Jonathan Pollard, & Wife land in Israel: ‘Ecstatic to be home at last’

 

Edited by: Fern Sidman

Jonathan Pollard landed in Israel early Wednesday morning, some 35 years after being arrested in the United States and serving 30 years in prison for spying for and providing top-secret classified information to Israel.

Pollard, 66, served 30 years in prison for passing on classified documents when he served as a US Navy intelligence analyst, and had been confined to the United States under his parole terms since his 2015 release, according to an AFP report.

As part of those restrictions, Pollard was not allowed to leave his home between 7:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m., was monitored by a GPS device and was not permitted to leave the US.

After years of Israeli lobbying to allow Pollard, a Jewish American, to leave, the US Justice Department removed the terms and conditions last month on November 20th, as was reported by AFP.

It had been widely speculated that Pollard will move to Israel once the restrictions are lifted. His attorney, Eliot Lauer, told Arutz Sheva last month that Pollard and his wife “have every expectation to make Aliyah and move to Israel. Because of Esther’s medical condition, they first need to get approval from the medical advisers in New York and make sure that she’s medically capable of making the trip and that suitable arrangements will be made in Israel to continue her progress. Once that is done, I think it’s just a question of logistics, packing up and getting on a plane.”

The Pollards flew in on a private jet owned by Jewish-American casino magnate Sheldon Adelson which departed from Liberty Airport in Newark, New Jersey and arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The plane touched down just before 3 am, said transport sector journalist Itay Blumental.

The Israel Hayom newspaper reported that prior to landing, Pollard was invited by the pilots into the cockpit, where he listened to the Ben Gurion Airport control tower, which greeted him in Hebrew on the occasion of his arrival in Israel.

AFP reported that Pollard, with a kippa scullcap and a long white beard, then removed his face mask, got down on his hands and knees and kissed the Israeli ground, with Esther following suit. Greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Pollard and his wife said the traditional Shehechiyanu prayers before the prime minister handed Pollard an Israeli identity card, who was granted full Israeli citizenship in 1995.

“You’re home,” the Israeli premier told the two.The Prime Minister told the Pollards that it is good that they have come home where they will be able to start a new life, in freedom and happiness.

Jonathan Pollard said: “We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years and we thank the people and the Prime Minister of Israel for bringing us home. No one could be prouder of this country or this leader than we are and we hope to become productive citizens as soon and as quickly as possible and to get on with our lives here. This is a wonderful country. It has a tremendous future. It is the future of the Jewish people and we’re not going anywhere.”

Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevitch welcomed Pollard to Israel.

“Jonathan, how good it is that you came home,” she tweeted.

Pollard and his wife then went into quarantine, after which they plan to move to a home in Jerusalem, Israeli lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, who represented Pollard, told army radio.

Israel on Sunday imposed its third nationwide lockdown to contain the novel coronavirus. Current restrictions compel anyone entering the country to spend at least 10 days in a government-selected hotel.

As a US Navy intelligence analyst in the 1980s, Pollard  made contact with an Israeli colonel in New York and began sending thousands of crucial US intelligence documents  to Israel.

AFP reported that Intelligence information gathered by Pollard helped Israel plan an October 1985 raid on the (PLO’s) Palestine Liberation Organization’s Tunis headquarters, which killed around 60 people, according to CIA documents declassified in 2012.

Pollard was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison two years later, despite pleading guilty in a deal which his attorneys had expected would lead to a more lenient sentence.