National News
April 30, 2008
Pollard: I Don’t Know Kadish
Washington
JTA Wire Service
Jonathan Pollard says he does not know alleged spy Ben-Ami Kadish. Kadish, 84, allegedly passed American military secrets to Israel during the same period as the former Navy intelligence analyst. Esther Pollard, the wife of the convicted and jailed spy, said in an interview published Thursday that the first her husband had heard of Kadish was when his arrest was announced this week. Kadish, a former U.S. Army engineer, is accused of spying for Israel between 1979 and 1985, a period coinciding with Pollard’s activities. Kadish is also believed to have been run by the same Israeli agent.
“He said he did not know Kadish and asked me if this would embarrass Israel, even though this was an affair that had been known for years,” Esther Pollard told Ma’ariv. She further downplayed speculation that the new affair could hurt Israel’s efforts to win clemency for Pollard, who is eligible for parole in 2015. Observers believe the U.S. government will likely deny the request.
“It won’t take long for this to drop from the headlines,” she said. “There will always be people who want to interfere, but this must not obscure Israel’s goal, which is to rescue its agent from jail in a foreign country.”
Jewish War Veterans Suspend Alleged Spy
The Jewish War Veterans of the USA reportedly has suspended suspected spy Ben-Ami Kadish. The move was ordered by the group’s national commander, Lawrence Schulman on Thursday, the New Jersey Jewish News reported. Kadish was arrested this week for allegedly passing U.S. military secrets to Israel from 1979 to 1985, while he was an employee at the Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, N.J. Kadish, 84 and a veteran of World War II who fought with both the Americans and the British and later in Israel’s Haganah, is a former commander of the Jewish War Veteran’s Post 609 in Monroe, N.J., where he lives.
The Jewish War Veterans is moving to remove him from the organization. “There is no place in our organization for those who would seek to defend the interests of any country above those of the Unites States,” said Schulman in a statement released by the Jewish War Veterans national office in Washington. “The alleged actions of Mr. Kadish must be condemned in the harshest of terms.”
GOP Lawmakers Target Carter
Two Republican congressmen introduced legislation that would deny the Carter Center federal dollars. U.S. Reps. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.) and Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) introduced the Coordinated American Response to Extreme Radicals Act , or CARTER Act, last week in the wake of former President Jimmy Carter’s recent outreach to Hamas.
“America must speak with one voice against our terrorist enemies,” Knollenberg said in a statement. “It sends a fundamentally troubling message when an American dignitary is engaged in dialogue with terrorists. My legislation will make sure that taxpayer dollars are not being used to support discussions or negotiations with terrorist groups.”
The Zionist Organization of American praised the legislation. Carter’s Atlanta-based center focuses mostly on international development. The former president met with Hamas officials against the advice of the Bush administration. He defended his meetings as his attempt to help bring an end to the violence on the Israel-Gaza Strip border.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.