Netanyahu Asked Trump to Let Pollard Go Home

After agreeing to economic gestures to the Palestinian Authority, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Trump Administration to allow Jonathan Pollard to immigrate to Israel, Israel's Channel 2 News reported Tuesday night. According to the report, Netanyahu promised the White House that if they allowed Pollard to leave the United States and immigrate to Israel, the former spy would continue to comply with the restrictions imposed on him by a US court upon his release from prison two years ago, at the end of his 30 years in prison: house arrest, an electronic shackle and a ban on contact with the media.

The Israeli request comes as part of the American attempt to revive the peace process between Israel and the PA. On Sunday, an Israeli delegation headed by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (Kulanu) met in Ramallah with PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah in preparation for a series of significant economic gestures to the Palestinian Authority. Those benefits will include a joint industrial zone in Tarqumiyah, in Area C, where PA Arabs and Haredi Jews from Beitar Illit will work together; streamlining the transfer of tax revenues from Israel to the PA; and an Israeli support for the access road to the new Arab town of near Birzeit and Ramallah.

The Prime Minister's Office told Channel 2 that Netanyahu raises the issue of Pollard's release from the US in almost every meeting with US officials. An American source stated in response to the story that the Pollard affair should not be linked to the peace agreement.