Supporters for the release of Jonathan Pollard from his U.S. federal prison cell are planning a large rally at 6:30 p.m. in Israel on Tuesday in another effort to convince President Barack Obama to free him after nearly 10,000 days in jail.

The demonstrators will stand across the Jerusalem residence of President Shimon Peres, who is to be given a petition signed by more than 185,000 people on Pollard’s behalf.

Activists also are hanging balcony signs along President Barack Obama’s motorcade route during his two and a half day visit starting Wednesday afternoon.

The banners show pictures of Pollard and Obama with the headline, “Yes you can,” a play on Obama’s 2008 campaign slogan ”Yes, We Can.”

The president told Israeli television Channel 2 earlier this week he will not free Pollard now but that his case can come up with review.

Here are excerpts of my Knesset speech regarding Jonathan Pollard’s incarceration:

I would like to thank Knesset member [Avishay] Braverman who openly told us that at least during a certain time period, Jonathan Pollard remained imprisoned because that was also the will of people here, in Israel.

This is a very important statement, which was said in an offhand way. But in my opinion, it is certainly possible that this problem still exists.

Jonathan Pollard is not a traitor. We have to look at Jonathan Pollard through Jewish, Israeli, Zionist eyes. Jonathan Pollard is an Israeli agent. He performed a service for us. It is unthinkable that we should look at Jonathan through American eyes.

Jonathan Pollard is a hero, a hero of Israel. He is a hero who risked his life for us. And who knows how many of us he literally saved.

I have no intention of signing the petition for Jonathan Pollard. It is just meaningless words. It is lip service. I have no intention of being dragged once again into processes that have nothing behind them. Similarly, in my evaluation, this petition will fade away when President Barack Obama arrives here if we, the MKs, do not take tangible action – and I intend to propose just such an action. With it, our loyalty to the person who we sent to risk his life for us will be put to the test.

Our brother, Jonathan, who risked his life for us as our envoy, was not the only one who ran to the Israeli embassy for protection on that bitter day 28 years ago. His direct handler, Colonel Aviem Sella, ran to the embassy with him.

The U.S. forcefully demanded that both men – the Jew and the Israeli – be handed over to them.

We betrayed the Jew, and handed him over to his captors – the FBI agents waiting outside.

As far as the Israeli, we proved that when Israel wants something, it can certainly stand firm. Aviem Sella was not handed over – and a way was even found to bring him back to Israel.

On that day I understood that the state of Israel is not really the state of the Jews. Israel is the state of the Israelis. And from this denial of its identity and its foundations, my friends, Knesset members, Israel is progressively losing the legitimacy for its very right to exist.

I have visited my brother, Jonathan, many times. When I saw him for the first time, I couldn’t stop my tears. It was awkward: he was the inmate, who, despite the terrible torture that he had endured, remained peaceful and calm while I, a free lark, was crying like a baby.

Since then, Jonathan’s picture is on the front door of my house. One cannot enter the Feiglin family home without remembering our brother, Jonathan.

The betrayal of Pollard continues until today. It is hard to believe, but the simple fact is that the prime minister then, the person who authorized the extradition and today serves as president of the state of Israel, until recently never officially requested Jonathan’s release. We often hear that Israel is doing its utmost. We heard that and we will continue to hear it. We will sign petitions. But an official request was never presented – until Prime Minster Binyamin Netanyahu did so after 20 years.

But the resolve is still missing. Our body language – and I am referring to the body language of the regime, not of the nation of Israel and not of the Knesset embers but the body language of those responsible – still says to the Americans, “Keep Pollard to yourselves, we don’t really want him here.”

The type of spying that Pollard conducted is carried out by U.S. agents in Israel as a matter of course and is public information. Israel has the ability to demand and receive our brother, Jonathan, if it wants. If we want!

The president of the U.S. will [soon] arrive in Israel and he will want to speak from this podium. Welcome to Israel, U.S. President Barack Obama – with my brother, Jonathan Pollard.

But if you continue to imprison my brother, Jonathan, you will have to speak to my empty chair. And I hope that more Knesset chairs than just mine will be empty.

President Obama’s advance team insisted that Yityish Aynaw, the first Ethiopian Miss Israel, be included on the guest list for the official state dinner President Shimon Peres will host for the U.S. president.  At the time, they probably did not think it was necessary to do extensive background checks on the young woman.  What could be problematic about a beautiful African young woman who came to Israel as an orphan at the age of 12, and now reigns as the beauty queen of this Middle Eastern country?

But a potentially problematic YouTube video has surfaced.  Unlike a video which tanked the former Miss Delaware, forcing her to relinquish her crown, Miss Israel’s video is unlikely to harm her reputation within her domain.  The former Miss Delaware’s YouTube video confirmed rumors that she had made a pornographic movie, and it was later revealed that she was paid for her participation in that movie.

Miss Israel’s YouTube video, which is a clip of an interview aired on Israeli Ch 2 news on Wednesday, March 13, reveals something quite interesting, but utterly non-salacious.

The interviewer asks Aynaw, “What will you tell Obama when you meet him?”

