US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a meeting at the US Embassy in July with Jonathan Pollard, a former American intelligence analyst who was convicted of spying on the US on behalf of Israel, The New York Times first reported on Thursday.
The Times said it first learned of the meeting from three US officials and that when asked about it, Pollard confirmed that it took place. Pollard said it was the first time a US official hosted him at a US government office building since he was released from prison after serving 30 years for spying.
Pollard was initially given a life sentence for his espionage, but he was released on parole in 2015. In 2020, Pollard’s parole ended, and he was able to move to Israel, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave him a hero’s welcome on the tarmac.
The Times report said that the CIA’s station chief in Israel and senior officials at the White House were “alarmed” when they heard that Huckabee hosted Pollard at the US Embassy. Pollard described the meeting as “friendly” and declined to say what they discussed, but he later told Israeli media that he took the meeting to thank Huckabee for aiding in the effort to secure his release from prison.
Pollard also harshly criticized other Trump administration officials, saying that he “despises” Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. “For people like that to carry on with terrorists who murdered our people and who have organized efforts to discredit Israel, I find abhorrent,” he said.
“Steve Witkoff can meet with the people who ordered our people to be butchered on October 7, and nobody seems to think that’s a problem because, ‘Well, he’s working on peace.’ No, he’s working on his bank account,” Pollard added.
Pollard recently announced he planned on running for the Israeli Knesset and suggested in an interview that Israel should threaten to use nuclear weapons as a way to continue receiving unconditional military aid from the US. “If they think we’re bluffing, I think we should go forward with it,” he said.
In response to the report about Pollard’s meeting with Huckabee, the US Embassy in Jerusalem said that the US ambassador has “meetings with numerous people, and as a matter of general policy, we do not comment as to the content of conversations.” It also claimed that the Times’s reporting was “filled with inaccuracies” but did not elaborate.
Huckabee, a Christian Zionist who believes God gave historic Palestine to the modern state of Israel, is known for his staunch support of Israel and has repeatedly described the US-Israel relationship as a marriage.
“It may sound a little bit this afternoon as if I’m almost speaking on behalf of Israel rather than the US,” Huckabee told a group of hundreds of US state lawmakers at the 50 States, One Israel conference in Israel back in September.
“If you came to my house tonight for dinner and you came in and you said, ‘Oh, Mike, we like you. We really think the world of you. We just enjoy being with you. So excited to be here with you and have dinner with you. But your wife, we can’t stand her. We don’t like her a bit. I hope she’s not going to be at the table.’ I would say, ‘Well, she will be. You won’t be. Get out.’ Because if you were to insult my partner, you have insulted me,” Huckabee said.
The US ambassador added that the US has “a lot of friends” across the world but only has “one partner,” which he says is Israel. “The one partner we have, which is Israel, is a relationship like no other,” he said.
