US Ambassador Richard Jones said on Monday it is unlikely that convicted Pentagon spy Jonathan Pollard will ever be released and that the fact that the US did not execute him should be seen as an act of clemency. Responding to audience questions during an academic conference at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Jones said Pollard's crimes appear especially heinous to many Americans because he was caught spying for a friendly power. Pollard, a US Navy civilian intelligence analyst, sold military secrets to Israel while working at the Pentagon. He was arrested in 1985 and pleaded guilty at his trial. He is serving a life sentence in a US federal prison.
"It came out in the trial very clearly, Jonathan Pollard took money for what he did, he sold out his country," Jones said. "The fact that he wasn't executed is the [only] mercy that Jonathan Pollard will receive. This is a very emotional issue in the United States. I know he was helping a friend, but that's what makes it even more emotional for Americans, if a friend would cooperate in aiding and abetting someone who is committing treason against his own country."
Pollard's wife, Esther, slammed the ambassador's remarks as "malicious incitement" and "gross slander" and urged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to send Jones home for his "lies and slander." Esther Pollard also said that Jones's claim that her husband took money and sold out his country was baseless.
"Most important of all, Israel formally admitted in 1998 that Jonathan Pollard was a bona fide Israeli agent. The formal recognition of Jonathan as an Israeli agent puts the lie to any claims that Jonathan spied out of mercenary motives," she said.
The Prime Minister's Office had no response to Jones's comments. The government has traditionally shied away from publicly trading brickbats with the US over the issue. Despite calls by some politicians and pro-Pollard activists here for Jones to be recalled for his statements, his comments were likely to be received well in Washington, where the State Department, Justice Department and intelligence community like US government officials to talk very tough on Pollard, officials in Jerusalem said.
US government officials, who almost never bring up the issue on their own, are consistently very tough when discussing Pollard in order - it is widely believed - that no one get the impression there is any "wiggle room" on the issue of his release. 
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