Israel's Devil's Bargain--Release Of Pollard While Accepting The Unacceptable

Negotiation Desperation is Pollard’s Best Hope

by Shmuel Rosner

3 hours ago

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Israeli protesters hold posters of Jonathan Pollard in front of Israeli Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem June 19, 2005. Photo by Reuters/Ammar Awad

There are many good reasons to release spy Jonathan Pollard from prison, and the continuation of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations is not one of them. The fact that the US is currently considering such a move – releasing Pollard as part of a deal that would include the release of Palestinian prisoners and Arab Israeli prisoners by Israel, and a Palestinian acceptance of more negotiations – is testimony to the sides' desperation.

Well, not all sides are desperate: the Palestinians are definitely getting the upper hand with this deal, if it materializes. And they are winning for a good reason. They are the only ones to have a plan B if talks fail. They will go to the UN; they will pursue their BDS campaign; they will try to battle Israel by all diplomatic means available to them, hoping that a devastated American administration won’t stand in their way.

The US has done an immoral thing by keeping Pollard as a bargaining chip for negotiations with Israel. His release should have been based on "both legal and humanitarian considerations", as Alan Dershowitz and Irwin Cotler write. "The time has come for the US government to keep its word and reaffirm what it agreed to tell the judge back in 1986: namely, that a sentence of years, 28 plus years, rather than a sentence of life imprisonment is enough to satisfy the demands of justice for Jonathan Pollard".

Yet Pollard has always been a bargaining chip. The US offered him as such a card, and then backtracked, in the mid Nineties, when Clinton was forced by his CIA chief George Tenet to reconsider his offer to Netanyahu – or face a scandal prompting resignation. Now it might be putting such an offer on the table again, but as in the previous case, it is far from being final (the New York Times reports: "A decision to release Mr. Pollard would be in the context of a broader agreement to extend the talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, officials said, and would require President Obama’s approval”).

The idea back in the Nineties was to pave Netanyahu's way to an interim agreement, to make it easier for him politically to sign a deal that involves Israel caving in Hebron. The idea today is similar: Netanyahu faces tough opposition to a release of more Palestinian prisoners in exchange for very little (more negotiations). The opposition to the release of Israeli-Arab terrorists is even tougher, as it essentially lets Palestinian leader Abbas become a savior of Israeli citizens.

Pollard is the supposed sweetener that will enable Netanyahu to pass such a lousy deal. Israel's right-wing is the toughest obstacle to the release of Palestinian prisoners but is also the loudest advocate for the release of Pollard. You can already hear the speakers of the right explaining – rightly - that Pollard has nothing to do with peace negotiations. Still, dangling the possibility of his release will make it easier for right-wing leaders, for Bennett and Ariel and the rest of them, to vote against the deal but to refrain from blowing up the coalition because of it.

That the US is pulling out the Pollard card at this juncture is definitely a sign of desperation. For years it has been assumed and implied that a release of Pollard will only be on the table in exchange for big things. A peace deal, or something close to getting to a peace deal. Letting go of this card in exchange for more months of torturous negotiations is hardly a good bargain for the US.

Yes, the US still says that it will only serve to advance negotiations in the context of a "broader agreement". Alas, there's no broader agreement bargain at the moment. If the US wants to keep pursuing negotiations, it might have to make do with the little it can get. Surely, the Obama administration can drop the Israeli-Palestinian issue from its portfolio of urgent missions – and this is a threat to Israel, as it doesn’t have a plan B. But such an admission of failure, the personal failure of the Secretary of State to achieve even the small things that he made a priority, is probably too much for John Kerry to swallow at this moment. So you see: an allegedly "obsessed" Secretary can be a blessing. If not for peace, at least for one prisoner.