TEL AVIV – A former U.S. Navy analyst who has served 30 years in prison for spying for Israel arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday and kissed the ground when greeted with a prayer by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
As a civilian intelligence analyst, Jonathan Pollard (66) sold military secrets to Israel in the 1980s. He was arrested in 1985 after unsuccessfully trying to obtain asylum at the Israeli embassy in Washington and pleading guilty.
He was sentenced to life in prison in 1987, but was released on parole in 2015.
The espionage case in which Pollard was involved became a decades-long dispute between the US and Israel, but a decision by the US Department of Justice last month to impose a five-year travel ban, which is part of Pollard’s conditional terms , to be renewed, is considered by some to be a farewell gift to Netanyahu by President Donald Trump. This could give the Israeli leader a welcome boost as he fights for re-election in next year’s parliamentary elections.
Netanyahu met Pollard and his wife, Esther, on the tarmac on Wednesday when they were on board in Tel Aviv, the prime minister’s office said.
The couple kissed the ground as they left the plane.
“We are ecstatic to finally be home after 35 years,” Netanyahu’s office quoted Pollard as greeted by the prime minister.
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After Netanyahu offered a Hebrew resignation prayer, he handed an Israeli identity card to Pollard and told the Pollards, ‘Now you can start life anew, with freedom and happiness. “Now you are at home,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
“We hope to become productive citizens as soon and as quickly as possible and move on with our lives here,” Pollard said in the statement.
After Pollard’s arrival, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and several lawmakers tweeted congratulations and greetings to the Pollards, who had left the airport for an unknown location.
Effi Lahav, head of an activist group campaigning for Pollard’s release from prison, told The Associated Press that Pollard’s arrival was “kept secret” because we realized it was better to be strategic with regarding his arrival. “
“We have no interest in challenging anyone, certainly not … the United States,” Lahav said.
He described Pollard’s arrival as ‘very moving and very historic’, a moment his organization had been ‘waiting for all these years’, praying and praying and acting. ‘
Paul Goldman reports from Tel Aviv and Yuliya Talmazan from London.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
