Coward-in-Chief “We’re going to a special place,”
said my friend Daniel. Since we weren’t using a map, I had no sense of our
direction. Everything was similar; we drove through hilly terrain, semi-arid
and sparsely populated. We were driving in Israel’s West Bank. Our special
place was the University at Ariel.
What struck me about the campus other than its clean air and
paucity of automobiles was its simple beauty and its peacefulness. Students
there were Israeli Arabs and Jews. I didn’t want to leave; indeed, I wanted to
stay and teach there.
Of course, that was a dream. Besides, we had to return to
Daniel’s home in Kedumim, a West Bank Eden that is disparagingly referred to as
an Israeli settlement. Palestinians work there with stucco and concrete; they
are paid well. Even so, they are not trusted to work without being guarded;
there have been frightening incidents. The ‘settlers’ have learned to care for
themselves. Out of necessity, retired Army personnel bring rifles to the
synagogue.
But the people of Kedumim are joyful; they are mostly safe
there. In Daniel’s home, with his wife and children, also lived his enfeebled
mother-in-law. That late afternoon, she chose me to sit with her. I couldn’t
refuse; she wouldn’t have understood. For almost two hours, she told me, in
what sounded like a mix of Hebrew and Yiddish and German, what happened to her
in Auschwitz, one of Hitler’s many concentration camps.
Her jumble of words began to sound familiar. I realized she
repeated her story over and over. Each telling was illustrated with a small
group of old pictures of that dreaded place. Again and again, her wrinkled
hands held the images of its infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” gate and the camp’s
interior within inches of my eyes.
I could tell she was recounting scenes of friends and
relatives whose lives had ended tragically. Now, at Kedumin, her mind was
locked as her days were spent recycling those memories. Although I knew she
wouldn’t remember our ‘conversation,’ I was honored to have been chosen to be
part of it.
That was almost eight years ago. Since then, my friendship
with another Holocaust survivor, Solly Ganor, has deepened. After forty years
of battling brutal nightmares, Solly wrote Light One Candle, his profoundly
important memoir of his childhood circumscribed by the Nazis. Now living in
Israel, Solly and I communicate on the Net a number of times each week.
After I land in Tel Aviv this Sunday, my younger daughter
and I will meet Solly and his wife, Pola. That will mark the third time Solly
and I have met in Israel. This time, just after president Obama’s visit,
promises to be different. We’ll talk about the work we’re doing that may result
in a movie or a miniseries based on Light One Candle.
Or we may discuss some of the stark realities that made his
book so unforgettable. If so, I will be cautious, protective perhaps. In my
possession will be two pictures that were just given to me by my friend, Jim.
Neither he nor his friend who found them wanted to keep
them. Their images were too upsetting. On the back of each of those small black
and white photos is the same message: “Belgique, French, and Polish prisoners
of war killed by the Germans and left laying at Buchenwald.”
Should I share them with Solly? What purpose would that
serve?
Answering those questions is necessary. Unlike Daniel’s
mother-in-law, I am cognizant of their potential impact. Yet, I feel they serve
a purpose. Indeed, that’s why I took my partner with me to see Yad Vashem the
last time I was in Israel.
Often, each of us stopped while on its zig zag route through
revelatory photos about the horrors of the Holocaust and its innocent victims.
When my partner shook with tears while saying, “I just didn’t know,” I held her
as I cried too. Our tears honored those who were not alive to see them.
Pictures like the ones Jim gave me serve the same purpose.
They remind me that my work with and for Solly remains undone; I’m sure he will
feel the same.
Many times, Solly and I have summed up our reflections and
conversations with the question that seems eternal: Why? Why are Jews
persecuted? After his visit to Yad Vashem, I would have liked to pose that
question to our President. Sadly, it remains pertinent.
After his (Obama’s) response to more than 200,000
signatories to a petition for the release of Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish
prisoner held for twenty-eight years in American prisons, it’s past time to ask
Obama that same question: Why?
