Pollard and Vanunu: A tale of two spies
While criticizing the restrictions the US has imposed on released spy Jonathan Pollard and attempting to legislate state allocations for him, Israeli politicians ignore their government's restrictions on nuclear spy Mordechai Vanunu.
Jonathan Pollard’s release from a US prison Nov. 20 has not relieved the Israeli public of the affair that has haunted it for the past three decades. Likud Knesset House Committee Chair David Bitan was quick to prepare legislation granting Pollard a monthly state stipend for the rest of his life along with subsidized rent and health care. In a congratulatory letter to the former convict, Zionist Camp member Nahman Shai, head of the Knesset caucus advocating for Pollard, wrote that the “lobby will not rest and not cease.” In fact, he has set a new challenge for the caucus: to lift the restrictions on the Jewish spy that “violate [his] civil rights.” Shai pledged that the caucus would not halt its advocacy until Pollard is allowed to leave the United States for a destination of his choice, “first and foremost, Israel.”
In July, the same Shai gave listeners of Kol Barama radio an idea of the acts committed by the man for whom a special Knesset caucus was established. “It’s hard for us to comprehend the notion of a person betraying his homeland,” said Shai. “There was money, he got paid for his activity, he got paid, maybe he didn’t get everything but he received payment [$30,000 a year]. It’s also a kind of espionage … He tried to sell documents to other countries, too, not just to Israel.” Nonetheless, Shai added that after Israel assumed responsibility for Pollard’s actions and granted him Israeli citizenship, it was incumbent upon it to go the whole nine yards on his behalf.
