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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/32649/full/32649/sharansky-173-others-plead-leniency-for-libby/ <br /><br /> <b>Sharansky, 173 others plead leniency for Libby</b> <br /> Friday, June 8, 2007 | by <p>ron kampeas </p> <br /><br /><p><b>washington |</b>  “I am not an American citizen,” Natan Sharansky begins, and then goes on to make a very American case for leniency for Lewis “Scooter” Libby.<br /><br /> “I hope that in deciding this sentence, you will consider the views of those like me who experienced him as a fine American public servant and a good man,” the former Israeli Cabinet minister and prisoner of the Soviet gulag wrote May 1 to federal Judge Reggie Walton.<br /><br /> Sharansky’s letter, among 174 appealing for leniency — an unusually high number — were to no avail. On Tuesday, Walton sentenced Libby to 30 months in prison, less than the 37-month maximum but considered high by many analysts. <br /><br /> Libby was convicted of obstructing the investigation into who leaked the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003 as part of a White House retaliation scheme against her husband, Joe Wilson, a prominent Iraq war critic.<br /><br /> Libby, who is Jewish, was the top adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney.<br /><br /> Sharansky was not the only major Jewish figure writing on Libby’s behalf. Indeed, the letters seemed equally divided among leading Jewish public policy figures; leading personalities from Cheney’s home state of Wyoming; Libby’s former government colleagues; and friends and neighbors, including his dentist.<br /><br /> Some of the notable names pleading for leniency included Henry Kissinger and former Jewish officials who worked for President Bush, including Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.<br /><br /> Also Eliot Cohen, a Middle East analyst about to start service as a top foreign policy adviser to Condoleezza Rice; Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter, the first couple of neoconservative theory; and Walter Reich, a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.<br /><br /> Arye Genger, a New York businessman who served as a liaison between former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Bush administration, credited Libby with trying to reduce civilian casualties among Israelis and Palestinians during the second intifada. <br /><br /> “His meticulous efforts with regard to issues concerning the prevention of loss of innocent lives and human suffering on both sides were remarkable,” Genger said.<br /><br /> Also attesting to Libby’s dedication to bringing about Israeli-Palestinian peace was James Wolfensohn, the former World Bank president and major Jewish philanthropist who until recently was a top peace envoy to the region.<br /><br /> Perhaps the most poignant letter was from Leon Wieseltier, the Jewish philosopher and writer who said Libby had helped his family out of a legal situation some years ago and “did not charge us a dime.” <br /><br /> Wieseltier said that ideologically he is “despised by neoconservatives like Libby,” but added: “We do not have the same politics, but there is more to life than politics, even in Washington. About his character I would put my own hand on the Bible.” </p> <p> </p>

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