Jonathan Pollard announced on Sunday that he was joining MK Sharren Haskel\u2019s Israel First party ahead of the upcoming Knesset election, in a joint statement filmed near the Western Wall in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
Pollard publicly declared his support for Haskel and the political direction of Israel First, a new right-wing party that the former deputy foreign minister launched in July.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe in Sharren. And I believe in Israel,\u201d Pollard said during the joint statement.<\/p>\n
Haskel welcomed Pollard\u2019s support, describing his decision to join the party as a significant boost for Israel First.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Israel First party is receiving significant reinforcement today from Israeli hero Jonathan Pollard, who paid a very heavy personal price for his commitment to Israel and the Jewish people,\u201d Haskel said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo stand here today, near the Western Wall, and hear from him that he places his trust in me and in the path of \u2018Israel First\u2019 is a great privilege and a great responsibility. I accept that trust with humility and determination.”<\/p>\n
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. He was released on parole in 2015 and stayed in the US until 2020. He then immigrated to Israel and received a hero\u2019s welcome from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon his arrival.<\/p>\n
However, Pollard has since become a strong critic of Netanyahu and has said the current government must be replaced in the upcoming election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jonathan Pollard announced on Sunday that he was joining MK Sharren Haskel\u2019s Israel First party ahead of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[37,16706,30318,67429,29768],"class_list":["post-261045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-israel","tag-israel-elections","tag-israel-elections-2026","tag-jonathan-pollard","tag-sharren-haskel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117144119063655444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}