Former spy Pollard throws hat in political ring with ex-Likud member Haskel

By Sam Sokol 23 August 2026, 12:45 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Sharren Haskel, left, Jonathan Pollard, center and political strategist Roi Danino in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, in a picture distributed on August 23, 2026. (Courtesy Israel First)

Former spy Jonathan Pollard announces that he will run for Knesset as part of former deputy foreign minister Sharren Haskel’s Israel First party, declaring in a joint statement filmed at the Western Wall that “the entire country has been abandoned and betrayed” on October 7 and needs “a new government that’s dedicated to the preservation of the land and people of Israel.”

Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst, spent 1985 to 2015 in US federal prison for passing secrets to Israel, in a case that caused a major rift between Jerusalem and Washington. He moved to Israel in 2020 and announced he was entering politics in May, stating that his main goal was to “unify the right.”

Many lawmakers “talk a very good game” but failed to take responsibility for Hamas’s attack, Pollard, 72, says in English, telling Haskel that “the only way we’re going to reassure ourselves that that won’t happen is if we get people like you back into responsible positions of authority in the government.”

Haskel’s new Israel First party is a member of the so-called “Third bloc” of center-right parties aimed at forcing a compromise between Likud and the Zionist opposition parties to create a broad Zionist unity government. None of the bloc’s parties have managed to pass the electoral threshold in recent polls.

Haskel, who started the party after leaving Likud, says that involvement of “Israeli hero” Pollard provides her party with a “significant boost.”

Pollard has expressed hard-right views. He called for the imprisonment of the families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza in order to silence them, and advocated for the “forcible transfer of all current residents from Gaza.”

An outspoken critic of both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former premier Naftali Bennett, Pollard has previously rejected recruitment efforts by the far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties.

He briefly endorsed Ayelet Shaked’s Zionist Spirit party in 2022 before retracting his support several hours later.