At a demonstration of 3,000 largely dominated by teenagers, Esther Pollard is appealing for the US government under the administration of US President Barack Obama to release her husband, Jonathan, said a Jerusalem Post report. Pollack has been convicted of passing confidential information in 1987 and is currently serving a life sentence. The protest, said the Jerusalem Post, is to renounce the US' continuous imprisonment of Pollard despite the limited magnitude of his crimes against the state.
In a legal analysis done by Mordechai Kremnitzer for the paper, the vice president for the Israel Democracy Institute and former Law faculty dean at Hebrew University said that Pollack's case was considerably less harmful when compared with other spying cases.
"Pollard passed state secrets to a friendly country, and, therefore, the harm to US security is limited. In addition, he passed secrets with no intention to harm the United States. These factors preclude this case from being classified as one of the most serious cases of passing classified information, meaning that life without parole is not appropriate and the sentence imposed is disproportionate to the crime," Kremnitzer postulated.
Moreover, Kremnitzer said Pollock's trial violated the principles of equality and proportionality. Noting the fact that Pollock was not convicted of treason, which is a higher offense, Kremnitzer said that it was wrong for the US to justify the conviction given to Pollard's case to cases which also received life imprisonment.
The strength of Edith's appeal is clinging to the many favors the country of Israel has purportedly given to the US. Addressing the crowd at the demonstration, she said, "The Americans are leaning heavily on Israel. They demand that Israel make painful gestures to our enemies. Israel keeps on bending over backwards to respond positively to the American demands. How is it that in spite of all the gestures that Israel is making at the request of the US, the Americans are not willing to make the smallest, most minimal gesture toward Israel, the release of one prisoner?" she asked. "We are talking about a prisoner who never murdered anyone and never hurt anyone."