Details are clear; Obama is not. He has given a coward’s
answer to the question. I wish that surprised me.
Please see for yourself at The Jerusalem Post - Editorial - March 21, 2013
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Editorials/The-buck-stops-here-307173 ( an excerpt from the editorial is included as a
postscript…)
B. Koplen 3/21/13
…In the US,
30 national Jewish organizations have issued a pre-Passover
appeal to
President Obama led by Conference of Presidents leaders Richard
Stone and
Malcolm Hoenlein, requesting that Obama release Pollard prior to
his 10,000th
day of imprisonment, on April 8, 2013.
After
wishing Obama a successful trip to the Middle East, they respectfully
and urgently
requested that the president “act on the commutation of his
sentence to
time served before this milestone is reached. Mr. Pollard, whose
health has
deteriorated, has expressed remorse and regret repeatedly.”
Obama’s
answer to a question about Pollard in an interview with Channel 2
television
last week was troubling and insensitive. He did not seem to be
aware of the
concern among the Israeli public and US Jewry over the
injustice of
Pollard’s life sentence, nor of the fear that Pollard’s failing
health
threatens to end his life after 28 years in prison.
On the
contrary, Obama responded by reducing Pollard’s plight to that of a
common
criminal who just wants to get out of jail early. He implied that
Pollard was
trying to jump the line without following proper procedure.
The
president’s response distanced himself from any direct responsibility
for
Pollard’s fate: He suggested that Pollard should avail himself of the
procedures
offered by the US justice system which may have “the potential to
ultimately
release him.”
Obama stated
that his own involvement is limited by law to observing from a
distance to
ensure that all prisoners are treated equally, including
Pollard.
The truth of
the matter is quite at odds with Obama’s take.
Pollard’s
petition for executive clemency landed on the president’s desk on
October 15,
2010. It was presented after Pollard had been in prison for 25
years and
had exhausted all legal remedies and procedures.
Nine
supplemental filings have been added to Pollard’s petition for clemency
over the
past two years. Each additional filing contained copies of letters
from
high-ranking American officials urging Obama to commute Pollard’s
disproportionate
sentence to time served as a matter of justice.
Among those
calling for Pollard’s release are those who have first-hand
knowledge of
the case and are familiar with the secret files. They include
former CIA
director R. James Woolsey, former White House counsel Bernard
Nussbaum,
former senator and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
Dennis
DeConcini, former US assistant secretary of defense Lawrence J. Korb,
and former
attorney-general Michael Muckasey. In their opinion, keeping
Pollard in
prison any longer is intolerable and unjust.
Former
secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger have declared
in letters
to the president that the people who are best informed about the
classified
material Pollard passed to Israel favor his release.
Pollard’s
clemency file contains numerous petitions by American congressmen
and
senators, public officials, religious leaders, retired judges, law
professors
and a host of other notable individuals and groups calling for
his release
as a matter of justice.
Bolstering
the outpouring of support for Pollard’s release, a recently
declassified
1987 CIA damage assessment puts the lie to American allegations
that have
been used for over a quarter of a century to justify Pollard’s
continued
incarceration.
Now in
Israel on his first official visit, President Obama owes a formal
response to
official appeals by President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister
Binyamin
Netanyahu for Pollard’s release.
But more
important, Pollard is owed a response to his petition for clemency,
and not a
brush-off.
Pollard did
as the president suggested. He followed procedure. That
procedure,
once exhausted, led to the petition that is sitting on the
president’s
desk.
It is not
only the president’s constitutional right to set Pollard free from
his grossly
disproportionate life sentence. It is his duty.
Pollard is
not an ordinary prisoner. He is an Israeli citizen and the victim
of a grave
injustice that has gone on far too long.
Only Obama
can set Pollard free and with the same stroke of his pen repair
the American
system of justice and restore Israel’s confidence in our
closest
ally. Mr. President, the buck stops with you and the time is now.
