In Israel, Jonathan Pollard is a hero. On the other side of the Atlantic, he is a traitor, guilty of having spied, at the heart of the American intelligence machine, on behalf of a nation that is nevertheless friendly, Israel. For a year and a half, the young American Jewish analyst had passed thousands of top-secret documents to the services of the Hebrew state, before being arrested in 1985, while trying to find refuge in the Israeli embassy in Israel. United States. Since Friday, November 20, Jonathan Pollard has been “A free man in all respects”, in the words of his lawyers. He will now be able to travel and above all, perhaps, to speak. The American, now 66, will have spent three decades in prison. He was released five years ago and has been on parole ever since.
Many saw his release as yet another favor from the Trump administration to Israel. The affair has poisoned relations between the two allies for decades, the Americans not having forgiven the Israeli infiltration through Mr. Pollard. “We do not bite the hand that feeds us”, we growled in Washington, also unhappy with the lack of cooperation Israel showed during the trial – which ended in a plea in 1987. Jonathan Pollard was then sentenced to life imprisonment, the heaviest sentence pronounced against a spy of a country allied to the United States.
So far, Israeli officials had struggled a lot but all had broken their teeth on the matter. In 1995, the current Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, already in
power at the time, had tried to negotiate the release of the spy with President Bill Clinton – to no avail. “You will have to pass me over the body”, would have retorted in 2011 Joe Biden to the hypothesis of an early release of the ex-spy. If the former vice-president had subsequently denied having made such comments, he was still firmly opposed to any lenient gesture towards Mr. Pollard.
Resounding affair
The former US Navy analyst finally got out of prison as planned in 2015, still chubby but with a bleached beard. However, he is not free, he wears an electronic bracelet and is subject to many restrictions. He is prohibited from traveling for at least five years, as well as from speaking publicly. Israeli newspapers expected these restrictions to be renewed on Friday, and already calling for a presidential pardon from Donald Trump. No need: the US Department of Justice has put an end to it, ruling that“There was no evidence to conclude that [l’ex-espion] was going to break the law ”.
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