One release deserves another

In 1987, Jonathan Pollard gave a guilty plea of passing classified American secrets to Israel that included details about US estimates of the Soviet military machine but also those of Israel's regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia.  US intelligence officials contend that some of the information Pollard sold to Tel-Aviv ended up in the Soviet Union.  Pollard was an out and out traitor who sold these secrets recklessly to a foreign government, which could have done incalculable damage to his own country had the Cold War not been winding down.  It was revealed today that he would be paroled in November.  Israel, which gave Pollard citizenship during his imprisonment, is eager to take him 'home', but the White House shot this down, saying Pollard had committed serious crimes and that when he is paroled, he must still serve out his sentence in the USA.
In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician whose abhorrence grew to the point he became a conscientious objector, told the British press of Israel's nuclear programme, contradicting long-standing (and still present) Israeli dogma that they would not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East (or 'the region' as they call it).  Vanunu was lured to Italy by a Mossad agent where he was drugged and abducted back to Israel and convicted in a trial behind closed doors.  18 years of imprisonment followed, including 11 in solitary confinement.  Even after his release in 2004, like a dodgy post-colonial state, Israel cooked up excuses to jail him again in 2007 and 2010, in sentences even the prosecution said were unusual (having asked for suspended sentences).  He has been repeatedly harassed in the interim.  On 7th May of this year, Vanunu reported that the restrictions against him leaving Israel (and becoming a citizen of a different country) were renewed for a 12th year after his 2004 release.  Israel considers him a traitor, the rest of the world, a heroic whistleblower, Amnesty International, a prisoner of conscience.
Pollard sold, Vanunu told.  If Israel wants clemency for Pollard to come to its land, they should set an example by allowing Vanunu to leave.  But that won't happen as successive Israeli governments, especially this current one, believe that the only examples that should be set are ones of force, not diplomacy.  But it would be an immense boost to Israeli soft power - and to Pollard - if it changed its mind on Vanunu.