Jonathan Pollard, a former US Navy intelligence analyst who was jailed for spying for Israel, on Tuesday said he is joining politics ahead of the upcoming election.
Israel should annex the Gaza Strip, Pollard said.
He criticized the government and former prime minister Naftali Bennett.
Pollard said he is joining Orot HaShachar, a new party.
Nissim Louk, whose daughter Shani was murdered during the October 7 massacre at the Supernova music festival, also joined the party. Her body was abducted by Hamas terrorists and later recovered by the IDF.
In an interview with Channel 13 on Tuesday, Pollard said he was in favor of the forced transfer of all Gazans and “the annexation of Gaza and repopulation of Gaza by us [Israel].”
“My primary objective right now is to unify the Right”
Pollard was in prison for 30 years after he was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying and providing Israel with top-secret classified information. He pleaded guilty to the charges.
Pollard was released on parole in 2015 and stayed in the US until 2020. He then immigrated to Israel and received a hero’s welcome from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon his arrival.
Pollard has since become a strong critic of Netanyahu and has said the current government must be replaced in the upcoming election.
Asked in the Channel 13 interview why he chose to join politics after he had refused to in the past, Pollard said the October 7 massacre was the deciding factor for him.
Up until October 7, he said, he believed “his [personal] abandonment and 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 about his political stance, he said his most important principle was military self-sufficiency.
“And I think we all understand why that’s important,” he said. “I believe very strongly that everyone in this country – Arabs, Jews, Right, and Left – should serve mandatory national service of one’s choice.”
Pollard said Israel was not winning its wars. 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,” he said. “So, I often ask people who support Bibi, exactly what enemies have we decisively defended, and they have to admit, not one.”
Asked whether he would support Netanyahu as prime minister, Pollard said: “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.”
Those who are currently in the government are “yes-men,” he said.
Pollard said he would have no issue belonging to a government with Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, who is part of the opposition bloc seeking to replace Netanyahu.
Pollard spoke strongly against sitting in a government with former prime minister Naftali Bennett.
Bennett “is a liar,” he said, adding 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.”
Pollard said Bennett “basically doubled” the number of Gaza workers coming into the communities along the border before the attacks.
He presented a 10-point plan for his party “to restore Israeli deterrence and sovereignty,” which would be grounded in an “Israel first” doctrine to ensure no repeat of the October 7 massacre.
The plan includes military self-sufficiency, including independent production of the IDF’s primary military equipment to eliminate external dependence, he said. 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.”
Pollard said his party wants mandatory national service for all citizens, and failure to serve should result in the loss of voting rights and government assistance.
