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Former CIA Director Woolsey: Time to free Jonathan Pollard

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- James Woolsey, who headed the CIA at the start of U.S. President Bill Clinton's administration, says it is time to release Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

In an interview with Arutz Sheva, an Israeli broadcaster with ties to religious Zionism, Woolsey suggested that Pollard's lengthy prison term is discriminatory.

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"The U.S. has had friends and allies spy against it throughout its history," he said. "We have imprisoned South Korean-Americans, Greek-Americans, Filipino-Americans for spying on the U.S. ... they stayed in prison for a few years ... two or three years, in one case close to 10 years but that's all, not close to a quarter of a century."

Pollard's long prison term -- he received a life sentence -- is ironic given the revelations of National Security Administration efforts to spy on allied leaders, including Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Woolsey said.

Arutz Sheva interviewed Woolsey during a Washington conference Monday on the U.S. relationship with Iran. Woolsey was skeptical about President Obama's foreign policy, including the current efforts to broker an agreement for a Palestinian state.

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"In order to have a peaceful two-state solution, the Palestinians need to behave more like the Israelis," he said, adding that "there is no remote parallel to the way Jews in the West Bank would be treated and the way Israeli-Arabs are treated in Israel."

Woolsey, who served in both Republican and Democratic administrations, headed the CIA from February 1993 to January 1995. He was forced to resign after the arrest of Aldrich Ames, a CIA officer who sold U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and Russia.

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