On Pollard, Israel Should Have Cooperated Fully or Clammed Up

In hindsight, Israel’s decision to cooperate partially with the United States in the prosecution of spy Jonathan Jay Pollard was a blunder. In the process of providing only selective information to U.S. investigators, Israel has seriously strained its relationship with the United States, and an American devoted to Israel has been sentenced to life in prison with virtually no chance of parole.

Israel must accept a great deal of the responsibility for this entire tragedy. It mishandled the matter from the start. It shouldn’t have “run” Pollard in the first place, no matter how valuable his information. As several angry U.S. officials have said, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

The information about Pollard’s espionage activities that Israel initially provided actually set the stage for his decision to seek a plea-bargaining arrangement. Pollard confessed and began to tell all only after discovering that the Israeli officials whom he had trusted and with whom he had worked had already given the U.S. government a considerable body of evidence against him.

Feeling betrayed and abandoned by Israel, Pollard began to inform the prosecutors of even more incredible details involving the scope of the espionage ring--details left out by the Israeli officials. Israel, for example, has returned only 163 of the more than 1,000 documents taken by Pollard, according to the U.S. government.

Earlier, Pollard had planned to “dissemble,” or fabricate stories to get the American investigators off Israel’s back. During the first few days of questioning by FBI agents--while he was still planning his escape to Israel--he made up all sorts of tales involving East Germany, Pakistan and other countries in order to confuse his interrogators. Even after he was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington on Nov. 21, 1985, after unsuccessfully seeking asylum there, he remained determined to lie about his involvement with Israel. He was going to be devoted to Israel until the end.

But once Israel confessed to the crime, albeit insisting that a “rogue” intelligence-gathering unit had run amok, Pollard decided to follow suit. He was confronted with the very damaging testimony of Rafael Eitan, the spymaster who was in overall charge of the unit running Pollard; Yosef Yagur, the science counselor at the Israeli consulate in New York, and Irit Erb, the secretary to the science counselor at the Israeli embassy in Washington.

What made matters worse was their calling Pollard a mercenary, just out to get rich selling American secrets to Israel. He has insisted that, as a Jew, he was motivated by his love of Israel and his concern about its security.

During two interviews with me at the federal prison in Petersburg, Va., Pollard said that he had been “devastated” by Israel’s decision. “I don’t know why they have abandoned me,” he said. “As far as I am concerned, I am as much a loyal son to the country as anybody is over there. I did my best. I’m sorry if I wasn’t the most effective from a long-range standpoint. But I did my best.”

U.S. law-enforcement officials have acknowledged that the Israeli cooperation, even if incomplete and misleading, was instrumental in persuading Pollard to cooperate. He could have remained silent, his right under the Constitution, and the government would have had a hard time convicting him. Certainly the enormous scope of his espionage activities over 18 months would not have been uncovered if both he and the Israeli government had stonewalled. The handful of documents discovered in his apartment when he was first picked up for questioning was not enough by itself to land him a lengthy prison sentence.

Pollard told me that he would have remained silent about Israel’s role in the affair if Israel also had been silent. But Prime Minister Shimon Peres and his National Unity government were clearly concerned about the ramifications of the scandal on U.S.-Israeli relations. They thought that they were embarking on a damage-control operation. They apologized and cooperated--but not completely. The attempt to cover up air force officer Aviem Sella’s role in the affair deeply angered the Americans. Their decision to seek Sella’s formal indictment--a largely symbolic gesture, since Israel is not expected to extradite him--was designed to underscore this resentment.

After Pollard was arrested, Israel should have done one of two things: It should either have hung tough and remained silent, a stance that would have been grudgingly understood by hard-nosed U.S. intelligence officials, or it should have cooperated fully and accurately with the Americans. Instead of minimizing the damage, by taking a middle position Israel only inflicted more damage on itself. Israel had promised that officials involved in the ring would be held accountable. But since then Eitan has been named head of government-owned Israel Chemicals, and Sella has been promoted to the rank of brigadier general. The Americans understandably are furious.

U.S. Atty. Joseph diGenova said that the United States is moving to revoke the immunity from prosecution granted to the three other unindicted Israeli co-conspirators--Eitan, Yagur and Erb--because they are suspected of having lied.

In January, Pollard told me that he expected a life sentence. Now he and his wife, Anne, who was sentenced to five years for assisting him, have only one hope--that somehow Israel will be able to negotiate a deal to get them deported to Israel. The question is: What will Israel be able to offer the United States in return?

Israeli intelligence experts recognize the seriousness of the problem. They know that other agents placed strategically and dangerously around the world are waiting to see what Israel does for Pollard--after what it did to him.