AND, Israel would likely have executed him ...
Not an “apologist,” myself. But your analogy is way off. He told the Russians how the US was following its nuclear subs. What would Al Qaeda or Hamas even do with something like that? He told Israel about Syria’s poison gas program. He told Israel about Iraq’s nuclear program. Both were intelligence that the US had already agreed to share with Israel, but which his superiors ordered him not to pass along. Because he passed them along, both the United States and Israel were saved a lot of grief, which is the basis of any inclination I have towards leniency in his case.
He did not, to my knowledge, out any US agents working under cover overseas. He did not to my knowledge cause any physical harm to anyone, or compromise any intelligence operations, other than with the submarines. Forgive my ignorance if I’m wrong. I don’t really know all the facts, and would happily say a mea culpa if you can bring an instance to my attention in which he did any of that.
But what specifically do you mean by “the SAME information (to Al Qaeda, Egypt, Hamas, , Jordan, Syria, etc.)” What sort of information would you regard as “the same”? If you mean the bomb that Israel allegedly made at Dimona, that was outed in the media by an intelligence agent, who is now walking around free, having served his sentence.
Now here’s why I’m not an apologist for him. From what I have learned over the years, it seems he was a coke head, and he was selling secrets to support his habit. He was no hero. I’d be content to let him rot, but for the fact that we are now looking at a democratic, free Iraq thanks to the fact that Saddam didn’t get the bomb, thanks to Pollard. If he did that with the worst motives in the world, the world still benefits from this act. On the other hand, he also tried to sell secrets to Pakistan and Red China. I might be willing to overlook the Soviet Union, which no longer exists, since his leaks to Israel did cause Saddam to remain nukeless. But Red China is a sworn enemy of the US, and Pakistan is only sometimes a little better. So right now I’m leaning towards keeping him in, but letting him pay his last respects in some way to his dad.
“AND, Israel would likely have executed him ..”
Oh, and Israel doesn’t have the death penalty except for Nazi war criminals and their collaborators.