Israel Matzav

White House source: Obama only considers how many votes he'll gain in deciding on Pollard release

I have said many times that President Obama will pardon Jonathan Pollard when he believes that doing so will gain him a significant number of votes in the 2012 election. It has long been clear to me that Obama could not give a damn how ill Pollard is, and whether Pollard ought to be released on humanitarian grounds, regardless of the number and stature of former officials who call for Pollard's release (and as you all know, there have been many over the last two years).

Now, a White House source has confirmed it in a story discussing the fact that President Obama has received President Peres' letter asking for clemency and has decided not to pardon Pollard. What's more interesting is that the source confirmed it to Haaretz, which put the story in its Hebrew print edition, but did not put it in its online edition (it's too soon for a cached page with the original online story). The online story is here (Hat Tip: Aaron Lerner).

White House source explains that President Obama only considers how many votes he could gain from releasing Pollard - no mention of either humanitarian considerations or question of justice. Indicates Pollard release could be part of peace process.

The English and Hebrew internet edition do not include any of these observations.

Dr. Lerner has posted a scanned copy of the Haaretz story in Hebrew here. It says that Obama does not believe that American Jews are concerned about Obama like Israelis are, and that there is no chance that Obama will release Pollard unless he believes it will gain him votes.

What a sweetheart of a President....

UPDATE 11:42 AM

I tweeted this post to Barak Ravid, the Haaretz reporter who wrote the story, and asked him if he had any comments. He tweeted back:

the reason for that was only technical and not editorial

I take that as confirmation that the White House source was accurately quoted. Hmmm.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Campaign 2012, Jonathan Pollard, Shimon Peres

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:48 AM