Letting Pollard Out of His Jail Cell for 3 Minutes... or Less

Justice4JP Release - November 8, 2004

When Jonathan Pollard speaks out in a public forum in Israel, for the 3 minutes or so that his voice is heard, his spirit is free; he is out of jail; and he is home in Jerusalem amongst his People.

The flood of emails and letters that J4JP receives every time Jonathan does speak out testifies to how much the People of Israel appreciate his words of wisdom.

Lately, Jonathan has had to weigh the cost of his efforts against the benefits for his People. A recent anecdote speaks volumes:

Last month Jonathan Pollard prepared an important speech for a major rally in Israel. Both he and his wife had to sacrifice precious time and resources in order to make this possible, but they felt it was worth it.

When it was completed, Jonathan's speech was about a page and a half of Hebrew text and it required approximately 3 minutes of delivery time. It was faxed to the organizers who designated a representative to read the speech on behalf of Jonathan.

It is clear from what actually occurred at the rally that they had no idea of what a treasure the speech was, or what it had taken out of Jonathan to provide it.

When it was time to deliver the speech, the reader had lost it. Miraculously, one of Jonathan's friends produced another copy of the speech on the spot. As he handed it to the reader, he pointed with his finger and indicated, "This is where the speech starts," and then he flipped the page and pointed, "and here is where it ends."

The reader then proceeded to ignore the first page of the speech and delivered only the last few sentences of the second page to an overflow crowd that had waited for hours to hear Jonathan's words. The disappointment was enormous.

In practical terms, it was as if the rally organizers had looked at Jonathan's speech and said: "Why should we let Pollard out of his jail cell for 3 whole minutes? We have the keys. We will let him out for half a minute only; that's enough."

Today Jonathan was asked to speak at another event in Israel. This time the organizers have asked Jonathan from the outset to please limit himself to no more than half a page - or to about 45 seconds. It is as if they are saying, "Come and be with us for 45 seconds, Jonathan, not more."

If you were Jonathan Pollard, what would you do?