JONATHAN POLLARD, a former U.S. Navy intelligence analyst convicted of spying for Israel, will be released on parole Nov. 21 after 30 years in prison, a federal parole board ruled Tuesday.

    Pollard’s planned release, which was quickly welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would remove a longstanding irritant in U.S.-Israel relations at a time of increased friction between the two close allies over President Barack Obama’s landmark nuclear deal with Iran.

    The decision to free Pollard caps an extraordinary espionage case that spurred decades of legal and diplomatic wrangling. Critics have condemned the American as a traitor who betrayed his country for money and disclosed damaging secrets, while supporters have argued that he was punished excessively given that he spied for a U.S. ally.

    Pollard is due to be released Nov. 21, three decades after he was arrested while trying to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Though American Jews have wrestled with how much leniency he should get, Israelis have long campaigned for his freedom. The government there has recognized him as an Israeli agent and granted him citizenship, even as recent American presidents have resisted efforts to free him early.

    “We are looking forward to his release,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday.

    White House officials strongly denied that the release was in any way tied to the nuclear deal recently reached with Iran, or that it was intended as a concession to Israel. Secretary of State John Kerry, who testified before Congress on the nuclear deal Tuesday, told reporters Pollard’s parole was “not at all” connected. And Israeli officials have said that while they would welcome the release, it would not ease their opposition to the Iran agreement.(SD-Agencies)