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JERUSALEM — The CIA urged President Bill Clinton to keep Jonathan Pollard in jail for the rest of his life, the Jerusalem Post has learned.

In a 1995 document obtained by the Post, the agency says releasing Pollard would imply that the United States condones espionage committed by an ally or by an ethnic American for his nation of origin.

"His life sentence was and remains appropriate in light of the amount and type of classified information he sold and the potential damage he risked to the national security of the United States for money, trips and diamonds," the CIA assessment reads.

In 1987, Pollard, a naval intelligence analyst who spied for Israel, was sentenced to life in prison. His appeals to have his sentence commuted have all been refused; Clinton rejected the latest one last month.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as his predecessors Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, have all urged Clinton to release Pollard.

Earlier this month, Pollard's wife, Esther, ended a hunger strike she had planned to continue until his release because former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu told her that her husband would be released by Rosh Hashanah.

But interviews and documents obtained by the Post indicate that virtually the entire U.S. intelligence community, as well as the Justice Department, opposes his release.

One Justice Department document rejects Pollard's arguments for release, saying the indictment against him was "tailored to limit public disclosure of the type of information that was involved."

Israeli officials working for Pollard's release say their only option, given the fierce opposition to releasing Pollard, is to reduce his life sentence to a fixed term. This way, they say, Pollard would eventually be released for good behavior.