From: clmn@ellis.uchicago.edu (Bill Coleman)
Subject: Re: Is Failure to Support Pollard Anti-Semitic?
Reply-To: clmn@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: Live & Direct from Downtown Petah Tikva ISRAEL
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 23:34:46 GMT

David Sternlight has specifically asked me to respond to his recent
post.  I'm not exactly sure why I'm doing this but here goes:
 
He wrote:
 
> Nobody defended Pollard. What they said was that:
> a)The sentence was disproportionate to the sentences others have
> received for similar or worse crimes;
> b)Americans are entitled to equal protection under the laws;
> c)That right to equal protection has nothing to do with Israel,
> and thus to bring Israel or Jewishness into it looks like an
> anti-semitic tactic.
 
POINT A - DISPROPORTIONALITY OF SENTENCE:  I take this as the central
point of Pollard's supporters.  It's difficult to debate because only
the Pollard support and publicity apparatus has the incentive to look
for analogous cases.  Mark Ira Kaufman recently posted an article
listing many of the other cases and I, for one, have absolutely no idea
how exhaustive or complete that list is.  Someone (not me!) thought it
appropriate to use Mordechai Vaanunu as a comparison but the Pollard
supporters don't accept that.  OK.  I assume that Pollard's lawyers
raised this issue in his most recent appeal and I'd imagine that it was
addressed by the judges in their decision.  There's been a lot of talk
in s.c.j about those judges recently, about how their religious
identities presumably affected their decision.  No one has posted a word
about what any of them actually SAID in their opinions.  Perhaps someone
on the net with access to Lexis could post the opinions and let us see
for ourselves.
 
        I don't wish to completely avoid giving a direct answer so my
opinion, based upon limited information, is this.  Jonathan Pollard was
sentenced in conformity to the statute under which he was convicted.  I
do not have access to the judge's sentencing statement so I do not know
what he regarded as the critical factors.  Neither I nor anyone else in
s.c.j knows what Weinberger revealed to the judge but we can all surmise
that it was highly persuasive.  I personally believe that Pollard's
principal victim, aside from U.S. security, was the American Jewish
community and for that I am happy to see him punished severely.  It was
Jonathan Pollard who brought the dual loyalty charge into the open.  If
someone, say, Louis Farrakhan, decides to address his flock, attack the
Jews again and accuse us of dual loyalty, he isn't going to say, "Look
at what Bill Coleman posted to the Usenet."  He'll say, "Look at how
Jonathan Pollard betrayed the United States on behalf of Israel."  The
severe sentence that Pollard received was, in my opinion, proportionate
to the severe damage we suffered as American Jews.  I also suspect that
it serves as a highly effective deterrent against future Jonathan
Pollards.
 
        Having said all this I'll say again that I shall have no
objection if either President Bush or soon-to-be President Clinton
decide to grant executive clemency to Pollard.  What I do object to is
the organized effort to depict Pollard as a Jewish martyr and a victim
of injustice.
 
POINT B - EQUAL PROTECTION:  Of course I believe in the Equal Protection
clause of the 14th Amendment.  I am unaware of any way in which Pollard
has been denied this right, or any other to which he is entitled.  His
case has received exhaustive judicial review and will continue to do so
if he wishes to appeal further.  There is nothing in the 14th Amendment
which prohibits judges from being given sentencing discretion.
 
POINT C -  WHATEVER THIS IS SUPPOSED TO MEAN.  No one has denied
Jonathan Pollard equal protection or any other legal right he has as
first an accused and later a convicted felon.  As far as "bring[ing]
Israel or Jewishness into it" I don't understand what David is talking
about, for it is Pollard's supporters who have been constantly calling
attention to the religious identities of the appeals court judges.
Perhaps David could enlighten me on this point.
 
 
> Now if you wish to continue your posture of being sweetly reasonable
> and baffled at the responses you're getting, please get off your
> position of being puzzled and injured, and address the above factual
> issues.
 
Having ONCE AGAIN addressed the "factual issues" I wish to say that my
position of "being sweetly reasonable" does not come easily and is made
possible only by my use of a text editor to compose these messages
off-line.  Although I am embarrassed by the number of typos which sneak
through, I am at least able to get the venom out of my system and then
excise the evidence before anyone else reads it.  I have no intention of
being goaded into a mudslinging match on the net by anyone on any topic.
 
Finally:
 
> Bill Coleman continues to misstate the facts and refuse to listen to
> what people are saying to him.
 
In what way?  I posted two very long articles and, in his post to which
I am now responding, David made no attempt to refute a single word.
 
To the contrary, I believe that I have been offering a few facts and a
lot of opinion while David has been offering invective and insult.  I
call upon him to stop.  I'd be happy to accept an apology and bury the
hatchet.  So far as I'm concerned he is absolutely entitled to his
opinions of Jonathan Pollard, no matter how incorrect I think they are
(and I think they are very incorrect).  I do not, however, think that he
is entitled to label my remarks as anti-Semitic, call my motives sinister,
question my psychological stability, or engage in any of the other ad
hominem attacks to which he seems to be enamoured.
 

-- 
Bill Coleman
clmn@midway.uchicago.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish