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A convicted Israeli spy will soon be released by the Obama administration in a move that some hope will improve relations with Israel following the Iran nuclear deal, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The newspaper reported Friday that some U.S. officials are pushing for Jonathan Pollard’s release in a “matter of weeks,” but it may have to wait until his parole consideration date in November.

I really feel like slamming some of the chickens**t American Jews who regularly comment - both on this blog and on Twitter and Facebook - that Jonathan Pollard should rot in jail because what he did was so terrible they're afraid of being accused of having 'dual loyalties' if they actually question Pollard's life sentence. Much of the infamous Cap Weinberger memo (that Pollard's lawyers were never allowed to see) has been declassified, and it shows that much of the US government argument for keeping Pollard imprisoned is based on lies and mischaracterizes what Weinberger (an anti-Semite in his...

No devotee of Yes Minister, yesteryear’s BBC’s classic, can forget St. Edward’s Hospital – that spanking new cutting edge facility that had no patients or medical personnel. Nonetheless, St. Edward’s hustled and bustled, a veritable hive of activity and creative energy. For 15-months since its much-ballyhooed inauguration, an administrative staff of 500 bureaucrats filled the hospital’s offices, pushed papers and generated red tape. Sounds exaggerated? A bit over-the-top for real life? Not really. John Kerry’s peace project, for example, replicates the parody’s blueprints with mind-blowing precision. It is for diplomacy what St. Edward’s was for health care – an incredible...

A deal has been reached between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators to extend US-brokered peace talks, according to Middle Eastern news outlet Al-Arabiya. As part of the deal, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard is to be freed from his 27-year detention in the US while the contentious fourth set of Palestinian prisoners are to be released.

Editor's note: Esther Pollard is the wife of imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst who was convicted in 1985 of one count of passing classified information to an ally, Israel, and sentenced to life imprisonment in spite of a plea agreement that was to spare him such a sentence. Jonathan became the only person in the history of the United States to receive life imprisonment for spying for an ally. Esther discusses recent developments related to a bombshell lawsuit filed on behalf of her husband charging that Jonathan's lawyer at the time of his sentencing, Richard...

Deal expected to pass without coalition crisis; parole hearing postponed due to pending litigation, not Pollard's rejection of peace deal.

Jimmy Carter weighed in on Friday on whether Jonathan Pollard should be released from prison as part of current Middle East peace talks, saying he would support freedom for the spy if the Israelis were to fully accept the deal from Secretary of State John Kerry. Carter said in an interview that he would agree to the release of Pollard, the U.S. naval intelligence analyst currently serving a life prison sentence after a 1987 conviction for providing classified information to Israel, only if certain conditions were met. “If the Israelis would agree to accept John Kerry’s proposal, if Pollard was...

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas did not announce his walkout from the negotiations with Israel or directly turn down the package of far-reaching Israeli concessions which US Secretary of State John Kerry assembled with Binyamin Netanyahu early Wednesday, April 1. He simply turned his back on the commitment he made ahead of the talks to refrain from unilateral applications to UN bodies while they were in progress. As soon as the US Secretary flew off to Brussels, he sent out applications for “the independent Palestinian state” to join 12 UN agencies as members. This was after the Palestinian leader upped his...

The United States has proposed freeing Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in a trade-off deal in which Israel would agree to proceed with the next round of prisoner releases, including Israeli Arab prisoners, and the Palestinian Authority would agreed to extend the current peace talks, Israel’s Army Radio reported Wednesday. It said the offer had been conveyed to Israel and the PA, but there was no official confirmation. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was quoted telling journalists accompanying Secretary of State John Kerry to a meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas Wednesday morning that there were currently no plans to release...

If any of you had any doubt that Jonathan Pollard is anything other than a hostage being held by the United States, this should dispel them: The US is reportedly considering releasing Pollard as an incentive for Israel to go through with the release of 'Israeli Arab' terrorists at the end of this week in order to keep the 'peace talks' going. The talks, which began last summer, were supposed to have concluded at the beginning of April with a framework for negotiations, to be written by Secretary of State John Kerry. But PA chief Mahmoud Abbas has made it...

