In the years since, successive Israeli governments have attempted to get Pollard released including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made it an election pledge in 2007.
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Was Pollard a reluctant recruit driven to divulge to Israel a narrow set of data that would save Jewish lives but that US officials, despite pledges to share such information, were keeping secret? It is unclear whether Pollard will now be allowed to go through with his long-held desire to renounce his American citizenship and move to Israel, where his wife lives, as his parole conditions may require him to stay in the United States for at least five years. The CIA report said Pollard’s case “has few parallels among known USA espionage cases” and that he had “put at risk important US intelligence and foreign policy interests”.
Through the years, members of the defense and intelligence communities have strongly opposed calls for Pollard’s early release.
Several of Mr. Pollard’s supporters declined to talk about their thoughts on his impending release or his plans for the future this week, saying they didn’t want to say anything potentially provocative when he was so close to freedom.
After he was questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr Pollard and his then-wife, Anne, sought asylum at the Israeli embassy in Washington but were turned away. US officials condemned him as a traitor.
“Unauthorized disclosures to friendly powers may cause as great a harm to the national security as to hostile powers because, once the information is removed from secure control systems, there is no enforceable requirement nor any incentive to provide effective controls for its safekeeping”, Weinberger’s memo said, according to Blitzer’s book.
Under federal sentencing rules in place in the 1980s, he became eligible for parole this month, the 30th anniversary of his 1985 arrest for passing secret documents to Israel. “I tried to serve two countries at the same time”.
The memo noted that many documents that Pollard gave Israel were originals that included details on sourcing and the identifications of USA agents overseas, potentially putting them at risk. However, because Pollard is now a Sabbath observer, his lawyers have suggested that the parole commission has agreed to allow him to leave the day before.
Education Minister Naftali Bennet praised Pollard as a hero Thursday, even as Netanyahu instructed officials to keep quiet over the sensitive issue of the release.
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“He spoke from jail in a very nationalistic way – always talking about his desire to help Israel”, the diplomat said.
