'Move Gaza's Arabs to Ireland': Former U.S. Jewish Spy Pollard Endorses Israel's Far-right Ben-Gvir - Israel News - Haaretz.com
Jonathan Pollard, who spent 30 years in an American prison for spying for Israel, spoke about far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir saying, "He says some pretty wild things sometimes, but he's a man of high emotion. I trust him. I believe his heart is in the right place."
Pollard's praising of Ben-Gvir was part of a recent interview for the Jerusalem Post's 'At the Table,' a weekly column where J-Post Deputy CEO Maayan Hoffman and editor Erica Schachne engage in "intimate conversations with leading Jerusalem personalities."
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Pollard, who has never been shy about sharing his right-wing views, also believes Israel will need to annex Gaza if it wants residents to return to the South. "I say we move the resident Arab population out [of Gaza]," Pollard maintained. "I don't care where they go. My preference is for Ireland. I think the Irish deserve it. Irish MP Richard Boyd Barrett has even donned a keffiyeh."
Pollard, who has a close relationship with Ben-Gvir, stepped in last year to help get him a gun license after his application was rejected on the grounds that he did not meet the relevant criteria. He is also considering running in the next election is Ben-Gvir's Otzmah Yehudit party.
Last year, Ben-Gvir also extended an invitation to Pollard to run with him but ultimately, in the shadow of the loss of his wife who had died only months before the election, Pollard said "his head just wasn't in the right place." Still, he believes Ben-Gvir has an undeserved bad reputation, according to the interview, which took place at King's Court, a restaurant at the upscale Waldorf Hotel in Jerusalem.
Ben-Gvir is not the only political leader to have offered the former naval intelligence officer a slot on his ticket. In 2021, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also asked Pollard to join him, an invitation Pollard turned down even before Netanyahu ultimately lost the election to Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennet's rotation government.
Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, speaks at the Knesset, earlier this week.Credit: Olivier Fitoussi
"A friend of mine had called me and said, 'Be aware, do not get involved because Bibi is not going to win,' Pollard told his dining companions.
He then recalled a funny anecdote involving the prime minister meeting him on the tarmac in 2020, after Pollard was released from jail and house arrested and deported to Israel. Apparently, one of the pilots mistook Netanyahu for an airport employee and tried to hand him Pollard's luggage. "Bibi thought this was the most hysterical thing you ever heard," Pollard said.
Joining Pollard for lunch was his new, and third, wife Rivkah, and talk soon turned to how the two, who have been married for two years, met. While strolling around a Jerusalem mall with his second wife, Esther, the couple was approached by Rivkah and the three struck up a conversation. Pollard relates how Esther, who was in the late stages of breast cancer at the time, actually encouraged Pollard to pursue the single mother of seven.
"By pushing our shidduch (match), Esther gave me the freedom to love and marry again. She got me out of prison with God's help. She brought me home, and the last thing she did was give me my wife."
When the conversation turned to Hamas' attack on October 7, Pollard said he was "extraordinarily depressed" over what happened but also somewhat vindicated as he claims he has known for a long time that the military would be incapable of handling such an attack. According to Pollard, the Israel Defense Forces should be renamed the Israeli Army and change its mentality from defensive to offensive.