She answers, “That he is a role model for me, and second, that he should free Pollard.”

Aynaw explains that she was very active while in high school – she was head of the student council – working on many different activities to help free Pollard.  She explained to the interviewer that she knows the story very well, and that if she has the opportunity, “lama lo? (why not?)”

So far there has been no response from the White House.

Jonathan Pollard has been in prison since 1987.  He was an American naval intelligence analyst in the early 1980′s when he passed certain classified information to the Israeli government. No other person who was convicted of obtaining classified information for an ally of the U.S. has served in prison as long as has Pollard, and several who were convicted of spying for enemies of the U.S. were released after serving shorter sentences.

On Wednesday, March 13, Jonathan Pollard and his wife, Esther, released a statement calling on all Israelis to show the utmost respect to President Obama during his visit to the Jewish state, according to the Jerusalem Post. This statement was made in response to a call from an Israeli politician to boycott President Obama’s speech if the president does not bring the Pollard home to Israel with him.

“Esther and Jonathan Pollard join the Committee to Bring Jonathan Pollard Home in urging the public to refrain from any action that may impugn the honor of the State of Israel by conveying, even inadvertently, any hint of disrespect or dishonor towards our official distinguished visitor,” the Pollards said in a statement. “We call upon the Israeli public to welcome President Obama to our country and to behave at all times with all due respect and honor towards the president of the United States.”

In a effort to help speed up the release of imprisoned Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, a second petition was posted online, this one asking Jews in Israel and around the world to urge every Knesset Member to stage a walkout during President Barack Obama’s upcoming speech in the Knesset—should Obama not set Pollard free.

But while the original petition calling on Obama to bring the freed Pollard with him to Israel has reached 116,645 signature, its more aggressive sister is still in the realm of three-digits.

MK Moshe Feiglin has already announced that he would boycott Obama’s Knesset speech to protest Pollard’s continued imprisonment. A couple of weeks ago, Feiglin wrote:

“Today, Ta’anit Esther, I understood that we have reached the red line, beyond which – we’re losing our brother Jonathan Pollard. The President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, is scheduled to arrive in Israel and to speak in the Knesset on the eve of Passover. You are welcome, Mr. President – along with our brother Jonathan. With God’s help, when Obama releases our brother Jonathan, I would be delighted to honor him and listen to his speech in the Knesset plenum. But if, God forbid, our brother will not be released, I call on all my colleagues, the Knesset Members, to join me and to leave the Knesset plenum deserted during the speech of the head of a state which has been holding our brother Jonathan captive for 28 years.”

The petition is in Hebrew, but it offers instructions for English speakers.

The Jewish Press has learned that Jonathan and Esther Pollard have asked that Israelis not protest against President Obama during his visit. And, meanwhile, the Obama speech has been moved from the Knesset to the International Convention Center (Binyanei Ha’uma) in Jerusalem.

Just before his visit to Israel, apparently the Obama administration has leaked information that Obama is coming here not for a photo opportunity, but to seriously move the defunct peace talks forward. He wants, among other things, a timetable describing when Israel plans to withdraw from Yehuda and Shomron (Judea and Samaria or the “West Bank”).

Mr. President, according to my math and some websites, Abraham was born 1,948 years after creation (yes, Israel was re-established in 1948 and doesn’t that bring a smile to your face?). When he was 55 years old, Abraham was commanded to go to Canaan, modern day (and ancient) Israel. So, the first Jew to enter Israel was 2,003 years after creation…or…to put it in more familiar terms, 1758 BCE. So that makes our presence here in the land of Israel…oh, about 3,771 years, give or take a few (very few) when the Jews left for famine or whatever, and certainly, there have been Jews here continuously, for 2,000 years plus.

That is longer than any other nation alive today, certainly longer than any Arab/Palestinian/Muslim – or even Christian claim to this land. It is documented, substantiated, proven. It is in the ground, buried deep and rediscovered regularly by anyone who digs deep enough to find the history waiting to be uncovered.

But that isn’t what you asked, was it? You asked about when we’d be leaving. I did some calculations, using common sense, the current political situation, my own knowledge and research, and figured out that we’ll be pulling out of Yehuda and Shomron, the West Bank, etc. – about one week before never; two days after the end of the world.

We’ll be here, Mr. President, long after you have turned to dust, your memory not even a breeze in the wind.

We’ll be here, Mr. Obama, until the end of time. This is what God has promised and this is what we promise ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and theirs.

You want a timetable for when we’ll withdraw – I’ve given it to you.

Now, let’s talk about that other timetable – the one for peace in the Middle East. It will happen, Sir, when the Palestinians want it, and not before. When they learn to stop dancing in the streets when they succeed in murdering children and exploding buses. Peace will come when they have no desire to fire rockets at us and no interest in demanding one thousand Arabs at a value of the life of one Jew.

In other words, Mr. Obama – not in your lifetime, sorry.

So, really, if that’s why you are coming to Israel – perhaps you can save the gas, save the time. Unless, of course, you are bringing Jonathan Pollard home which is, as our Prime Minister said recently, long past due.

Assuming you still plan on coming, if I were you, I’d go back to Plan B and begin working on what pictures you want.