Obama administration hasn't ruled out releasing Pollard in exchange for Israel’s agreement to free Israeli Arabs convicted of terrorist acts. With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks teetering on the brink of collapse, US officials are mulling a desperate bid to resuscitate the negotiations by making a significant move that would win the approval of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition, one that may perhaps include the release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, Israel Radio reported on Sunday. Citing Western diplomatic sources, Israel Radio reported that Obama administration officials have not ruled out Netanyahu’s proposal that Pollard be released in exchange for Israel’s agreement...

Knesset Land of Israel Caucus heads Yariv Levin (Likud Beytenu) and Orit Struck (Bayit Yehudi) expressed regret on Wednesday that a recording of the parliamentary group’s meeting with US Ambassador Dan Shapiro was leaked to the press. The meeting, which took place on Tuesday, was closed to the press and was described by attendees as “charged,” after MKs used harsh language in discussions of imprisoned Israeli agent Jonathan Pollard’s treatment and accused the US of bias against Israel in talks with Palestinians. Shapiro spoke to Levin and Struck, saying that he was upset that the meeting was recorded. The two...

CIA Director: Jonathan Pollard Is In Prison Because He's JewishBy Karen Levy Israel News AgencyJerusalem — February 9, 2014 ... There have been many senior US officials who have called for Israeli Jonathan Pollard to be released, but none ever came from this highest of security institutions. Former CIA Director James Woolsey has reiterated his call for the immediate release of Jonathan Pollard, now in his 29th year behind American bars over charges of spying for Israel. Speaking to the Israel News Agency, Woolsey stated: "It's enough. After a quarter century the time has come to free Pollard. That doesn't...

The journalist from the British Guardian who published some of the documents leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden said on Monday that there are additional leaked documents, unpublished as of yet, relating to Israel. Speaking to Israel’s Channel 10 News, Glenn Greenwald also said that Israel had done the right thing by linking the revelations about American spying on Israeli targets to the continued imprisonment of Jonathan Pollard. Greenwald’s interview comes weeks after leaked documents showed that American spies monitored the email traffic of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Greenwald said he had found...

Israeli PM will demand release of Jonathan Pollard, convicted of spying for Israel against US in 1987, reports say. The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will link the release of former US naval intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard, convicted of spying against the US for Israel, to progress in the US-sponsored peace talks with the Palestinians, Israeli media reported on Tuesday. The reports said Netanyahu would either demand Pollard's release when Israel signed a framework agreement, or as part of a prisoner exchange involving Arab citizens of Israel held for terrorist offences, who have always been excluded from previous agreements. Netanyahu's...

British companies sold chemicals to Syria that could have been used to produce the deadly nerve agent that killed 1,400 people, The Mail on Sunday can reveal today. Between July 2004 and May 2010 the Government issued five export licences to two companies, allowing them to sell Syria sodium fluoride, which is used to make sarin. The Government last night admitted for the first time that the chemical was delivered to Syria – a clear breach of international protocol on the trade of dangerous substances that has been condemned as ‘grossly irresponsible’. The sales were made at a time when...

<p>The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. He sent word to his superiors about the break-in.</p>

Professor Morris Pollard was laid to rest Monday, denied the privilege of having his son Jonathan present to recite the Kaddish – the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead – over his grave. Jonathan Pollard sat grieving for his father in his jail cell instead, his mother already having died -- also without his presence to comfort her in her final hours. Despite thousands of phone calls that flooded the White House switchboard, an appeal to the U.S. State Department by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and pleas by dozens of Israeli lawmakers, the Obama administration refused to allow Pollard to...

As the calls for clemency for Jonathan Pollard continue to intensify, Henry A. Kissinger, an elder statesman, well-respected diplomat, and experienced member of the United States intelligence community, has become the latest American governmental leader to issue a public call for Pollard’s release. Pollard has spent more than 25 years languishing in a federal prison for passing classified information to Israel, an ally of the United States. Kissinger, who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, sent a letter to President Obama requesting that he commute Pollard’s sentence to...

Why is this man still in jail? Why was this man forced to spend seven years in solitary? Why is he still confined, languishing, festering in jail for a total of twenty five years? Solitary confinement is the most barbaric of punishments. Few people can withstand this form of torture without becoming very ill, both physically and mentally. Am I talking about the Soviet Gulag? Or about some hell-hole in Afghanistan or Iran? Last year, The New Yorker ran a piece about solitary confinement. The article concludes that this punishment amounts to torture, that it can even induce “acute psychosis...