According to The Guardian, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is offering a 3 Month West Bank settlement freeze for the freedom of Jonathan Pollard. http://www.guardian.co.uk/... Pollard has served more than 20 years in prison for spying on the US. He was convicted of passing US military secrets to Israel.
Let's try and get beyond the fact that Netanyahu is (superficially) treating the US like Hamas or Hezbollah - demanding we free one bona-fide agent of Israeli security in return for a big concession. Let's try and see what price he's asking us to pay. And what we get in return.
Netanyahu's asking us to free someone convicted of spying. He's asking us to free someone who has served more than 20 years in prison. He's asking us to free someone who's ready to retire.
Netanyahu wants to score political points at home - both by getting some symbolic concession all Israelis will support; and also by his very gesture of demanding the US free one person in return for a huge concession, the sort of morally superior negotiating posture Israel normally takes with its armed opponents. He hopes getting Pollard freed placates more nationalistic elements in Israel who oppose the settlement freeze.
What does it cost us to free Pollard? And how could it benefit us?
Do we endanger our National Security by freeing Pollard? Having been imprisoned for over 20 years he can't know any secrets of current value.
Are we undermining our credibility by seeming to go soft? We will still hold plenty of convicted spies in prison. And, for that matter, we still hold plenty of people in custody (like those in Guantanamo) who haven't been convicted of anything. So I don't think freeing Pollard will makes us seem "soft" or undermine our National Security in any other way.
Whether or not we should free Pollard is just a political question. There are political exceptions to espionage convictions. We traded Anna Chapman and her cohorts for the freedom of 4 Russian nationals. http://en.wikipedia.org/...That was normal international politics.
We even(G.W. Bush acted on OUR authority) pardoned Scooter Libby for allegedly releasing the name of our own covert agent. That was grossly political. I don't think that pardon was wise, but that can't be undone.
So in short there is certainly precedent for our freeing or not prosecuting people who actually or allegedly undermined our National Security in return for some other National Security benefit, or even something a lot less (in Libby's case).
So what do we get if we agree to Netanyu's offer? We get a chance to make a deal. Palestinian (National Authority)President Abbas can't (because of his county's nationalists) now negotiate without some settlement freeze.
So if Abbas will come to the Peace talks in return for a 3 month freeze then we should take the deal.
We like to project ourselves as "objective" third parties, and think that we are "brokering" a deal, but of course it is deeply in our interest and so would strongly enhance our national security, and international peace, if we can help foster a lasting Middle East Peace.
So assuming the Palestinians will continue the Peace Talks for another 3 months, I say free Pollard now. That certainly gets us all a lot more than pardoning Scooter Libby.