Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst who was jailed for spying for Israel, announced on Tuesday that he is joining politics ahead of the upcoming elections, taking a far-right stance and calling for Israeli annexation of the Gaza Strip.
He also sharply criticized the government and former prime minister Naftali Bennett.
Pollard will join a new party named Orot HaShachar, of which Nissim Louk, father of Shani Louk, is a member. Shani was murdered during the October 7 Hamas attack at the Supernova festival, and her body was abducted by Hamas terrorists and later recovered by the IDF.
Speaking in a Tuesday Channel 13 interview, Pollard said that he is personally in favor of the forcible transfer of all current residents from Gaza.
He also said that he was in favor of “the annexation of Gaza and repopulation of Gaza by us [Israel].”
“My primary objective right now is to unify the Right”
Pollard had spent 30 years in prison after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying and providing Israel with top-secret classified information, which he pleaded guilty to.
He was released on parole in 2015 and stayed in the US until 2020. Pollard then immigrated to Israel and was received with a hero’s welcome from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon his arrival at the airport.
He has since become a strong critic of Netanyahu and spoke about the need to replace the current government in the upcoming election, scheduled for no later than October.
When asked in the Channel 13 interview why he chose to join politics after he refused to in the past, Pollard explained that the October 7 Hamas attacks were the deciding factor for him.
He said that up until October 7, he thought that “his [personal] abandonment and betrayal [from] 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.”
When asked about his political stance, he said that his most important principle is military self-sufficiency.
“And I think we all understand why that’s important,” he added.
“I believe very strongly that everyone in this country, Arabs, Jews, Right and Left, should serve mandatory national service of one’s choice.”
Pollard further expressed his belief that Israel was not winning wars.
He said that Netanyahu “pounds his chest and says, we’ve never been more successful ever in fighting our enemies. I’m sorry that is a cold-blooded lie.”
“So I often ask people who support Bibi, exactly what enemies have we decisively defended, and they have to admit, not one,” Pollard continued.
When asked if he would support Netanyahu as prime minister, Pollard responded that “if, as a result of the democratic process, Bibi is returned as prime minister, then I believe in the democratic process and we’ll have to support him.”
“But my primary objective right now is to unify the Right,” adding that those in the government are “yes-men.”
When asked who he would sit in a government with, Pollard said he would have no issue sitting with the leader of the right-wing Yisrael Beytenu party, MK Avigdor Liberman, who is part of the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu in the elections.
However, Pollard spoke strongly against sitting in a government with former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who is now a leading rival candidate to Netanyahu.
Pollard said that Bennett “is a liar” and argued that “it’s chutzpadik [disrespectful] on his part to point a finger at Netanyahu for October 7, without acknowledging his own responsibility for bringing that disaster about.”
He claimed that Bennett was the one who “basically doubled” the number of Gaza workers coming into the communities along the border before the attacks.
Pollard has laid out a ten-point plan for his party “to restore Israeli deterrence and sovereignty,” which is said to be grounded in an “Israel first” doctrine to ensure no repeat of October 7.
The plan includes military self-sufficiency and local production by moving toward independent production of the IDF’s primary military equipment to eliminate external dependence.
It also calls for sovereignty and annexation, especially over the Gaza Strip, by “understanding that loss of land is the only deterrence the enemy understands.”
The party calls for mandatory national service for all citizens, and says that failure to serve should result in the loss of voting rights and government assistance.
Source:
www.jpost.com
