Netanyahu wants DJ release of Israeli spy Pollard kept low-key

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed cabinet ministers to tone down their jubilation over the scheduled release this weekend of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard after three decades in USA jails, as Israel reportedly tries to ease his parole conditions so he can immigrate to the Jewish state.

Pollard, sentenced to life in jail after being convicted in 1987 of passing reams of categorized info to Israel, has been behind bars since his arrest in 1985.

Repeated Israeli appeals over the years for the U.S. to show clemency towards Mr Pollard were rejected.

Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was branded one of the most unsafe agents in American history during his trial for espionage in 1985 but in Israel many on the right consider the 61-year-old former agent as a hero.

“I have never forgotten the needless pain and suffering I experienced for years while I was incarcerated in USA prisons”.

USA officials have said Pollard, over a series of months and for a salary, provided intelligence summaries and huge quantities of classified documents on the capabilities and programs of Israel’s enemies.

In July 2015, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported the United States was preparing to release Pollard when he was up for parole this November.

Pollard’s supporters, including many Israeli citizens, long maintained he provided information critical to Israel’s security interests at a time when the country was under threat from its Middle East neighbors.

Pollard pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit espionage.

“Unauthorized disclosures to friendly powers may cause as great a harm to the national security as to hostile powers because, once the information is removed from secure control systems, there is no enforceable requirement nor any incentive to provide effective controls for its safekeeping”, Weinberger’s memo said, according to Blitzer’s book.

“The decision I made was based on fear and concern…those were emotions that got the better of me”, he said.

The prime minister’s office had no comment on the impending release.

Pollard’s lawyers also have sought permission for him to travel immediately to Israel, and two Democratic members of Congress – Eliot Engel and Jerrold Nadler, both of NY – have called on the Justice Department to grant the request so that Pollard can live with his family and “resume his life there”. The congressmen say Pollard accepts that such a move may bar him from ever re-entering the United States. “They’re keeping the reins on him very tightly”.