Jonathan Pollard (Photo: AP)
Posted on 11/19/2015 4:50:42 PM PST by Nachum
Convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard is to be released from US prison on Friday after serving 30 years.
Attempts to get Pollard freed over the years have failed, as have requests to ease the terms of his release. He is to be released by the federal parole board but remain under strict conditions. Among other things, Pollard will be banned from flying to Israel and forbidden from accessing the internet.
Pollard, 61, will also have to live and work in New York and regularly report to a parole officer. Any request to leave the area where
he lives would require approval from the parole officer, with more substantial requests requiring special approval from the parole board.
Pollard spent the first seven years after his arrest in an Illinois jail before being transferred to a North Carolina prison. Prisoners are released daily from the facility at 6am (1pm Israel time), and Pollard is expected to be released in the early morning. However, authorities refused to provide information regarding the precise time of his release.
The first people Pollard is expected to meet after his release are his wife Esther and his lawyer, who will likely meet him North Carolina, where the prison is, or in New York, where is supposed to live as part of his parole conditions.
Pollard's attorneys plan to keep a low profile because of concern that a media circus would taint efforts to convince the parole board to shorten the length of time he must abide by the strict conditions – and perhaps to permit him to leave the US and come to Israel.
"Esther is so excited I can't describe it," said a source closed to the Pollards. "This will be the first time in 30 years that Jonathan can sit at the Sabbath meal table and say Kiddush over the wine. She prepared dishes he hasn't seen since he was 30."
Pollard's former wife Anne also arrived in the US in the hopes of seeing him. Anne was arrested with Jonathan in November 1985 at the entrance to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, where they hoped in vain to find asylum.
Pollard confessed to passing classified information to a friendly nation as part of a plea bargain, but the judge rejected it and sentenced him to a life sentence, the maximum allowed.
It was reported Thursday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked the US to allow Pollard to return immediately to Israel upon his release.
According to the reports, Netanyahu has been lobbying Washington to let Pollard travel to Israel instead of completing his five years' parole in the United States. A spokesman for Netanyahu would not confirm the report.
“Among other things, Pollard will be banned from flying to Israel and forbidden from accessing the internet”
Might as well put him back in jail.
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
OUTRAGEOUS. Until and unless it is his dead cold carcass, this traitor should remain in the deepest and darkest prison.
Not true. He was a sick man I believe. He will get better care and can at least eat as he wishes. Better than jail any day.
Throw him back in jail.
30 years.. wow..
his autobiography should be interesting..
Sorry, no sympathy here. He betrayed his country. If I had been the judge, immediately after the guilty verdict was pronounced I would have given him one hour to put his affairs in order to be followed by the offer of a blindfold and cigarette.
I put the over/under on him turning up in Israel or Russia at 6 months.
I’d love to see Bibi come to America, drive him to the embassy and grant him asylum on live TV, Make him an official Likud advizor, then drive him in the diplomatic limo to an Israeli diplomatic jet and dare Obama to stop it.
his autobiography should be interesting..
Yes, he undoubtedly had many interesting encounters with other prisoners.
I’m sure Mossad is already planning the extraction.
Years ago I emailed him. This was back with the Internet was wide open and there was only one email service. He has the same last name as my great grandmother. He emailed back and said he had no knowledge of the source of the name. Just a moment in time. And I have since learned that the word “pollard” is derived from people who were basically tree herds, yes - Fangorn. In the British isles hundreds of years ago, people trained trees to grow a certain way to produce long straight branches for making houses. This was pollarding.
Sure. But here's where BiBi needs to remember America is more than Barack Obama. And this whole release is not sitting well with many, many of us who ordinarily cheer for Israel.
Pollard should die in prison. Then Netanyahu can come for him.
Why isn’t Hitlery receiving the same sentence? I find her actions to be far more aggregious
“Pollard is the only American ever to receive a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally of the U.S.[2]
In defense of his actions, Pollard declared that he committed espionage only because “the American intelligence establishment collectively endangered Israel’s security by withholding crucial information.”[3]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
So what? Israel then gave the information to the Russians.
Pollard should die in prison.
Sure. But since he isnt going to do that, lets get the payback we can. Besides, 65,000,000 traitors pissed all over their country trying to sell it out to a guy that profits from the disposal of dead babies hie own laws helped create. So a guy that did 30 years selling out to a friendly doesn’t upset me a whole lot by comparison.
Few people will understand that this is Obama’s passive-aggressive way of screwing Israel.
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