Four No-Confidence Motions on Pollard Defeated in Israel

Israel’s coalition government on Tuesday defeated four no-confidence motions in Parliament over its handling of the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy case.

Three opposition left-wing factions and Rabbi Meir Kahane’s anti-Arab Kach Party proposed the no-confidence motions, but the nine-party government’s overwhelming majority defeated the motions on a show of hands.

Pollard, 32, an American Jew, was sentenced last week in Washington to life in prison for passing secret documents to Israel.

Israeli leaders, who contend that the spy operation was unauthorized, have been criticized for evading responsibility for Pollard’s recruitment and for subsequently promoting his Israeli handlers.

“What happened here? Amateurism? Stupidity? Irresponsibility?” Victor Shemtov of the leftist Mapam Party asked during debate. “It turns out it was all those three things together.”

The opposition members were angered that Transport Minister Chaim Corfu, a relatively junior minister, was given the job of representing the government in the debate.

Corfu said Israel had done its best to assist in a U.S. investigation of the affair and vowed to do so in the future.

In a related development, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s foreign operations subcommittee, said in Washington that the Israeli government’s disregard for U.S. concerns in the Pollard case may do “long-term damage” to relations between the two nations.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.