The revelations in the contentious filing, along with statements Friday by the White House, supportive Jews and Jewish groups and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, bury for now any hope Pollard’s release would end three decades of pronounced disagreement between the United States and Israel over what Pollard represents and whether his punishment was just.
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Yitzhak Rabin was the first Israeli prime minister to intervene on Mr. Pollard’s behalf, petitioning President Bill Clinton for a pardon in 1995 – a request echoed by subsequent leaders including Mr. Netanyahu who visited him in prison in 2002.
Pollard, 61, was released on parole from the facility in Butner, North Carolina, where he has been serving a life sentence.
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”.
However, under the terms of his parole, Pollard would not be able to move to Israel for at least five years during his parole.
From Jerusalem, NPR’s Emily Harris reports, “Israel gave Pollard citizenship 20 years ago”.
The Justice Department this week indicated it will abide by the conditions of Pollard’s parole.
“I can’t comment on anything today”, he said, with his wife, Esther Pollard, on his arm. As someone who has raised the issue for many years with American presidents, I have dreamt of this day. Arrested in 1985, Pollard eventually pleaded guilty to handing Israel suitcases full of classified documents that included intelligence about Arab military systems and Soviet weapons as well as satellite photographs and information about American “sources and methods” of its own spycraft.
He became a hero in Israel but United States intelligence officials saw his actions as an enormous betrayal of national security.
The US government resisted these calls for an early release for years, deeming his crimes too great and his possible knowledge of USA security secrets too much of a threat.
In addition to his probation officer’s say-so, he needs the U.S. Parole Commission’s permission to travel overseas.
Pollard spied for a year in return for payments until his arrest in 1985.
The Israeli news media reported that Mr. Netanyahu and assistants of Mr. Pollard were discouraging public hints of celebration at his release to avoid antagonizing Washington.
“The people of Israel welcome the release of Jonathan Pollard”, Netanyahu said in a statement on Friday.
“Mr. Pollard understands that, as a condition of being permitted to move to Israel, he may need to renounce his American citizenship”, said a letter written by US Reps. “After three long and hard decades, Jonathan has been reunited with his family”.
Kenneth Lasson, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who supported Pollard’s bid to have his sentence shortened, said the Global Positioning System monitoring and computer inspections amount to “vindictiveness by a petty-minded government”.
Opponents argue Pollard is the only American-born spy to pass such a volume of documents to another country, and that he would have faced the death penalty had it not been illegal at the federal level at the time. “It may help the strained US-Israeli relations after the Iran deal, but I think this was not the decisive cause for the release”.
“I tried to serve two countries at the same time”.
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Last year, the USA dangled the prospect of freeing Pollard early as part of a package of incentives to keep Israel at the negotiating table during talks with the Palestinians.
