Pollard: Israel Asked Spy to Commit Suicide

Jonathan Pollard, a convicted spy, has claimed he was once urged by an individual “sent by the Israeli government” to take his own life in order to resolve the crisis his case caused between Israel and the United States.

Pollard’s Account

The claim was made in a recent interview with Army Radio, where Pollard recounted a conversation with an apparent Israeli agent that occurred sometime between his release from a US prison in 2015 and his immigration to Israel in 2020.

According to Pollard, the individual asked him, “You are a patriot right? You love your country?” before suggesting, “Why don’t you just do the right thing and we’ll bring you home, give you a nice burial on Mount Herzl, so we can close the door on this case.” Mount Herzl is Jerusalem’s main military cemetery.

Pollard stated he did not initially understand the meaning behind the suggestion.

Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst, was arrested in 1985 and later pleaded guilty to passing classified US documents to Israel. He was sentenced to life in prison.

The Pollard case triggered a significant diplomatic crisis between Israel and the United States.

After being released from prison in 2015, Pollard remained under parole restrictions in the US until 2020, when the US Justice Department lifted those restrictions, allowing him to immigrate to Israel, where he had been granted citizenship in 1995.

Upon his arrival in Israel, Pollard was welcomed as a hero by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and became a vocal supporter of the leader, though he has since expressed some criticism.

In the Army Radio interview, Pollard also voiced opposition to any foreign military presence in Israel, describing the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in Kiryat Gat as a “threat” to the country’s sovereignty. The CMCC, established under US leadership, aims to coordinate humanitarian, logistical, and security assistance in Gaza and oversee the postwar stabilization process. It currently hosts troops from the US, Jordan, the UK, Germany, Denmark, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates.

“I don’t want to see any of them, for whatever reason,” Pollard said regarding foreign military personnel in Israel.

Pollard recently made headlines after The New York Times reported on a private meeting he held earlier this year with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee at the US Embassy, a meeting that drew attention from the American intelligence community.