How to Free Pollard: Trade a Spy for a Spy.

Let’s make it short and sweet:.

The way to facilitate the freedom of Jonathan Pollard is to cordially request the government of Israel to detain an identified operative of the American government and to exchange him for Pollard.

People who ask the US to free Pollard on moral grounds have a clear misunderstanding of the way in which the US operates.

America does not run according to sentiments.

The US operates according to interests at hand and according to the rules of hardball diplomacy.

If the government of Israel wants Pollard back, this is the step that it can take. Then again, only a few weeks after Pollard was arrested, the LA Times alleged that the then-prime minister of Israel, Mr. Shimon Peres, had been operating Pollard directly.

Now Mr. Peres, in the twilight of his presidency, would not want Mr. Pollard to be talking, would he?

About the Author

David Bedein, who grew up in Philadelphia and moved to Israel in 1970 at the age of 20, is an MSW community organizer by profession and an expereinced investigative journalist. In 1987 he established the Israel Resource News Agency, with offices at the Beit Agron Int’l Press Center in Jerusalem, where he also serves as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research. In 1991, Bedein was the special CNN middle east radio correspondent. Since 2001, Bedein has contributed features to the newspaper Makor Rishon. In 2006, Bedein became the foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. He is the author of " The Genesis of the Palestinian Authority" and "ROADBLOCK TO PEACE- How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict: UNRWA policies reconsidered"and the director and producer of the numerous short films about UNRWA policy which can be located at: http://tinyurl.com/lxc6xvs