Former spy Jonathan Pollard, who spent decades in US prison before being released and later allowed to move to Israel, announced on Tuesday his intention to join politics ahead of the upcoming Knesset election, saying that Israel’s current leaders had failed the country.
According to Channel 13 news, Pollard, 71, is forming a new party together with Nissim Louk, the father of Shani Louk, who was murdered during the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, with her body abducted from the Nova rave into Gaza and recovered by the IDF seven months later.
Making the announcement during an interview Monday night with the network, Pollard was asked why he had changed his mind after avoiding joining the political fray for years.
“October 7,” he answered. “Up until that point, I thought that my abandonment and the betrayal by the government was the exception to the rule. But after October 7, I realized that I was not the exception, that the government and the military had betrayed and abandoned the entire country.”
Asked what his political platform was, Pollard, speaking in English, said that” “Probably the most important principle that I have is military self sufficiency, and I think we all understand why that’s important.”
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“I believe very strongly that everyone in this country — Arabs, Jews, it doesn’t matter, right and left — has to serve mandatory national service of one’s choice,” he added, referring to the ongoing debate over draft deferments for ultra-Orthodox Jews. Arab Israelis are also largely exempt from the draft.
בלעדי: הראיון המלא עם המרגל ג׳ונתן פולארד שמצטרף לפוליטיקה. בעד טרנספר בעזה, בעד גיוס ערבים ומה הוא חושב על נתניהו ובנט? pic.twitter.com/9pI5v3aYDr
— בר שם-אור Bar Shem-Ur (@Bar_ShemUr) May 4, 2026
Asked about his past comments advocating for the expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Pollard said: “I personally favor forcible transfer of all current residents from Gaza out, and the annexation of Gaza and the repopulation of Gaza by us.”
He therefore said he believes that, as things currently stand, Israel isn’t winning the war it has been fighting since late 2023.
He criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “pounds his chest and says we’ve never been more successful, ever, in fighting our enemies, and I’m sorry but that is a cold-blooded lie.” He said that even supporters of the premier admit that not one enemy has been “decisively defeated” during the war.
Asked if this meant he won’t support Netanyahu for prime minister, Pollard said that if this year’s election results point to a continued Netanyahu premiership, “I believe in the democratic process and we’ll have to support him.”
Jonathan Pollard, pictured December 17, 1997, at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina. (AP Photo/Ayala Bar)
But, he added, his main goal is to “unify the right,” adding that the current government is made up of “yes-men” who don’t sufficiently challenge Netanyahu.
Pollard continued and said he has no problem sitting in a coalition with Yisrael Beytenu party chief Avigdor Liberman, a veteran hawk and former Netanyahu ally who fell out with the premier in 2019 — over Netanyahu’s refusal to initiate a war in Gaza aimed at toppling Hamas — and has been in the opposition ever since.
However, Pollard said he does have a problem sitting with former prime minister Naftali Bennett, the current Together party head, “because he’s a liar.”
“It’s chutzpadik (shameless) on his part to point a finger at Netanyahu for October 7, without acknowledging his own responsibility for bringing this disaster about,” he charged at the end of the interview. “He was the one who basically doubled the number of Gazan workers coming into the communities along the border.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) greets convicted US spy Jonathan Pollard at Ben Gurion Airport, December 30, 2020. (Courtesy)
Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst, was arrested in 1985, pled guilty to passing thousands of crucial US documents to Israel, and sentenced to life in prison.
The incident caused a major crisis in relations between Jerusalem and Washington.
After his release in 2015, he was kept in the United States by parole rules until 2020, when the US Justice Department lifted the restrictions and he was able to emigrate to Israel, which had granted him citizenship in 1995.
Pollard was welcomed at the time as a hero by Netanyahu.
Pollard last year also compared his treatment by US interrogators to that experienced by Hamas hostages held in Gaza, lobbing the explosive allegation that he was raped while in custody.
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