He broke a man-made, written law," said Emmanuel A.
Winston, a Chicago Middle East commentator and a major
voice in the pro-Pollard effort. "But what he did was moral,
in the context of the laws of Nuremberg. Unfortunately, he
took the wrong way of doing it. It's a fine line you have to
walk."
The moral question of guilt and repentance came back to
haunt the movement a few weeks ago in the public dispute by
two New York rabbis over Mr. Pollard's true feelings.
Early last year, Mr. Pollard — prompted by a visit by Rab-
bi Ahron Soloveitchik, a prominent figure in the Orthodox world
— signed a letter to President Clinton stating that his actions
were "repugnant to American law, God's Torah and the law of
nature."
(/) But in comments cited in the New York Jewish Week
and the Forward, Rabbi Weiss, Mr. Pollard's personal rabbi,
z seemed to repudiate parts of that letter, leading to the public
= dispute over whether or not Mr. Pollard is genuinely repen-
`22 taut.
In an interview, Rabbi Weiss insisted that he was misquot-
ed, and that Mr. Pollard was only "uncomfortable" with the
phrase about his actions violating God's Torah.
Pc "I quickly added that Jonathan feels very deep and profound
regret," he said. "Jonathan objected to that single phrase
UJ
CD because it had been used by his opponents to suggest that
he has no moral base, and therefore deserves no considera-
i— tion."
Rabbi Weiss insisted that Mr. Pollard's 1991 letter to his
parents remains the only genuine expression of his
feelings about his guilt. In that letter, Mr. Pollard wrote "I have
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always accepted the fact that I am
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not above the law, and deserve to be
punished for my actions, however
ignored."
well motivated I may have believed
them to be."
lawyer Alan M.
Mr. Pollard (whose access to jour-
nalists is severely restricted) ap-
Dershowitz
parently is concerned about the
controversy. In a recent meeting
with Mr. Winston, he reportedly ex-
pressed concern about who is speak-
ing on his behalf.
"I know for an absolute fact that
he is remorseful," Mr. Winston said.
"But later interpretations by other people put a cloud on that
statement. He said that people were speaking for him, and he
couldn't respond to what they were saying."
Mr. Pollard's backers continue to claim their movement has
had the unanticipated effect of pulling the Jewish community
together.
"It means the Jewish community has coalesced," said Mor-
ris Pollard. "That's what this movement means — a commu-
nity coming together."
But many establishment Jewish leaders remain
resentful of what they regard as a bitterness and an intoler-
ance in the Pollard camp, which they see as disruptive to Jew-
ish unity.
"I see this as enormously sad," said the leader of one major
Jewish group. "There has been a coming together over Pollard,
but also a real tearing apart. It's too early to tell yet which of
these consequences will have a long-term impact on our corn-
munity."
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