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Essay
Editorial
Hamas Changing
Or A Con Job?
Report: Easing Gaza closure
could bring a long cease-fire.
I
srael must stay vigilant if it lifts the sea
blockade of Gaza in exchange for a truce
of 7-10 years with Hamas, the terror-
ist organization controlling the beleaguered
coastal strip.
Lifting the blockade, as speculated, would
create a sea passage between Gaza and
Cyprus, linking the economically distressed
strip to the outside world and new trade
opportunities.
But simply put, Hamas can't be trusted to
abide by a treaty with the Jewish state, which
it is sworn by charter to destroy. Sunni Hamas
also is still a sometimes-proxy of Shiite Iran,
the largest state sponsor of terror.
Hamas not only is
feverishly building
new attack and smug-
gling tunnels using
cash and materials
meant to rebuild war-
ravaged homes and
infrastructure, but
also has nearly replen-
ished its stockpile
of short-range mis-
siles — a buildup that
could mean yet anoth-
er siege on southern
Israel.
The Palestinian people, of course, eye Gaza
as part of a future sovereign Palestinian state
that includes, under one plan, much of the
West Bank and the mostly Arab eastern sec-
tor of Jerusalem.
Headline Grabbing
On Aug. 13, according to the Israeli daily
Times of Israel, the London-based Arab daily
Al Hayat reported that truce discussions
between Hamas and Israel
resulted from indirect talks
brokered by Tony Blair, the
former British prime minis-
ter and past Quartet envoy
to the Middle East. Hamas
hasn't confirmed the report
and Israel has denied it. But
Hamas is known to have
Tony Blair
conducted under-the-radar
talks with Israel.
In 2007, the United
Nations impaneled the Quartet — made up
of the United States, the European Union, the
U.N. and Russia — to foster a two-state solu-
tion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Blair apparently agreed
to some truce details with
Hamas political bureau chief
Khaled Mashaal last week
in Qatar, where the Islamic
Resistance Movement leader
is living. In April, Mashaal
told the BBC that attacks on
Israel would continue, "as
Khaled
long as there is occupation,
Mashaal
aggression, war and killing:'
The cease-fire reportedly
hinges on negotiations over Hamas-held body
parts and Israeli hostages.
To help calm regional unrest through
a Hamas-Israel truce, Egypt's leadership,
despite ousting the Hamas-tied Muslim
Brotherhood from power in 2013, is about to
welcome a Hamas delegation.
Border Tension
Israel imposed the sea blockade after
Hamas violently took control of Gaza in
2007 after driving out Fatah forces of the
Palestinian Authority, which now governs
only Palestinian-controlled areas of the West
Bank. Hamas had no luck trying to break the
blockade, prompting it to embrace the tactic
of smuggling via underground tunnels. Such
tunnels also have been used to try to kid-
nap and attack Israelis just beyond the Gaza
border. Moreover, Hamas-fired mortars and
rockets have rained on parts
of Israel over the years.
Land borders, mean-
while, continue to be closely
monitored. Since the end
of Israel's 50-day war with
Gaza last summer, 70,000
Gazans have entered Israel
via the Erez Crossing.
Moshe Yaalon
Moreover, up to 600 trucks
brimming with goods
and materials pass daily
from Israel into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom
Crossing. Those numbers must rise to help
maintain economic growth, a panel of Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) officers told Defense
Minister Moshe Yaalon, according to an Aug.
12 report in the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Ideally, a relaxed Gaza border with Israel
could see thousands of jobless Gazans acquir-
Pollard Paid Debt To Society;
Allow Him To Move To Israel
aggard, weak and anxiously
awaiting parole from fed-
eral prison on Nov. 21, con-
victed spy Jonathan Pollard is no
hero. When he leaves the Federal
Correctional Center in Butner,
N.C., the former naval civilian intel-
ligence analyst will have served 30
years of a 45-year "life sentence"
for espionage – for conspiracy to
deliver classified information to an
American ally, expressly, Israel.
Today, Pollard, 60, is
fighting deteriorating
health and is no longer
considered a danger by
any reasonable mea-
sure. He reportedly has
been a model prisoner
and his capacity for
compounding the dam- Jonathan
age through revelations Pollard
would be limited 30
years after he lost access to classi-
fied information.
It's not clear whether Pollard will
be able to immediately settle in
Israel, which granted him citizen-
ship during his imprisonment and
where he wouldn't live under a dark
cloud as he fights frailty and tries
to rebuild a life outside the public
glare with his wife, Esther. The U.S.
could bar such a move, fearing
embarrassment because Pollard
would likely be embraced there.
Under parole terms, Pollard would
be required to stay in the U.S.
for five years; it would behoove
President Obama to waive that.
The sentence's unprecedented
length points up Pollard's guilt and
the political football it became.
In July, after the U.S. Justice
Department didn't raise concern
about any ongoing threat to
national security, the U.S. Parole
Commission authorized parole.
H
Crime And Punishment
Pollard was first jailed in 1985 and
was sentenced two years later. His
guilt isn't in question. He violated
his oath, took money while commit-
ting a felony, was found guilty and
deserved to be punished harshly.
U.S. security must never be com-
promised. It's deplorable a U.S.
official would spy for any nation,
even one friendly to Washington.
Pollard's actions also were a boon
to anti-Semites claiming American
Jews couldn't be trusted.
But by sentencing standards,
Pollard more than paid his legal
debt to American society, serving
more than double the maximum
time a person convicted of the
same crime today would get (10
years). A 2010 U.S. House letter
argued that Pollard had served lon-
ger than "many others who were
found guilty of similar activity on
behalf of nations adversarial to us,
unlike Israel."
The U.S. Parole
Commission last year denied
Pollard's only request
for parole. "You passed
thousands of Top Secret
documents to Israeli agents,
threatening U.S. relations in
the Middle East among the
Arab countries," the com-
mission wrote. "Given all this
information, paroling you
at this time would depreciate the
seriousness of the offense and pro-
mote disrespect for the law."
Moving On
Jonathan Pollard's story is a sad
tale of a federal employee with
the highest-level security clear-
ance who gravely lost his way in
his 20s amid the allure of becom-
ing a spy for Israel. In a 1987
interview, Pollard's father, Morris,
told the JN his son was influenced
"as an American Jew who felt a
very strong spiritual identification
with Israel," but who got no help
from the Israeli government when
he was caught. Spying for Israel
against the U.S., of course, is no
way to extol your Jewish identity.
A major 2002 investigation by
journalist Edwin Black shed light
on many significant and previously
unreported details of the Pollard
case, including what led to a sen-
tence notably longer than what
Pollard agreed to with prosecutors
in his plea agreement.
If, come the release date, there's
the lingering issue of whether the
U.S. should allow Pollard to relo-
cate to Israel, the country that
stood to benefit from his traitor-
ous acts, the answer should be a
grudging yes.
With so many pressing and per-
ilous global concerns, does the
Obama administration really need
to prolong the sorry saga of the
long-ago Israeli agent?
❑
Hamas on page 46
August 20 • 2015
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