Report: Obama weighed clemency for Pollard, but Biden vehemently opposed move
Haaretz / Report: Obama weighed clemency for Polla
02-Oct-2011 (one comment)

New York Times quotes U.S. vice president as saying that convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard would be released 'over my dead body'

“President Obama was considering clemency, but I told him, ‘Over my dead body are we going to let him out before his time.’ If it were up to me, he would stay in jail for life,” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was quoted as saying during a meeting with rabbis in Florida in a New York Times article published on Saturday.

 

The Times article reported that U.S. President Barack Obama has turned to Biden to shore up support amongst U.S. Jews.

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Simorgh5555

Obama desperate for votes?

by Simorgh5555 on Sun Oct 02, 2011 02:08 AM PDT

Obama could not have played the whole Palestinian statehood bid more poorly. After the victory of the first US Persian Gulf War, Bush Sr forced the Israelis and Arabs to faceoff one another in the Madrid conference and told Israel blankly that it must accept "territorial compromise". Now I'm not an admirer of any of the Bush presidents but this was an example of robust independent American political decision making. Unlike Bush Jr (Dubyaa),  his father showed Israel who was actually pulling the strings. So much so that the former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir remarked that he was elated when Bush Sr he did not win his second term in office.

What Obama should have done is to stick to his gun about Israel withdrawing back to the 1967 borders, stop building in East Jersulamen, demolish the settlements in the West Bank and in return offer Pollard  clemency ( or house-arrest/restricted movement under arm guard) and take a  tough unequivocal stance against the Islamic Republic that the world means business. The tradeoff for Israeli compromise was simple: Withdraw from the Palestinian occupied areas and Obama to commit to Regime Change in Iran. This would not only have benefited Israel (they don't want to lose face but know a Palestinian state is actually good for them) but it would also have been good for Iranians, finally forcing Obama to remove all ambiguity in his political decision making and sort out the IR Terrorists once and for all. 

Obama would have faced opposition from AIPAC but then he could pay and give White House support to Americans for Peace Now and mainstream Left wing groups Israeli groups that do not follow Netanyahu's line. 



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