Saturday, March 25, 2006
Jonathan Pollard, Larry Franklin & "The Lobby"
Earlier this week I posted some comments on a London Review of Books article by a couple of professors entitled The Israel Lobby. I was not impressed and many others have obviously had the same reaction. As usual, Soccer Dad has a nice roundup of some more reactions to the article. Soccer Dad: Pulling the chair out
Maybe Professors Mearsheimer and Walt couldn’t find room for it in their article but apparently others in the government haven’t got the Lobby-prepared memo about deference to Israel and AIPAC. Here’s the good professors cursory mention of a couple of significant happenings.
“In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat.”
They cite those two examples as part of a counter to the supposed-Lobby’s assertion of Israel as a strategic ally. What they don’t mention is what happened to the individuals involved.
Last month, I followed a Soccer Dad link to the The IgNoble Experiment where I briefly got into a thread about the same Jonathan Pollard., the American convicted of spying for Israel back in 1987. I yield to no one in my utter contempt for Mr. Pollard and the idea that he may never takes another free step causes me no consternation. But in that thread I was a minority as he obviously has his vocal supporters (as many of the comments clearly demonstrate).
If “The Lobby” was the influential juggernaut that the professors claim it is, Jonathan Pollard would long ago have been sitting in Tel Aviv, recounting for anyone who would buy him a drink (or a snort) his years of ‘mis-treatment’ by the Lobby-run US government.
As for Mr. Franklin, his troubles have just begun: he (along with two AIPAC employees) was indicted last August. USA v.a Lawrence Anthony Franklin, Steven J. Rose, Keith Weissman
Maybe Professors Mearsheimer and Walt couldn’t find room for it in their article but apparently others in the government haven’t got the Lobby-prepared memo about deference to Israel and AIPAC. Here’s the good professors cursory mention of a couple of significant happenings.
“In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which it reportedly passed on to the Soviet Union in return for more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official called Larry Franklin had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat.”
They cite those two examples as part of a counter to the supposed-Lobby’s assertion of Israel as a strategic ally. What they don’t mention is what happened to the individuals involved.
Last month, I followed a Soccer Dad link to the The IgNoble Experiment where I briefly got into a thread about the same Jonathan Pollard., the American convicted of spying for Israel back in 1987. I yield to no one in my utter contempt for Mr. Pollard and the idea that he may never takes another free step causes me no consternation. But in that thread I was a minority as he obviously has his vocal supporters (as many of the comments clearly demonstrate).
If “The Lobby” was the influential juggernaut that the professors claim it is, Jonathan Pollard would long ago have been sitting in Tel Aviv, recounting for anyone who would buy him a drink (or a snort) his years of ‘mis-treatment’ by the Lobby-run US government.
As for Mr. Franklin, his troubles have just begun: he (along with two AIPAC employees) was indicted last August. USA v.a Lawrence Anthony Franklin, Steven J. Rose, Keith Weissman
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I see what you're saying... AIPAC is definitely not the governing force here. I wonder what will happen with Franklin in the end..
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