Pollard is a Modern-Day Israeli Hero

By Moshe Feiglin

3 Nissan, 5774
April 3, ’14

 Our Sages say that in the month of Nissan, the Nation of Israel was redeemed from Egypt and in the month of Nissan they will be redeemed in the future. This is a special month: the month of liberty. Who knows? Maybe this will be the month of the redemption of our brother, Jonathan Pollard?

According to news reports, Kerry is proposing that Israel expand the fourth scheduled terrorist release to include14 Arabs who are citizens of Israel and an additional 400 terrorists – in addition to a construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. All of this in exchange for the privilege to continue to bask in the glory of the presence of the murderer of our Israeli sportsmen at the Munich Olympics, Abu Mazen – into 2015.  For all of this, we may get Pollard. Or maybe not.

On numerous occasions, Jonathan has told me that he is not willing to go free in exchange for murderers. In principle, he is certainly right. The terrorists should have been executed long ago, and Pollard should have been out of prison long ago. Israel, however, utterly at odds with its identity, is incapable of justifying its existence as a Jewish State. It cannot deal with the claim of the ‘justice of the Palestinian cause.’ The result is that we pay in the hard currency of construction freeze or the release of murderers in exchange for the farce of a ‘process’ that is supposed to address the Arab demand for justice. Since Oslo, Israel has discarded all the fundamental values of a normal nation: values like sovereignty, justice, morality and the sanctity of life. In light of that, and since this process will lead to the terrorist release and construction freeze that Kerry proposes with or without Pollard, then at least he should go free.

The amazing Jonathan Pollard, however, refuses to participate in a hearing at the Parole Board to pave the way for his possible release. “I am not willing for other Jews to be murdered in exchange for my release,” he has said to me. Now, when his words have been put to the ultimate test, he stands by them. Pollard is a modern day hero of Israel. For the US to use Pollard as a political bargaining chip is unbelievably villainous. In a meeting with the US ambassador to Israel a few weeks ago, I made this position clear to him.

By the way, the high cost of housing crisis of 2011 broke out as a result of the previous construction freeze in Judea and Samaria. The additional pressure that was suddenly added to the housing market in Israel’s pre-’67 borders was like the extra vehicles that turn a traffic jam into a traffic gridlock. I assume that an additional construction freeze will result in an additional housing shortage and an additional leap in housing prices. But what won’t we do for the privilege of blabbing with Abu Mazen for another half year?

The name of our new Hebrew month, Nissan, means “our miracles.” Apparently, we need a miracle. Not the Splitting of the physical Red Sea – our physical/material situation has never been better. We need a miraculous “splitting” of our slave mentality. We need to leave the bondage of a slave mentality for the mentality of liberty. The modern-day redemption from Egypt is totally an internal, Jewish affair. We are the Children of Israel and we are Pharaoh. It is we who are breathing life into the puppet, Abu Mazen, and enslaving ourselves to it. I pray that in this propitious month of Nissan, we will choose redemption.