Pollard Will Pay the Entire Fine

The United States follows laws rather than sentiment, which is why Israel's emotional manipulations will not move Obama to release Jonathan Pollard.

Hello friends,

I would like to point out a fact that has nothing to do with what I think or how I feel. Jonathan Pollard was charged and convicted by the American court of espionage against America, a heavy and complicated indictment.

The American system works in a very orderly manner, according to the rules and legislation that have been created and enacted. No one, at whatever moment of time or status, has the ability to undermine or overrule what the law has established or what has been decided following these proceedings.

Once someone in America has been sentenced or fined, or has transgressed what is written in black and white, there is no chance he will get some leniency or that someone would exonerate him; he has gone and acted against the stipulated holiest Scriptures of the Law.

The American system works in favor of the citizen practically all the time. Its goal is to enable the citizen of any caliber to live as fine a life as he can with as little bureaucracy bothering him as possible. In many cases, this system thinks instead of you and produces a convenient, logical and unequivocal map of conduct for you.

For example, in America, you can purchase any conceivable thing, and nobody pokes his nose into your life; they would just check on the only thing that matters, which is whether you’re able to meet the payments. You need not mobilize your father and mother and friends, need not fill in obnoxious questionnaires and need not make eyes at the salesgirl. …

There Is No Chance That Someone Would Lend an Ear to Israeli Entreaties

But if you get up one day and run against the rules of the game — or run against the whole system — you will be beaten from head to toe, and there is no way that someone would come to your aid until you have served your full penalty. It is clear to every American from the moment of his first breath that if he trespasses the legal field, for him there will be no law, no judge, no friends and no protection; there’s no Yitzhak who knows Chaim and owes him. No similar option exists. There are no buddies there.

You will pay the entire fine, no matter what, and no one understands any other option. Why don’t we go back to Pollard and try to have a half-second look from the American perspective?

Jonathan Pollard is not a chosen one. He is not an outstanding person, or more special or any different from any other American guy who has shot the system in the belly. He has been punished, and he is going to serve his punishment to the letter. There is no chance in the world that anyone in the administration will shorten his sentence.

There is no chance that someone will lend an ear to Israeli entreaties. No way that someone there will act out of the emotional center. They do not understand the Palmachnik* [style] messages we’re trying to deliver to them. They are not doing what they are doing because they like or hate us. They just have no idea how to do things differently from what the American court has ruled.

It Is We Who Are Not Sensitive

I’d like to take this train of thought a bit further: This is a very important chapter that requires us to learn from the American proceedings. Obama has come from the bowels of this system and procedure. He doesn’t understand and doesn’t know how to orient in the emotional manipulations that we come up with every half-minute.

[Even] if we exercised the Americans’ patience and did something symbolizing victory that caused us a hero’s joy for a moment, the hour of repayment would come anyway.

As I understand, there is no way to bend the American lines and no chance that any thinker, even a proud Israeli prime minister, could change the direction to the slightest degree.

The fact that Pollard never ever received any benefits is a result of a meticulous procedure and fixed order. And it is idiotic that we’re taking this personally or libeling the Americans as insensitive. We are the ones here who are not being sensitive or wise, and surprisingly, this is not the first time I have thought so.

*Translator’s Note: The Palmach is an elite fighting force of the underground army of the Jewish Yishuv (pre-state under the British mandate).