Jonathan Pollard freed after 30 years

Jonathan Pollard, whose spying for Israel led to a serious rift between the Israeli and US governments and between USA and Israeli Jews, was released from prison Friday after serving 30 years of a life sentence.

Pollard's release was not opposed by the Justice Department last summer, much to the disappointment of a bipartisan coalition of the country's national security elite, who have long argued that he had severely damaged USA interests. After three long and hard decades, Jonathan is finally reunited with his family. The Israeli government had long campaigned for his release and for the spy to be allowed to move to Israel.

Pollard, a former civilian intelligence analyst for the U.S. Navy, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in 1987 of passing classified information to Israel. Throughout the years, we have felt Jonathan's pain, and felt responsible and obliged to bring about his release.

His computers and those of his employer will be subjected to unfettered monitoring, something his lawyers said could prevent Pollard from starting a job in research at an unnamed NY City investment firm. He's widely perceived as having been harshly punished for providing information critical to national security. "I've been working with Mr. Pollard for 20 years, and even I don't know where he is going or what he will be doing", said Farley Weiss, an Orthodox rabbi who has been lobbying on Pollard's behalf for two decades. It has prepared piles of letters of encouragement from members of the public for him to read now that he is out of jail. He said he had been frustrated by the United States withholding key intelligence from its staunch ally.

He was arrested near Israeli embassy in Washington in 1985 after trying to obtain asylum in Israel.

Among supporters of Pollard, there has been a tendency to insist that the spying was not that big a deal - and it was certainly worth it - and, also, that his harsh sentence had more to do with anti-Semitism than with the severity of his deeds.

A spokesman for his Israeli supporters group had no immediate word on Pollard's whereabouts after his release.

The parole decision was applauded in Israel, which after initially claiming that he was part of a rogue operation, acknowledged him in the 1990s as an agent and granted him citizenship.

He made contact in June 1984 with an Israeli colonel, Aviem Sella, who was pursuing graduate studies at NY University, and offered to provide him with classified information.

"There is nothing good that came as a result of my actions", he said. During that period, these two countries have been involved in an episodic series of pawn-brokering and manoeuvring, political bargaining and blame-gaming - a constant volley that is revealing of a darker, more cynical tone to the otherwise BFF-style special relationship. "That does not work".