Jonathan Pollard, who spent 30 years in US prison for spying for Israel, arrived in Israel early Wednesday with his wife, triumphantly kissing the ground as he disembarked from the aircraft in the culmination of a decades-long affair that had long strained relations between the two close allies.
A former Navy intelligence analyst who spent 30 years behind bars for selling U.S. military secrets to Israel, arrived in Israel Wednesday where he and his wife were formally granted citizenship by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Esther Pollard, wife of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, walks past a poster of her husband prior to speaking to press outside her home in Jerusalem, July 29, 2015. (Flash90)
The Israeli right rejoiced as Jonathan Pollard, a convicted American spy who passed along secret documents to Israel in the 1980s, received a hero’s welcome at Ben-Gurion Airport early Wednesday morning.
Standing on the tarmac alongside his wife Esther, the former U.S. naval analyst, who spent three decades in American prison, was welcomed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Welcome home,” Netanyahu told the couple, “now you can start life anew, with freedom and happiness. Now you are at home.”
Convicted US spy Pollard arrives in Israel, welcomed by Netanyahu December 31, 2020 In this July 22, 2016, file photo, convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, left, with his lawyer, Eliot Lauer, leaves federal court in New York following a hearing. (Larry Neumeister/AP) JERUSALEM Jonathan Pollard, who spent 30 years in U.S. prison for spying for Israel, arrived in Israel early Wednesday with his wife, triumphantly kissing the ground as he disembarked from the aircraft in the culmination of a decades-long affair that had long strained relations between the two close allies. “We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years,” Pollard said as he was greeted at Israel’s international airport by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli leader jubilantly presented Pollard and his wife Esther with Israeli ID cards, granting them citizenship.