Ex-spy Jonathan Pollard says he’s joining politics, urging expulsion of Gazans and slamming Netanyahu and Bennett

Former spy Jonathan Pollard, who spent decades in US prison before being released and later allowed to move to Israel, announces his intention to join politics ahead of the upcoming Knesset election.

According to Channel 13 news, Pollard is forming a new party together with Nissim Louk, the father of Shani Louk, who was murdered during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, with her body abducted from the Nova rave into Gaza and recovered by the IDF seven months later.

Making the announcement during an interview last night with the network, Pollard is asked what changed his mind after avoiding joining the political fray for years.

“October 7,” he answers. “Up until that point, I thought that my abandonment and the betrayal by the government was the exception to the rule. But after October 7, I realized that I was not the exception, that the government and the military had betrayed and abandoned the entire country.”

בלעדי: הראיון המלא עם המרגל ג׳ונתן פולארד שמצטרף לפוליטיקה. בעד טרנספר בעזה, בעד גיוס ערבים ומה הוא חושב על נתניהו ובנט? pic.twitter.com/9pI5v3aYDr

— בר שם-אור Bar Shem-Ur (@Bar_ShemUr) May 4, 2026

Pollard says in his English-language remarks that his most important political value is military self-sufficiency.

“I believe very strongly that everyone in this country — Arabs, Jews, it doesn’t matter, right and left — has to serve mandatory national service of one’s choice,” he says.

Asked about his past comments advocating for the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Pollard says: “I personally favor forcible transfer of all current residents from Gaza out, and the annexation of Gaza and the repopulation of Gaza by us.”

He therefore says he believes that, as things currently stand, Israel isn’t winning the war it has been fighting since late 2023.

He criticizes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “pounds his chest and says we’ve never been more successful, ever, in fighting our enemies, and I’m sorry but that is a cold-blooded lie.” He says even supporters of the premier admit that not one enemy has been “decisively defeated” during the war.

Asked if this means he won’t support Netanyahu for prime minister, Pollard says that if this year’s election results point to a continued Netanyahu premiership, “I believe in the democratic process and we’ll have to support him.”

But, he says, his main goal is to “unify the right,” adding that the current government is made up of “yes-men” who don’t sufficiently challenge Netanyahu.

Pollard says he has no problem sitting in a government with Yisrael Beytenu party chief Avigdor Liberman, a veteran hawk and Netanyahu ally who fell out with the premier in 2019 — over Netanyahu’s refusal to initiate a war in Gaza aimed at toppling Hamas — and has been in the opposition ever since.

But he says he does have a problem sitting with former prime minister Naftali Bennett, the current Together party head, “because he’s a liar.”

“It’s chutzpadik (shameless) on his part to point a finger at Netanyahu for October 7, without acknowledging his own responsibility for bringing this disaster about,” he charges. “He was the one who basically doubled the number of Gazan workers coming into the communities along the border.”