Ex-spy Jonathan Pollard tells i24NEWS: US-Israel alliance is 'finished', US President Trump is ‘dangerous’

Jonathan Pollard, the former US Navy intelligence analyst who served 30 years in an American prison for spying for Israel, called President Donald Trump "very dangerous" and declared the US-Israel alliance "finished" in an exclusive interview with i24NEWS Saturday, delivering a sweeping broadside against both Israeli and American leadership.

Speaking via Zoom with i24NEWS Senior Correspondent Owen Alterman, Pollard said he did not know what Trump's "North Star" or values were and accused Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, whom he called "Tweedledum and Tweedledee," of being "only interested in one thing, and that's their bank account." When Alterman noted Trump was widely popular in Israel, Pollard replied, "That just shows you how stupid a lot of people in this country really are." He stopped short of calling Trump antisemitic, saying instead: "I think he's pro-money. That's all." He accused the Trump administration of deliberately preventing Israel from achieving decisive victories against Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iran. "They don't want us to win anything decisively," he said.

On the broader relationship between the two countries, Pollard was unequivocal. "This alliance is finished," he said, predicting that the next American election would offer Israel "a very bad choice between bad and worse" and that Israel would have "no friends" on either side of the political aisle.

Pollard was equally cutting on Israeli politics, saying every party currently in the Knesset has "blood on its hands" from October 7. He dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Israel had achieved a "war of rebirth," saying, "We haven't defeated our enemies. There isn't one enemy, one of the fronts, of the multi-fronts, that has been decisively defeated." When asked whether he owed Netanyahu gratitude for his release from prison, Pollard credited his late wife Esther, Ron Dermer, and Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, saying of Netanyahu, "He let my wife almost starve to death on the streets of Jerusalem before he deigned to see her."

Pollard reserved some of his sharpest words for Israel's ultra-Orthodox political parties, describing Shas as "a criminal enterprise" and United Torah Judaism as "a shakedown operation," directing his criticism at the leadership rather than the broader community. "They don't seem to understand that when you live in this country, as a citizen, when you take money from the government, you owe the government something," he said. He called IDF soldiers serving hundreds of days in combat "sacred heroes" and said it was "disgusting" and "insulting" for Haredi leadership to compare military service to serving in a foreign army.

Pollard also confirmed in the interview that he is entering Israeli politics, running with a small party that has yet to clear the electoral threshold. He said he could not in good conscience join any existing Knesset party, as all bore responsibility for October 7. "If they want to make sure that there is never again an October 7, you better vote for someone like me rather than Bibi Netanyahu or Naftali Bennett or Gadi Eisenkot," he said.