Pollard at IHF & Arutz Sheva Conference

 

IHF & Arutz Sheva conference: Pollard's troubling encounter with protesting pilots

Pollard accuses air force officers refusing to report for duty of attacking democracy, staging coup.

Jonathan Pollard spoke last night (Tuesday) at the Israel Heritage Foundation and Arutz Sheva - Israel National News conference in Jerusalem. During his remarks, Pollard addressed the controversy surrounding the government's planned judicial reforms.

"I met with several of the striking air force officers in order to understand them," he said. "I asked them a very simple question: I understand that you have a qualified, lower sense of loyalty to Israel. So let me ask you this: Would you agree to defend the land and people of Israel ... period. Regardless of what democratically elected government was in office?”

“And the answer from these fine gentlemen was 'no,'" he explained. "So I asked them what kind of government would you support in an unqualified way? And they said, 'a Jewish and democratic government.’"

"I said, well, let's talk about democracy. Would you agree that we had a democratic election? 'Yes.' Would you agree that you lost? 'Yes.' I said: Well then, get over it. If you have a problem with this government and its policies, then you should organize and prepare for the next election. You shouldn't try to undermine a democratically elected government under false pretenses of fighting for democracy when what you're actually doing is staging a coup d'état," Pollard said.

Pollard then recounted a story of how he and his late wife Esther visited a military installation in the Golan Heights when Esther was very ill.

"As we were standing on the fence separating Israel from both Lebanon and Syria, with all the soldiers on the base around us and the commanding officer, she asked me: 'What do you see?’

"I looked at all the yellow flags on both sides of the border, and I said 'Hezbollah.' And she said: 'Look a little further, what do you see?' And I said 'more Hezbollah.' And she said: 'Well, look as far as your heart and your mind can see. What do you see?' And I didn't know how to answer her.

She answered me in words that were very familiar from Moshe Rabbenu's (Moses) statement to Yehoshua Bin Nun (Joshua) on Mount Nibal. She said: 'If you look as far as you can see, you will see Eretz Hatzvi. I won't be here to see it, but you will.’

"It's my hope for all of us that we should be privileged to actually see the realization of what my wife Esther saw that day at Ramat HaGolan