Parole for Pollard revisits divisions over extent of harm

He was sentenced to life in prison. Critics call him a traitor and a mercenary for reportedly taking about $45,000 from Israel in exchange for confidential information, some of which was said to include details of U.S. spy satellites.

“The decision is not connected to recent developments in the Middle East,” said Pollard’s lawyers, Eliot Lauer and Jacques Semmelman, NBC News reported.

Jonathan Pollard, who has been imprisoned for 30 years for spying for Israel, has been granted parole following a unanimous vote by a federal parole panel.

“After decades of effort, Jonathan Pollard will finally be released”, Netanyahu said. As Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have continually clashed on the merits of the deal, which the Israeli leader has decried as a “historic mistake”, the rumblings of Pollard’s release have been greeted here as one of several ways in which the Obama administration is trying to “sweeten” the bitter pill on Iran. “No, not at all”, Kerry told reporters as he left a House of Representatives committee hearing on the nuclear agreement on Tuesday.

His lawyers in a statement Tuesday said that Pollard would be required to remain in the United States for five years. His lawyers say they will ask President Barack Obama for clemency and to allow Pollard to travel from the United States to Israel.

“Mr. Pollard’s status will be determined by the United States Parole Commission according to standard procedures”, National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey said.

The attorneys said Pollard was “looking forward to being reunited with his beloved wife Esther”.

“Immense joy”, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked wrote on her Facebook page in Hebrew, adding that “thirty years of suffering will come to an end this November”.

Those breaches include publication of huge quantities of U.S. secrets by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, revelations of U.S. secret surveillance by Edward Snowden and twin hacks at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which has been linked to China and exposed potentially compromising information on more than 20 million Americans. Pollard, who in 1987 was given a life sentence, has been serving his term in a federal prison in North Carolina. His release was again floated last year as part of a failed last-ditch effort to save Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. On July 1, the Justice Department notified the Parole Commission that it would not oppose the scheduled release on November. 21. These exaggerated claims by career bureaucrats have been routinely contradicted by more senior former government officials, including a vice president, a deputy attorney general, a White House counsel, a deputy national security advisor, secretaries of state, and the current chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen.

“But under laws in place at the time, that meant he could get parole after 30 years”, NPR’s Carrie Johnson says.

Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in Jerusalem, March 21, 2013. “This is something different because Iran is seen in existential terms, so I don’t think you can draw much of a connection between the two”.