Espionage Spying Between Friends

No one in Israel was mincing words. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin called it a "real disaster, a real wound in Israeli-U.S. relations." Foreign Minister Shimon Peres admitted that Israel had made a "regretful mistake." Declared former Foreign Minister Abba Eban: "This is the most difficult moment in the history of Israel's international relations, especially because the wrongdoing was done here."

The disaster, the wound, the mistake, the wrongdoing turned on the case of Jonathan Jay Pollard, 32, an American naval intelligence analyst, who was given a sentence of life imprisonment last week for spying in Israel's behalf against the U.S. Pollard's...