By Shane Harris and John Hudson
Foreign Policy - APRIL 1, 2014
In January 1999, a bipartisan group of senators sent a strongly worded letter to President Bill Clinton urging him not to commute the prison sentence of Jonathan Pollard, who was then in the 12th year of a life sentence for spying for Israel. Freeing Pollard, the lawmakers said, would "imply a condonation of spying against the United States by an ally," would overlook the "enormity" of Pollard's offenses and the damage he had caused to national security, and would undermine the United States' ability to share secrets with foreign governments. Among the 60 signatories of the letter was John Kerry, then a senator from Massachusetts. Fifteen years later, Kerry is singing a very different tune.
Now, as the secretary of state, Kerry has supported using Pollard's potential release as a bargaining chip in the Obama administration's attempts to salvage the flailing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The outcome of those talks was in doubt Tuesday as President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority opted to press for statehood through the United Nations, a move that Israel has long said would as a deal-breaker. A planned meeting between Kerry and Abbas was canceled as a result. Abbas said he'd made the move because Israel hadn't released a fourth round of Palestinian prisoners. The Obama administration had envisioned potentially releasing Pollard -- who is seen as a national hero by many Israelis -- to help persuade Jerusalem to let those Palestinian prisoners go.
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