Visit A Soldier’s Mother.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Monday with Esther Pollard, wife of Jonathan Pollard and promised her he would bring up the subject of her husband’s life imprisonment when President Barack Obama visits later this month,

“The time has long since come for Jonathan to go free,” the Prime Minister said. “This issue will come up during President Obama’s visit. It has already been raised countless times by myself and others, and the time has come for him to go free.”

Former US Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb and Effie Lahav, head of the Committee to Free Jonathan Pollard, also attended the meeting.

Esther Pollard said, “This is a golden opportunity now that the President of the United States is coming. If not now, when?”

“I pledge my allegiance,” Arab MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad) scornfully spit out at the Knesset inauguration ceremony. She gathered her belongings and demonstratively exited the plenum.

At that moment, I was reminded of a different Arab woman. That woman sat next to me, not in the Knesset but in the Schneider Children’s Hospital in Petach Tikva. I sat in the hospital room, next to my unconscious son. She entered at night, in traditional dress; perhaps she was from Gaza. She was accompanied by a fifty-something Israeli woman. She looked like she had just come to the hospital from an ivory tower.

The Israeli woman ran to and fro for the Arab, serving her as best she could. She filled out forms, made sure she was comfortable, brought her a chair, a cup of water. This went on and on, into the night. Not once did I hear the Arab say “thank you” or anything similar. On the contrary, she projected hostility. The more the Israeli served her, the more the Arab hated her.

In the morning, I concluded that she was right.

“What do you think?” the Arab woman accuses the Israeli in her heart. “That you can steal my land and afterwards bring me a cup of water and everything will be fine? You are on my land, Mrs. Wealthy. This is my land, this is my place, this is my hospital. You occupied me and now you expect me to thank you for helping me fill out forms in your language?”

The educated Israeli woman is intelligent and very moral. She is bursting with guilt feelings. The Arab doesn’t have to say a thing. The Israeli woman already knows that she is nothing more than a guest here, that the salt of the earth, the bedrock foundation of this land, is the Arab. She tries to appease her, to merit just a drop of legitimacy from the owner of the stolen house.

Somebody made a mistake one or two generations ago. Instead of assimilating into Europe, they were enchanted by a foolish idea and came to Israel for a complicated adventure of identity exchange. They came to find a place for the Jews under the sun in the land of their forefathers – under a new identity. The exile Jew fled to Israel – justifiably – from the religion of the exile. He tried to establish a new nation instead of the Jewish nation. He attempted to establish the Zionist nation, Israeli instead of Jewish.

The new Jew needs the Arab to adopt the Israeli identity that he invented. For if only a Jew can be an Israeli, we have accomplished nothing at all and will still remain alone with our Jewish identity. We have not found a place among the nations, but a place separated from the nations – precisely the exile condition from which we attempted to flee. Zoabi understood that the Israeli needs the Arab to help him forget that he is a Jew. “True, I broke the law,” Zoabi once insinuated at the High Court. “Let’s see you stop me from running for the Knesset. My entire party will drop out of the race and we won’t be there to hide your Jewish identity for you.”

I thought of Jonathan Pollard, whose life is slipping away from him in an American prison. I thought of him and his Jewish judges. I thought of the American Jews who bent over backwards to prove their loyalty to America. There, the Jews are hostages of their hosts. Here, in Israel, the Israelis are hostages of their guests. Of course it all depends upon to whom this land belongs. Those who feel like guests live on borrowed time; they always have to please the hosts.

It’s a good thing that Haneen Zoabi is in the Knesset. Her colleagues still suffer from a type of correctness toward the occupiers. They wait for the national anthem to be sung before leaving the plenum. As if all we have to do is let them skip the anthem and bring them a cup of water and the problem will be solved. But Zoabi isn’t playing around. She doesn’t allow us to flee from ourselves. She holds an intelligent, scathing and vital mirror to our faces. It is a mirror that constantly reminds us that we cannot exist in Israel for long without our Jewish identity.

Whatever you think about Jonathan Pollard, there are some basic facts of the case that cannot be ignored. Chief among them are:

1. Jonathan Pollard has served longer for the crime he was sentenced for than anyone else convicted of like crimes.
2. The United States of America made – and broke – a plea bargain agreement they made with Jonathan Pollard.
3. Jonathan Pollard has no interest in remaining in America. Were he to be freed, he would come to Israel, never to return or hurt the United States.

And one last point – what Jonathan Pollard gave to Israel should have been given to Israel under agreements made between the U.S. and Israel.

With all of that, I’ll say one more thing. I don’t want Obama to come to Israel. We don’t need his pressure, we don’t need the traffic headaches, and we honestly don’t need his opinions. But if he is to come, let him at least, at very least, bring Jonathan home to Israel.

What Jonathan Pollard did – almost THIRTY YEARS AGO – was wrong. The US was wrong and perhaps Israel was wrong – but it has been Jonathan Pollard who has paid the price, far and above what should have been demanded. It is time, past time, to end this farce.

Obama, don’t come…or at least have the decency to bring Jonathan Pollard home.

Visit A Soldier’s Mother.