A year back we called for Jonathan Pollard’s release on humanitarian grounds– the guy’s been in prison 30 years. But we’re both a little irritated by the media’s coverage of his crimes. The media aren’t talking about an issue at the center of the case: how much of Pollard’s disclosures were turned over to the Soviet Union, and put others’ lives at risk.

Typical is a New York Times piece on Pollard by Ronen Bergman, an Israeli, saying that the reason Pollard spent so much time in prison was the “nationalistic campaign” mounted by Israelis and his wife, which evidently irked US authorities.