Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard Granted Parole
Convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard will be released from an American jail November 21.
Pollard’s release — exactly 30 years after his arrest — could help ease the tensions between the United States and Israel that have grown over the Iran nuclear deal, which President Barack Obama supports and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently opposes…
Pollard, now 60, worked as a Navy intelligence analyst and passed on top-secret U.S. government information to Israel. Israel’s government admitted paying him for the intelligence in 1998. The country granted Pollard citizenship in 1995 and has lobbied for his release for decades.
A number of top U.S. officials have argued against releasing Pollard from his life sentences — including President George W. Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney, and Defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
President Bill Clinton wrote in his autobiography that then-CIA Director George Tenet threatened to quit in 1998 when Clinton appeared to be set to release Pollard.
He’d previously been denied parole after a July 2014 hearing. He had a second hearing before the U.S. Parole Commission on July 7, 2015.
Copyright 2015 Liberaland
7 responses to Israeli Spy Jonathan Pollard Granted Parole
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ResCogitans July 28th, 2015 at 16:16
Why is this happening? Israel should be apologizing to us for this debacle, we shouldn’t be sending their spy back to them as a token of our “good will”. WTF?
tracey marie July 28th, 2015 at 20:34
we spyed on Israel, Britian, Germany and every other country on earth, how are we diffrent?
Bunya July 28th, 2015 at 21:17
It’s only okay if we spy on everyone else. Something about a “war on Turrur”
burqa July 28th, 2015 at 21:59
We’re not.
They all spy on us, too.
In that world, everything is upside down and isn’t what it seems to be and the same thing has opposite meanings to different people.
Pollard is a traitor to us but a hero to Israel and the reverse would be true if he spied for us on them instead of the other way around.
Often with allies, especially Israel, we’ll catch one of their spies and since they are working for an ally, it will be kept quiet as a dance of diplomatic notes expressing shock that such a thing was going on. Often this all takes place behind the scenes.
Often times we want to be sure they are sharing everything on a particular target, other times one side will be seeking to find out if they had been penetrated or what agents the other side had in a particular country.
I find it all very interesting because there are few rules and so much is unknown.
One thing I find interesting is cases where an intelligence service develops a terrific spy who is incredibly well placed, but political leaders or intel poobahs do not trust or believe the agent, and insist he or she is either lying or intentionally deceiving them.
burqa July 28th, 2015 at 19:16
Some don’t think Pollard’s spying was that big a deal because Israel is an ally and we already shared a great deal with them already. This notion could not be more wrong.
One thing we find in the history of espionage is all intelligence services get penetrated at some time or another so what Pollard stole could very well have fallen into the hands of our adversaries.
Though we don’t know exactly what Pollard stole, it should be noted that he had access to nearly all of our classified info and further, had a “courier card” which allowed him to go into secure document storage rooms and remove just about any document he wanted and take it back to his office. Some reports say he took a massive amount of documents.
Pollard would not have gotten his job with the Navy had the CIA told them Pollard was “a fanciful liar, a
closet spy, a Zionist zealot, and a drug abuser.”
One loose string I seem to recall from the case is Pollard was given specific, detailed information on the documents the Israelis wanted. These included accurate titles, serial numbers and the like. This strongly suggests that Israel had another spy we never captured who was giving Israeli intelligence a shopping list of these documents. I may be confusing this with another case, but don’t think so.
So, before turning him loose we should have demanded the identity of this other agent.
Israel has been trying hard for decades to get Pollard released. Once, during the Wye River negotiations, Superstar Bill Clinton asked the CIA if they would have any objection to giving Pollard to the Israelis to sweeten the pot. The CIA director, I believe Tenet at the time, said he would resign if trhey turned Pollard loose.
I expect that is where Pollard will go and will get a hero’s welcome….
Bunya July 28th, 2015 at 20:25
Why do we have to pander to Israel? They need us, it’s not the other way around. If Netanyahu opposes the Iran deal, too bad. And if Israel has a bug up their ass about Iraq, they can fight it out between themselves and leave the U.S. out of it.
Tommie July 28th, 2015 at 22:23
Nations call each other allies, do they really believe they are allies? Everyone is watching each other, i believe that nobody trust each other, they are just willing to work with each other if it benefits their interest! If a problem arises and the so-called allies have a problem, the enemy of my enemy is my friend concept will arise! IMO!