Esther Pollard: It’s Obama’s duty to release Jonathan

Esther Pollard tells Channel 2 that Peres gave Obama a petition signed by 200,000 Israelis calling for the release of her husband Jonathan, serving life for spying for Israel.

Oded Ben-Ami, the anchor, asks her: What about argument that Pollard is a criminal, and that this whole affair should be handled by lawyers and not heads of state?

Esther responds: “With all due respect, some of the best lawyers in the US sat with White House lawyers and it wasn’t resolved. This was during the Bush era. Unlike then, many American officials support releasing Pollard. [Obama’s] duty is to release him.”

She adds: “Jonathan has many health difficulties. I think the only thing keeping him alive is this campaign [to release him]. He feels remembered… Obama came here to connect to the Israeli people, to listen to them, to embrace Israel. When you have so many people backing this, the president, the prime minister, what better way to show us than by telling us ‘We forgive’?”

Asked if she is optimistic, Pollard says: “We are in the middle of the visit, we still don’t know what the outcomes will be of talks with the prime minister and the president.”

Silvan Shalom, a former foreign minister, is invited to weigh in: “So much time has passed — 28 years,” he says. “Israel is not an enemy of the US; there are other prisoners who did worse things and actually harmed US security. Many Israeli officials have brought up this issue with US administrations, as have I. But recently, we see a change where former US security officials now say directly that he should be released.”