Israel Matzav: Israeli media continue to slam Biden

Monday, October 03, 2011

Israeli media continue to slam Biden

The Obama administration thought it had a great selling point for the President's reelection. Tell the Jewish community how Joe Biden was in charge of reaching out to them, and everyone would feel good that our 'long-time friend' was going to be in charge. So they leaked details of a meeting that Biden had with a group of Florida rabbis to the New York Times, in the hope of getting some mileage out of it. I haven't seen much about it since in the US media, but here in Israel, the Obami - and Biden himself - are getting slammed over Biden's opposition to Jonathan Pollard's release. In fact, that is the only part of the Times story that has been reported here.

Ben Caspit, a columnist for the relatively middle-of-the-road Hebrew newspaper Maariv took Biden apart on Sunday, and on Monday the JPost publishes Caspit's piece in translation.

Up until several days ago, you, Mr. Biden, were considered "Israel's closest and truest friend in the White House." As such, we here in Israel are wondering what exactly was going through your mind when you declared that Jonathan Pollard would be given clemency over your "dead body." It's important to us, here in Israel, to understand. To all of us: to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's supporters and detractors, to the far right and the far left, to the rich and the poor, the Ashkenazi and the Sephardic.

Anyone with eyes in their head and hearts thumping in their chests would like to know what led you to issue that unhinged statement. Are there things that you know that the rest of the world does not? What has changed since 2007, when you declared, in your own voice, that Jonathan Pollard's bid for clemency was justified? I'll tell you what has changed: Pollard has spent five more years in prison, in solitary confinement; his health has worsened (I recommend you use your influence to verify to what extent); his chances of starting a family have been decimated; his father died and he was barred from accompanying him on his final journey; and more and more respectable people have stepped forward and declared that the time has come for his release.

That's what has changed.

Is it possible, Mr. Biden, that you know something that James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, and Dennis DeConcini, former chairman of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, do not? Because the two of them are both in favor of releasing him. Do you know something that Henry Kissinger, George Shultz or John McCain does not?

All of them, esteemed American patriots, are in favor of clemency. Do you know something that the former US attorney-general Michael Mukasey does not?

Are you holding on to intelligence that Lawrence Korb, assistant defense secretary under Casper Weinberger, was not privy to?

Korb was there, in real time, but Korb, an honest and decent man, felt his conscience claw at him, and today he leads the call to free Pollard, who next month will mark his twenty sixth year in American prison.

On Wednesday, you, Mr. Biden, will host a Rosh Hashana party at your residence for American Jewish leaders. You, as I said, are considered to be our closest friend among President Barack Obama's inner circle. Now, as the race toward the presidential elections picks up pace, you have taken upon yourself to serve as the president's ambassador to the Jewish community.

I suggest that during the festive celebration at your residence, you ask Abe Foxman, a man whose integrity cannot be called into question, or Malcolm Hoenlein, one of the most astute watchers of American politics and a man whose finger is always on the pulse of the American Jewish community, why they support Pollard's urgent release.

Foremost, though, I ask that you examine your own conscience. Ask yourself, Mr. Biden, why Pollard has been in prison for 26 years for a crime that generally receives a two-to-four year sentence in America.

Ask yourself why spies who have committed far graver sins, betrayals that led to the killing of American agents on foreign soil, received far lesser sentences? Ask yourself why it is that the blood libel of attributing those murders to Pollard was circulated so widely. Ask yourself why, once those allegations were proven to be false, his sentence was not commuted.

Ask yourself why the United States of America, a society governed by law and order, did not honor its plea bargain with Pollard. Ask yourself where the limits of human suffering lie. Ask yourself about the nature of compassion.

What, in your eyes, are its dimensions?

There's more. Much more. If this starts playing back in the US Jewish media, Obama will have yet another major crisis with the Jewish community on his hands. That's your jobs :-) Read the whole thing.

Labels: American Jewish support for Israel, Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Joe Biden, Jonathan Pollard