Jonathan Pollard Granted Parole Suspiciously Close to Iran Deal

On November 21, 2015, Jonathan Pollard will be released from federal prison, where he has been completing a 30-year sentence. Pollard, now 60 years old, is serving a life sentence in a North Carolina prison after pleading guilty to spying for Israel from 1984 until his arrest in 1985. Under the terms of his parole, he must remain in the US for five years after his release. His lawyers believe that President Obama may grant him clemency, which would allow him to travel abroad and potentially move to Israel.

Pollard has been a thorn in the side of US-Israel relations for decades. A movement in Israel and the US has emerged, demanding his release. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish organizations released a statement, saying, “We have long sought this decision and we believe this action is long overdue with Pollard serving a longer sentence than anyone charged with a comparable crime.”

In 1984, Pollard, who was a counterterrorism analyst for the US Navy, approached Israeli Air Force Colonel Aviem Sella and offered himself as a spy. He was paid for his services, given both money and jewelry, and he was later accused of also providing intelligence to Pakistan and South Africa.

Israeli officials have been trying to secure Pollard’s release for years. As early as 1993, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin asked US President Bill Clinton to release him, and current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also unsuccessfully asked the US to free Pollard. When Netanyahu was not in office in 2002, he even visited Pollard in prison.

Within the US government, members of the intelligence community, members of Congress, and the President have debated the merits of releasing Pollard for a long time. In 2006, George J. Tenet, who was the Director of Central Intelligence, threatened to resign his post if the US released Pollard, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tweeted on July 27 that freeing him would be “enormously damaging to our efforts to keep spies out of our government.”

Though the White House denies accusations that Pollard’s release is supposed to quell Israeli opposition to the Iran nuclear deal, the timing of the parole grant is suspicious. The relationship between Israel and the US is strained as a result of the nuclear deal. Israel says it does not do enough to ensure that Iran will not obtain nuclear weapons, while at the same time giving Iran more money to pump into anti-Israel Iranian proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Despite the insistence of the Obama Administration that Pollard and the Iran deal are unrelated, many in Israel see Pollard’s release as an olive branch offering. Allison Kaplan Sommer, a columnist for Haaretz, writes, “As far as Israel’s leaders are concerned, the timing of the announcement unavoidably gives the liberation of Pollard the feel of a consolation prize – and a poor one at that. The move feels like a power play rather than any kind of grand gesture – an effort to dissuade Israel and its American supporters from applying maximum political pressure on the Iran deal out of gratitude – or even fear that the release could somehow be disrupted.”

The release of Pollard, in and of itself, is questionable. He provided thousands of documents to Israel, and though Israel is an American ally, he compromised a substantial amount of valuable information. However the release is best understood in the broader context of its timing. Regardless of what the White House says, every action taken by a government that has to do with another country does affect their relationship. The two countries are traditionally on good terms. Unfortunately, it has been repeatedly strained by the current Administration, which has backed away or undermined established understandings which traditionally formed the basis of the US-Israel relationship.

Pollard should not be used as a pawn in the political game. He committed espionage, not petty theft. Israel must be pragmatic and levelheaded about the release of Pollard. It must not let the Israeli public’s elation over the release interfere with their opposition to the Iran deal, which is grave threat to their safety and security.