Israel hopes spy Pollard can emigrate for US embassy opening
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Israel hopes spy Pollard can emigrate for US embassy opening

Likud minister says he hopes Trump will ‘offer another gift to Israelis’ after report says president is considering move

By AFP 30 April 2018, 6:55 pm 4 Edit
Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, leaves a New York courthouse following his release from prison after 30 years, on November 20, 2015 in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)
Jonathan Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, leaves a New York courthouse following his release from prison after 30 years, on November 20, 2015 in New York. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP)

Israel hopes Jonathan Pollard, an American spy who served 30 years in prison for selling secrets to the Jewish state, will be allowed to emigrate there as the US moves its embassy to Jerusalem, a Likud minister said on Monday.

“I hope that President Donald Trump will offer another gift to Israelis by allowing Jonathan Pollard to come and celebrate the opening of the American embassy in Jerusalem,” Transportation and Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz told Army Radio.

“I hope that President Trump will agree to that request with Jonathan Pollard having spent so many years in prison.”

Katz’s remark comes after Hadashot TV news reported Sunday that the US president is considering allowing Pollard to travel to Israel for the embassy opening, which will take place on May 14 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Jewish state’s founding.

Transportation Minister Israel Katz at the weekly cabinet meeting at PM Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on September 4, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Pollard was released from prison in November 2015 after three decades in jail. He was given a five-year probation period during which he is not allowed to travel outside the United States.

Israel, which had long deemed his punishment unreasonable, welcomed his release.

The 63-year-old was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995 and his family says he wants to settle in Israel.

Pollard was a US Navy intelligence analyst when he was arrested for passing sensitive security documents to Israel in 1985.

Over the years, Israeli right-wing activists have sought to turn him into an icon and a fierce defender of Israeli security, even when it meant spying on Israel’s closest ally.

But US security officials remain angry about his leak of classified defense documents, and he has been accused of seriously damaging US interests during the Cold War.

Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv deeply angered Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as their capital, and broke with decades of international consensus.

He stressed the recognition was not meant to take a position on the city’s borders and that its status should be determined in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, a stance reiterated by his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday during a visit to Tel Aviv.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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