Jonathan Pollard and his wife Esther sit inside a private plane before arriving in Tel Aviv on December 30, 2020.Jonathan Pollard, a former US intelligence analyst and convicted spy, arrived in Israel on Wednesday morning.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted Pollard at the airport and offered him and his wife Israeli ID cards.
Netanyahu, who has lobbied for Pollard's return for many years, then recited a Jewish prayer and handed over Israeli identity cards to the couple.In a video shared on Netanyahu's social media, Pollard and the prime minister could be seen doing a socially-distanced elbow bump. Netanyahu then recited theDecember 30, 2020"We are ecstatic to be home at last after 35 years," said Pollard, who was born in Texas but was granted Israeli citizenship in 1995.
In the 1990s, Israel attempted to broker a number of deals to ensure that Pollard would be released. Their attempts to set up exchanges for American spies imprisoned elsewhere in the world were rebuffed.