The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan on Wednesday rejected former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard’s appeal to remove some of the conditions of his parole agreement.
Pollard, who his on parole having served 30 years in prison for spying for Israel, is required to wear an electronic tracking device and obey a curfew. His computers are being monitored by the US government.
Pollard’s attorney Eliot Lauer and the Free Pollard campaign expressed their disappointment, accusing the court of playing politics.
There were great hopes in Pollard’s circle that under President Donald Trump his case would receive a more benign treatment, if not by the courts than by the new Administration. But the Trump people do not seem in any particular hurry to relieve the aging former spy of his needless suffering.
The new US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Israel Hayom last week: “The truth is that I have not yet spoken to Trump about the issue. Personally, I think Pollard has suffered enough. I think we need to allow him to come back to Israel. I think we need to allow him to visit Israel as long as he is healthy enough to do so. But again, I have not spoken with the President about it.”
Trump will embark on a key step toward that goal Monday when he arrives in Israel. Just by setting foot in this country on his first visit abroad as president, he will already gain an advantage over his predecessor, Barack Obama, who came here four years too late.
Gil Hoffman, who has been covering the Pollard case closely for the Jerusalem Post—while few other Israeli papers have shown a great deal of interest—suggested on the eve of the appeal hearing that President Trump could show that he is different from his predecessor, Barack Obama, when it comes to dealing with Israel, were he to announce during his visit that he would “intervene in the Jonathan Pollard case and allow the Israeli spy to move to Israel.”
Hoffman also cited an Israeli source close to the Pollard group that had told him, “If Trump sits down with key people and says what do I do [to gain support among Israelis], I have gotten the impression that Pollard’s name will be on the agenda.”
Didn’t happen. Pollard’s name did not come up at all during Trump’s visit.
