Jonathan Pollard joins Orot HaShachar, urges Gaza annexation

Jonathan Pollard said on Tuesday that he is joining politics ahead of the upcoming election and wants Israel to annex the Gaza Strip. The former US Navy intelligence analyst, who was jailed for spying for Israel, said the October 7 massacre pushed him into the race.

Pollard said he is joining Orot HaShachar, a new party, and linked his political turn to what he called betrayal by Israel’s leaders. He also said he wants the forced transfer of all Gazans and “the annexation of Gaza and repopulation of Gaza by us [Israel].”

Pollard’s political break

Pollard was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for spying and providing Israel with top-secret classified information. He pleaded guilty, served 30 years in prison, was released on parole in 2015, stayed in the United States until 2020, and then immigrated to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave him a hero’s welcome.

That welcome did not hold. Pollard has since become a strong critic of Netanyahu, and on Tuesday he said, “I’m sorry that is a cold-blooded lie,” referring to Netanyahu’s claim that Israel has never been more successful in fighting its enemies. He also said his most important principle was military self-sufficiency and that “everyone in this country – Arabs, Jews, Right, and Left – should serve mandatory national service of one’s choice.”

Orot HaShachar and the Right

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.” He said the people currently in the government are yes-men, and he said he would have no issue belonging to a government with Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman.

Pollard spoke strongly against sitting in a government with former prime minister Naftali Bennett. Nissim Louk also joined Orot HaShachar; Louk is the father of Shani Louk, who was murdered during the October 7 massacre at the Supernova music festival and whose body was abducted by Hamas terrorists and later recovered by the IDF.

October 7 and the election

Pollard said the October 7 massacre was the deciding factor for him to enter politics. He said that before October 7 he saw his own abandonment and betrayal by the government as an exception, but after October 7 he realized the government and the military had betrayed and abandoned the entire country.

His entry into politics now places a former spy, once a prison figure and later a public supporter of Israeli nationalism, inside the election fight over Gaza, security, and the shape of the Right. Pollard has tied his campaign to a call for annexation and to the argument that Israel should rely on itself, not outside guarantees, as the election advances.