Jonathan Pollard Rejected Plan To Flee
Image by getty images
An escape plan was put in place for convicted spy-for-Israel Jonathan Pollard but he circumvented it and sought asylum at Israel’s embassy in Washington, his former handler said.
“I got the call that he is waiting at the entrance of the embassy … and I immediately said ‘throw him out.’ I don’t regret it,” former Mossad handler Rafi Eitan said. “The minute the man decided to come to the embassy …. he decided for himself that he is going to prison.”
Eitan, 88, for the first time gave details of his work with Pollard, a former U.S. Navy analyst who was sentenced to life in prison in the United States in 1987, during an interview on the Israel Channel 2 news magazine “Uvda,” which means Fact.
He said he believed that if Israel had given Pollard asylum it would have even more severely damaged its relations with the United States.
Eitan said during the interview that he was not a rogue agent, as he has frequently been depicted, but that both prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres were aware of his work with Pollard. He said he took responsibility for the Pollard debacle in order to allow the Israel-U.S. relationship to move forward.
It was recently reported that Pollard was turned down in August for his first parole request. Though he has been eligible to apply for parole for the last 19 years he reportedly has refrained from doing so because he is seeking a presidential commutation, which would release him unconditionally.
The parole commission said it would review Pollard’s case again next year.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
