Former spy Jonathan Pollard arrives in Israel from US

Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy analyst who served 30 years in prison for spying for Israel, has arrived in Tel Aviv after parole restrictions on his travel expired.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Pollard and his wife Esther as they disembarked in Tel Aviv, video distributed by the Israeli prime minister’s office showed. The couple, both Orthodox Jews, kissed the tarmac.

After saying a Hebrew prayer of thanksgiving for the liberation of prisoners, Netanyahu presented Pollard with an Israeli passport. “Welcome home,” the prime minister said.

“We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years,” Pollard said.

Earlier on Wednesday morning Boaz Bismuth, the editor of the Israel Hayom newspaper tweeted pictures of Pollard and his wife Esther onboard a private plane and wrote: “Welcome home Jonathan Pollard!”

Boaz Bismuth
(@BismuthBoaz)

pic.twitter.com/EHeNozoml8

December 30, 2020

Pollard, 66, had long voiced a desire to emigrate to Israel, which granted him citizenship.

Sentenced in 1987 to life imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage, Pollard was freed on parole in 2015. A US Justice Department decision last month to let the parole terms’ five-year travel ban go unrenewed was seen by some as a parting gift to Israel by the Trump administration.

Pollard’s lawyer, Eliot Lauer, told The Times of Israel that his arrival was “a dream realised after 35 very difficult years.”

The Ynet website said the couple was in quarantine, which is mandatory for all returning Israelis as a measure to guard against the spread of the coronavirus.

In November the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, welcomed the lifting of travel restrictions on Pollard.

“The prime minister hopes to see Jonathan Pollard in Israel soon, and together with all Israelis, extends his best wishes to him and his wife Esther,” a statement issued by his office said.

Pollard’s arrest and sentencing has long strained relations between the US and Israel.

His release was the latest in a series of gestures by the departing Trump administration towards Netanyahu’s government.

Netanyahu has long pushed for Pollard’s release. During the longtime leader’s first term in the late 1990s, Pollard was granted Israeli citizenship. Netanyahu later made a personal plea to allow him to attend his father’s funeral. The US denied that request. Repeated attempts to persuade US presidents to grant him clemency have failed.

With Reuters