If the United States wants to have its consulate in Jerusalem serve the Palestinian Authority, as it did until three years ago, Israel should expel all US diplomats working there, Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard said at Merkaz Harav Yeshiva’s Jerusalem Day celebration Monday night.
“No US diplomat should be allowed to staff it,” he said. “They should be declared persona non grata and asked to leave the country.”
Pollard served 30 years in prison for spying for Israel in the US. He was the guest of honor and greeted as a hero at the annual event, where the prime minister or president usually speaks. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled on the event at the last minute.
Stressing that nothing he would say in the speech was politically motivated, Pollard offered his advice to Israel in the half-hour address. He warned against not only obvious enemies with guns, but also enemies in the US State Department and in the UN.
Pollard said Israel should leave the UN, which he called “the Knesset of hate.”
“Our presence there is an insult to our ancestors who fought and died for this country,” he said.
Israel should take away Jordan’s role over the Aqsa Mosque, and the Religious Services Ministry should take over responsibility for prayers there, Pollard said.
“The [Jerusalem] Wakf [Islamic religious trust] are ideological descendants of the Nazis,” he said.
Pollard suggested expelling Palestinian terrorists to Ireland, where he said the Palestinians are liked. He warned against what he called the fiction of the two-state solution.
“They would get the state, and we would be under the ground,” he said. “Hashem [God] gave us this land, not the League of Nations, not a British lord and not the United States.”
Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion presented Pollard, who now lives in the city, with a certificate of appreciation in honor of his sacrifices on behalf of the Jewish people and Jerusalem. It is fitting to celebrate the liberation of Jerusalem and of Pollard on the same day, he said.