The disclosure in late December that American intelligence spied on former Israeli prime ministers has given new momentum to the effort to secure a pardon for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and several leading Knesset members have called in recent days for Pollard’s release following reports that documents leaked by former defense contractor Edward Snowden showed U.S. intelligence had targeted the email addresses of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert.
Pollard’s case “isn’t disconnected from the U.S. spying on Israel,” said Nachman Shai, co-chair of the Knesset caucus to free Pollard. “It turns out, it’s part of life. And what he did is a part of life.”
Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly said this week that Pollard’s release could be tied to a Palestinian prisoner release scheduled to take place before April, a condition of the current peace negotiations, but those reports have not been confirmed and sources say President Barack Obama has not agreed to such an arrangement.
Knesset speaker Yuli Edelstein accused the United States of “hypocrisy” for holding Pollard, who as a civilian Navy analyst spied on the United States for Israel, even as it spied on Israeli leaders. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said he wants the Israeli government to demand Pollard’s release and insist the United States cease its espionage operations in Israel, which were reported in early November. And opposition leader Isaac Herzog said Pollard’s punishment “has long passed the limits of sensibility.”
“We hope that the conditions will be created that will enable us to bring Jonathan home,” Netanyahu said Dec. 29 at the Israeli Cabinet’s weekly meeting. “This is neither conditional on, nor related to, recent events, even though we have given our opinion on these developments.”
When Pollard’s crimes first came to light in the mid-1980s, his activities seemed like a major act of betrayal given the close alliance between Israel and the United States. But the Snowden revelations show that spying by the United States and Israel has been a two-way affair.
Support for freeing Pollard represents a rare point of consensus in Israeli politics, with 100 Knesset members among the 120 signing a letter asking Obama to release Pollard, according to Shai. Eighty members signed a similar letter in 2012.
But Ronen Bergman, an expert on Israeli intelligence who is writing a history of Israel’s spy agencies, says Israeli pressure is unlikely to convince Obama to free Pollard in the short term.
“I’m quite positive that it won’t happen tomorrow, because otherwise it will look as if the president of the United States accepts the claim that following the recent revelations from Edward Snowden, he should parole Jonathan Pollard,” said Bergman. “But once the Americans were caught with their hands in the cookie jar, it paints the Pollard issue in a different color.”
The clamor for Pollard’s release has grown steadily over the past two years, with the late Sen. Arlen Specter, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Secretary of State George Shultz expressing their support.
Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky, a vocal advocate for Pollard’s release who raised the issue in November to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, said American calls to release Pollard hold more sway than Israeli advocacy.
“What really matters is what American public opinion and American professionals and the American Jewish community feel,” Sharansky said. “I want to be cautious, but I think we passed a checkpoint. Now we don’t see people thinking [Pollard’s release] is unthinkable.”
Supporters of Pollard have long argued that his three decades of incarceration for spying on an ally are excessive. Revelations of American espionage may strengthen the rhetorical argument on Pollard’s behalf, they say, but the merits of the case for release stand on their own.
“Without any connection to the recent news, there’s no question that the time has already come when the Israeli public and senior officials want this tragedy to come to an end,” said Adi Ginsburg, a spokesperson for the advocacy group Justice for Jonathan Pollard.