Israel Hayom published an extremely long, fawning interview on Friday with convicted American traitor and Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. It made for startling reading.
The newspaper is owned by Miriam Adelson, Israel’s richest person and the widow of the late casino magnate and Jewish gnagster Sheldon Adelson. The couple were leading funders of the pro-Israel lobby in the US.
Adelson’s paper is little more than a pro-Netanyahu propaganda sheet, given away for free to influence Israeli elections in an increasingly right-wing, anti-Palestinian direction. In her vanity column in the paper earlier this year, Miriam Adelson went on record praising Pollard as a ‘hero’ who deserves to be honoured by Israel. Pollard had just spent 30 years in a US prison and on parole for treason, after being convicted of spying on the US for Israel.
The former US naval intelligence analyst stole and then sold upwards of one million (1 MILLION) US documents of the highest security classification to Israel in exchange for wads of cash stuffed into brown paper envelopes.
Today, following his release, he lives in Israel and is trying to rewrite history.
In his interview with Israel Hayom – whose journalists have plumbed to new depths in the history of hagiographic puff pieces with this simpering effort – Pollard claimed, unchallenged, that: ‘I made it very clear I didn’t want any money. Very clear, right off the bat, that this was not about money. I didn’t want any gifts.’
This is simply untrue.
US investigators found that Pollard had been paid $1,500 a month, rising to $2,500 a month, by the Israeli spy agency, Mossad. In today’s money, that would be about $6,000 a month, on top of his normal salary from US Naval Intelligence.
Later in the interview, Pollard conceded that he was in fact paid by Israel for the secrets that he stole, but ‘only at the insistence of his Mossad handlers’, he said.
Even more incredibly, he claimed that the money he received went to ‘cover expenses incurred by the mission.’
This is another lie.
In fact, as Territory of Lies, Wolf Blitzer’s 1989 book about Pollard, relates, one of the things that tipped US counter-intelligence officers off to Pollard’s treachery was the lavish new lifestyle he was suddenly leading, buying expensive gifts and eating out at fancy restaurants. On one occasion, he was even rewarded by Israel with a $10,000 diamond and sapphire engagement ring for his first wife, only for him to later dump her for Esther, the woman who ran the ‘Free Jonathan Pollard’ campaign in Israel.
However, Pollard’s chutzpah and bare-faced lying were not the most alarming aspect of the turgid Israel Hayom interview. He also agitated openly that American Jews spy for Israel as he had done and called for them to leave their native countries and move to Israel.
Pollard told the interviewers, ‘We’re Jews, and if we’re Jews, that means our loyalty will always be to Israel.’
There was one more part of Pollard’s interview that was perhaps of most concern; or at least it will be to the US counter-intelligence officers who have, no doubt, read it closely.
Asked by the interviewers what his advice would be for any young American who was recruited by Mossad today, Pollard was brazenly unapologetic. Despite a thinly veiled attempt to be cryptic, he clearly seemed to be encouraging more Jews working for US intelligence to betray the US and switch their allegiance to Israel.
‘I’d tell them that doing nothing is unacceptable, but as well, that they should do more by staying in the US to spy for Israel. You have to make a decision whether your concern for Israel is more important than your life.’