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"The people of
Israel welcome the release of Jonathan Pollard," Netanyahu said
in a statement. "After three long and difficult decades,
Jonathan has been reunited with his family."
Under the terms of his parole, Pollard, a former U.S. Navy
analyst, must remain in the United States for five years.
He was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in 1987
of passing reams of classified information to Israel. Now 61,
Pollard has said he wants to immigrate to Israel, where his
second wife lives and where he can expect to receive substantial
Israeli government back-pay.
He was granted Israeli citizenship while in prison.
"This is a dramatic moment ... This is a historic moment that
brings to an end a tremendous effort that spanned many years,"
Effie Lahav, head of the committee in Israel that lobbied for
Pollard's release, said on Army Radio.
Netanyahu has instructed Israelis to stay low-key about
Pollard's release because of concern that too warm a celebration
might damage efforts to persuade the U.S. government to let him
leave for Israel sooner.
Successive U.S. administrations had resisted Israeli calls to
show the unrepentant Pollard clemency, though Washington did, at
times, mull an early release as part of its efforts to revive
talks on Palestinian statehood in Israel-occupied territories.
Pollard's legal team has called on U.S. President Barack Obama
to allow him to go to Israel immediately after release from
federal prison in North Carolina, while noting that he has a job
and a place to live in the United States.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
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