"Welcome home": Netanyahu welcomes Jonathan Pollard, the analyst who spied on the US for Israel

Jonathan Pollard receives his residence card from Benjamin Netanyahu, at Ben Gurion airport, near Tel Aviv.

Behind, Pollard's wife, Esther.EFE

Jonathan Jay Pollard, the American who spent 30 years in prison and five years on probation for spying for Israel - in a case that generated tension between both allies and ended up championing the nationalist right - landed this Wednesday in Israel, where he has been received by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We are delighted to finally be home after 35 years and we thank the people and Prime Minister of Israel for bringing us home.

No one could be more proud of this country or this leader than we are and we hope to become productive citizens as soon as possible and move on with our lives here, ”said Pollard, 66, after landing in Tel Aviv with his wife. , Esther.

They both kissed the ground and the Israeli prime minister then sang a Jewish prayer of thanks for the release of the prisoners.

“Now you can start a new life, with freedom and happiness.

Welcome home.

Now you are a citizen of the State of Israel, "Netanyahu said at the airport when he handed over the documentation.

Pollard and his wife are Jewish and Israel grants citizenship to anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent.

The former spy is already in Jerusalem, confined by COVID-19, like all travelers arriving from abroad.

Although he had made clear his desire to settle in Israel years ago, the arrival was kept secret.

He did it aboard a private plane of billionaire Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson, a traditional benefactor of Netanyahu and Jewish settlers in settlements in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

Pollard, who was working as an intelligence analyst in the US Navy when he began spying for Israel in the 1980s, was released in 2015 and a five-year probation expired a month ago, including a ban on travel to Israel.

The Justice Department's decision not to renew the ban was seen as a final gift to Netanyahu from the Donald Trump Administration.

Pollard was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison two years later.

The Israeli Embassy in Washington prevented him from taking refuge there when FBI agents were after him to arrest him after being discovered.

Helpless in his car in front of the Embassy, ​​his then wife was also arrested as an accomplice.

Then 33 years old, Pollard quickly assumed his guilt.

To date, the content of the information that Pollard gave in 1984 to his contact, a senior officer in the Israeli Air Force, Aviem Sella, who recruited him when he was working as a civilian analyst for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, has not been officially disclosed.

Pollard collected the information weekly and delivered it in large armored briefcases to Israeli agents.

During the investigations he repeatedly maintained that the secrets he transferred to the intelligence services were related to the threat of Iraqi missiles against Israel, perhaps those that Saddam Hussein fired at the Jewish state during the 1991 Gulf War. The first pay consisted of in a diamond, a sapphire ring for his first wife, released later;

the sum of $ 10,000 and a monthly salary of $ 1,500.

Israel initially denied that its intelligence services spied on the United States, its main ally in the world, until it admitted it in 1988. The issue has been present in relations between the two countries for decades.

All American presidents rejected Israel's requests for a pardon.

Pollard was visited with some frequency in jail by Israeli government officials who were negotiating his pardon with the US authorities, including Netanyahu.

Seven of his years in Marion jail he was confined to solitary.

The person who was not there to receive Pollard and see him kiss the ground when he landed in Israel was his former boss, the deceased in 2019 Rafi Eitán, a former secret agent in the capture of Nazi Colonel Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires, former Minister of Retirees and former director of the Office of Scientific Relations, a sort of parallel Mosad that ended with the resignation of Eitan as a result of the fiasco that led to the arrest of Pollard.

Eitan was declared

persona non grata

in the United States by transcending his role in the act of espionage and was prohibited from entering the country until the end of his days.