U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a private July meeting at the American Embassy in Jerusalem with Jonathan Pollard — the former Navy intelligence analyst who served 30 years in prison for spying on the U.S. on behalf of Israel — according to a New York Times report published Nov. 20.
Pollard confirmed the meeting in an interview with the Times after the outlet learned of it from three anonymous U.S. officials. He reportedly said he initiated the conversation to thank Huckabee for publicly supporting his release.
Pollard described the meeting as “friendly” and said they discussed “a lot of things,” though he declined to provide details. He noted the meeting marked the first time a U.S. official had hosted him in an American government since his 2015 parole.
The meeting was not listed on Huckabee’s public schedule. Senior White House aides and the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief in Israel were alarmed when they learned of the meeting, the Times reported.
Huckabee confirmed to Axios that the meeting took place but said that nothing was requested or granted during it. He added that he tries to accommodate the many people who request meetings with him.
According to the Times, the U.S. Embassy said that Huckabee has “meetings with numerous people, and as a matter of general policy, we do not comment as to the content of conversations.” The embassy added that the outlet’s report was “filled with inaccuracies.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Nov. 20 that the administration was not aware of the meeting but added that “the President stands by our ambassador, Mike Huckabee, and all that he’s doing for the United States and Israel.”
The episode sparked criticism from former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials who argued that the meeting was unprecedented and inappropriate given Pollard’s history.
“Why would the American representative in the State of Israel want to meet with Jonathan Pollard?” Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under former President George W. Bush, told the Times. “It just defies any kind of logic.”
In a separate interview with The Jerusalem Post, Pollard condemned those who “weaponized” the meeting to discredit the ambassador. He specifically called out Kurtzer, claiming he is “an enemy of the State of Israel.”
“He has made some very intemperate remarks concerning me that I find, frankly, kind of shocking,” Pollard said. “I understood, the minute I read the [Times] article, where this was coming from.”
Pollard was arrested in 1985 and sentenced to life in prison after delivering a massive trove of classified documents to Israeli handlers between 1984 and 1985. According to files prepared by then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, the material was enough to fill a space roughly six feet long, six feet wide, and 10 feet high.
He was granted parole in 2015 after serving 30 years and released in 2020. The Times reported that he relocated to Israel — where he had been granted citizenship while still imprisoned — and was greeted upon arrival by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In his interview with the Times, Pollard said he does not regret spying for Israel and argued the U.S. was withholding critical intelligence from Israel. In an August interview with the Post, Pollard had pledged his support to Israel and urged it to annex Gaza and “repopulat[e]” the territory with Israeli settlers.
“Just as certain members of the Trump administration profess an ‘America first’ doctrine, I wholeheartedly embrace an ‘Israel first’ doctrine,” he told the Post. “And I went to jail for that for 30 years.”
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