The Americans' Vanunu

By Avraham Burg

Like a particularly dirty cloud of smog, the Pollard case has been following us for decades, polluting everyone who comes in contact with it. Many of the young men and women who worked on behalf of Jonathan Pollard in the various political frameworks were not even born in his finest days, while the malicious people who handled him with terrible cynicism have retired, died, or become an important minister in Israel's cabinet. In between, one simple, bitter and precise fact has been forgotten: Jonathan Pollard is the Americans' Mordechai Vanunu. In principle, there is no difference between them, except perhaps for the fact that Vanunu did what he did out of deep, if controversial, conviction, while Pollard received money, some say a great deal of money, for his "values system."

The Americans do not want to release Pollard, as we do not want to release Vanunu. Even though the latter has served out his sentence, we are still harassing him. That's how it is when you get involved with the systems of darkness in your country. States do not compromise on national security, they deal with it obsessively, wrathfully avenging anyone who gets in their way. They have an elephant's memory, especially when it comes to traitors who are friends of the family and even regarding Judases who owe a great favor to the state's greatest friend. And the insult is as great as the friendship.

Meanwhile, on his way to a freedom that tarries, Pollard has become a much greater icon than his dubious attributes would account for. To understand what he symbolizes for the Israeli political right, you have to crack the basic formula of the Pollard problem. He and his handlers lived and plotted in the twilight zone of the complex loyalty of the Jews of the United States.

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