My understanding was that Pollard had given the Israelis sensitive information about Iraq that he regarded as vital to Israel's survival.  I could not and still cannot understand why the U.S. would withhold such data, especially when it related to a Middle Eastern dictator, the late Saddam Hussein, who proclaimed his intention to burn all of Israel "like a strawberry leaf" and proved his animosity by launching more than 39 Soviet-type Scud missiles at this country (one of them landed so close to my house that the windows blew out, doors flew off their hinges and cracks appeared in the walls).  There also was a sense of mystification about former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger's apparent vendetta against Pollard that resulted in secret terms for his confession, trial and conviction to be followed by clemency within a reasonable period of time.

The most astonishing incident occurred when I unexpectedly was privy to an unusually frank chat conducted by an Israeli government official on the eve of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trip to the U.S., in 1998, for a summit meeting with President Clinton and the late Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat at Wye Plantation, MD.  He talked about possible, but controversial concessions that were about to be made in the interest of regional peace.  "We're going to come back with Pollard," he said confidently, suggesting that that would make it easier for the Israeli public to swallow the bitter diplomatic pills.
 
Then, upon noticing that I was within earshot and knowing that I was a foreign correspondent, he added: "Jay, you didn't hear anything; right?"  It did not work out, though.  Early on at Wye, the President told the prime minister he could not produce Pollard.  "They won't let me," he said.  He meant that ex-CIA Director George Tenet had vetoed the deal.  

Afterward, it emerged that the Israeli side also was seemy.  Neither Pollard's Israeli handlers nor the top government officials to whom they were accountable came to his aid, not when he tried to escape to the Israeli embassy and not while he was in prison.  He listed all of these incumbents in an interview granted a correspondent of the Tel Aviv  daily Yediot Aharonot to mark the 22nd year (!) of his incarceration:  President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Pensioners Minister Rafi Eitan, the latter having headed the rogue intelligence outfit that used him.

John Loftus and Mark Aarons (the former an ex-U.S. Justice Department aide), contend in their book, "The Secret War Against the Jews," that the Israeli movers and shakers would rather let Pollard rot in prison than come here and write a book that would expose their apparent indifference to his ordeal.  After all, anything is possible in the creepy world of intelligence and espionage.  As a postscript, I ought to mention the reply I received from my esteemed managing editor when I expressed astonishment at the idea that Israel would spy on its best foreign friend, the U.S.A.  "Don't you know that everybody spies on everybody else," he said.  "Friendship has nothing to do with it.  The British spy on us, we spy on them, likewise the French and on down the line."  I swallowed hard and said to myself, 'it's about time you grew up!'

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