Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard appealed to US President Barack Obama to commute his sentence and allow him to go home to Israel for Passover, in a letter hand-delivered to Obama by President Shimon Peres that was obtained exclusively by The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
The letter to Obama was the first Pollard had written to an American president since he began serving his life sentence 25-and-a-half years ago. It has received no response from Obama, who also did not react when Peres brought up Pollard’s fate when he met with Obama at the White House on April 5.
“I hope that my own personal appeal may touch your heart and elicit a compassionate, humanitarian response to my heartfelt request to be sent home to Israel for Passover, the holiday of freedom.”
“My release in time to celebrate Passover at home in Israel with my beloved wife would be a welcome gesture of friendship to the Israeli people, an act of solidarity with a staunch and long-time ally of the United States, and a deeply compassionate and humane gift of life to my wife and me.”
“After serving more than a quarter century in some of the harshest prisons in the American penal system, I have had a great deal of time to think and to regret,” Pollard wrote. “I am genuinely and sincerely sorry for the offense I committed in passing classified information to Israel. My actions were wrong and I deeply regret that I did not find a legal way to act upon my concerns for Israel.”
“My devoted wife, Esther, whom I met and befriended as a teenager, has been faithfully doing everything she can to help me and to bring about my freedom, When she married me in prison years ago, she never imagined that after more than two decades the honeymoon she dreamed of would still be delayed. Mr. President, as much for her sake as for my own, I beseech you to please send me home now, to the first happy holiday that the two of us will ever have.”
Pollard concluded the letter by writing that:
“In light of the above compelling health and family reasons, and with the principled support of so many senior American officials, I implore you to act expeditiously to commute the more than 25 years that I have already served in prison to time served.”