Jonathan Pollard’s release is not big news in the United States, where few outside the Jewish community would remember his arrest 30 years ago on charges of spying for Israel.
Advertisement
Pollard was given a life sentence in 1987 for providing large amounts of classified USA government information to Israel.
“May this Sabbath bring him much joy and peace that will continue in the years and decades ahead”, Netanyahu said. Pollard was released this morning from a North Carolina prison after serving almost 30 years.
State Department Spokesman John Kirby added that he was “not aware of any such conversations” that would ease Pollard’s parole, noting that the Justice Department would handle Pollard’s parole “according to standard procedures”.
Hours after his release, Pollard checked in with probation officers at a federal courthouse in NY, then emerged into a throng of journalists.
Pollard’s involvement with spying began after he joined the US Navy, and eventually received sufficient security clearance to access Top Secret and Sensitive Compartmented Information.
Successive Israeli prime ministers have raised the issue in their meetings with USA presidents.
Netanyahu’s statement on Pollard’s release included nary a reference to any crimes.
Pollard appeared relaxed and pleased to be out of prison.
As a Jewish-American teen moving to South Bend, Indiana, in the 1960s, Jonathan Pollard immediately struggled to fit in.
The congressmen say Pollard accepts that such a move may bar him from ever re-entering the United States.
For United States officials he was seen as an unreliable Walter Mitty figure who had betrayed his country for financial gain, and American politicians, particularly those with intelligence interests, have lobbied against his release.
Perception of Pollard, who was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995, has evolved there over the years, with rightwing activists seeking to turn him into an icon.
The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a statement that the people of his nation “welcome the release” and that he “had long hoped this day would come”.
After learning of his release in July, Pollard said through his lawyers that he “is looking forward to being reunited with his beloved wife Esther”.
The lawyers said Pollard had been a “model prisoner” and that there was no reason to fear he might commit acts of violence or reveal further U.S. intelligence that by now, in any case, would be so outdated as to be meaningless. They said there was no reason to monitor Pollard because American security officials who were in office at the time of his arrest and the parole commission itself determined that he lacked any useful information.
He not only has a curfew, he is also forbidden from using the Internet and required to wear an electronic unit to track where he is, something his lawyers have opposed.
“I tried to serve two countries at the same time”, he said. “To the extent Mr. Pollard even recalls any classified information, it would date back 30 years or more, and would have no value to anyone today”, he said.
Jonathan Pollard, 61, was released on parole by the US government amid appeals for his freedom from Israel.
Advertisement
At 9:09 a.m., a Twitter user posted a photo of the ex-spy with his wife and another man (whom Tablet Magazine speculated was National Council of Young Israel’s former executive, Rabbi Pesach Lerner) at the corner of Houston Street and Second Avenue, on the Lower East Side.
