Rally for Pollard Clemency
About 200 demonstrators assembled outside Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign headquarters Sunday to demand that she support clemency for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
Led by state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, the protesters
many of them Orthodox Jews wearing yarmulkes chanted "Free Pollard now!"
Pollard, a former civilian analyst for the U.S. Navy, was convicted of espionage in 1985 for giving Israel tens of thousands of top-secret documents. He is serving a life sentence.
Clinton, who intends to run for U.S. Senate in New York, has taken no position on Pollard's case and is said to be awaiting the outcome of a high-level federal review. Her spokesman did not return a call for comment placed Sunday.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, Clinton's likely Republican opponent, supports clemency. At a press conference Sunday, he declined to scold Clinton for not taking a position, simply saying: "I don't care what her stand is."
Giuliani said Pollard had received a disproportionately long sentence compared to other espionage convictions, and that assuming Pollard "admitted his wrongdoing and is contrite ... he would be a candidate for pardon or clemency."
President Bill Clinton ordered the federal review of Pollard's case in 1998 after Israel's prime minister at the time, Benjamin Netanyahu, asked that his sentence be commuted. Netanyahu's successor, Ehud Barak, has also requested Pollard's release.
The federal review involves collecting recommendations from the CIA, FBI, Justice Department and other agencies. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Defense Secretary William Cohen, among others, have opposed Pollard's release. The outcome of the review is pending.
"We are here today outside of the campaign headquarters of the first lady, Hillary Clinton," Hikind said. "We are here to ask her to take a position and support clemency for Jonathan Pollard."
Hikind said Hillary Clinton's standing in the Jewish community is "disastrous." Pointing to the first lady's much-criticized appearance last month with Soha Arafat, during which Hillary Clinton sat silently while Arafat accused the Israelis of using poison gas against the Palestinians, Hikind said: "Imagine if Hillary had done the right thing. She didn't show leadership and she didn't show courage."
Hillary Clinton later condemned Arafat's accusations as baseless, but defended her failure to speak up in Arafat's presence as appropriate behavior for a first lady trying to support the peace process.