“The only thing I have asked them is to get me out of prison and bring me home,” he said. “That’s all I’ve asked.”
Pollard said the offer was a way of deflecting attention from his case.
According to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, a special grant of $1 million to help Pollard was recommended by Israeli Cabinet Minister Danny Naveh and approved by two committees, one headed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s military liaison and the other by the Defense Ministry’s deputy director.
The committees determined this week that a grant of $1 million would sufficiently pay expenses for Pollard and his wife, Esther, who lives in Canada. The amount is based on $5,000 for every month Pollard has spent in jail.
Esther Pollard said in an interview that neither she nor their attorneys had received an official offer. Despite the fact that she is “deeply in debt,” Esther Pollard said she will return the check if and when she receives it.
“We don’t want blood money, and we don’t want to dirty ourselves,” she said. “We will make it to the finish line clean.”
Jonathan Pollard, who was convicted in 1987, has received support from numerous American Jewish groups and leaders, but was unable to secure a pardon from President Clinton.
He came very close during the Wye River peace negotiations in 1998, when President Clinton reportedly promised to free him as part of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. But Clinton eventually backed out after American law-enforcement officials threatened to resign in protest.
Pollard said his freedom should be a matter of principle, and that the United States has already promised to release him.
“My case, my life, the issues involved, are not a matter of dollars and cents,” he said. “My freedom is not on the block.”