Schalit signs petition urging Obama to free Pollard
Former kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit became the latest
well-known Israeli to sign a petition Monday calling upon US President Barack
Obama to commute the life sentence of Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard.
The petition has been signed by nearly 150,000 Israelis,
including Nobel prize winners, dovish authors, and politicians from across the
political spectrum.
“Freedom is a great gift and a right,” Schalit wrote.
“Thank you to those who worked on my behalf. Now join to save Pollard.”
Officials in the Free Pollard campaign said the message
was Schalit’s private initiative. Pollard’s wife Esther told Channel 2 that her
husband was encouraged by the petition, and asks her about it frequently.
Esther said Pollard desperately wanted to be home in
Israel for Passover and expressed confidence that President Shimon Peres could
persuade Obama to release him. When asked in the interview what she would tell
Obama, she switched to English and expressed “profound remorse and sorrow” for
her husband’s crime of passing classified information to an ally.
“Mr. President, all that Jonathan and I are asking for is
compassion and mercy,” she said.
Composer Naftali Kalfa distributed a video on Youtube
this week with a new song called “Free Jonathan Pollard,” whose chorus is “Do
the right thing, do it now.”
“We need to use every tool possible to see Jonathan come
home,” Kalfa said. “As someone who makes music, this is the tool I can give to
help advance this just cause.”
Comments
Post a Comment