Jonathan Pollard

WASHINGTON — The arrest of Jonathan Pollard for spying for Israel touched off one of the most sensational spy cases in recent American history, stoking fierce international passions and decades of legal and diplomatic wrangling.

Thirty years later, Pollard, 60, has been granted parole from his life sentence by the U.S. Parole Commission, which set his release for Nov. 21.

In some ways the dispute continues. His lawyers say they will ask President Barack Obama for clemency and to allow Pollard to travel from the United States to Israel. The White House dismisses that prospect, saying Pollard had committed “very serious crimes” and would serve his sentence under the law.

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

The Pollard case has been a divisive political flashpoint — and an occasional diplomatic bargaining chip — from the day in 1985 he was arrested while trying to gain asylum at the Israeli Embassy in Washington.

Supporters have seen the former Navy intelligence analyst as a martyr who was punished excessively given he spied for a longtime U.S. ally. But critics, including many in the U.S. government, have condemned the American as a traitor who exchanged secrets for money.

“He took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and he failed it,” said M.E. “Spike” Bowman, a former FBI deputy general counsel. “The fact that he gave it to an ally, that makes absolutely no difference to me. I’m glad that it was an ally rather than the Russians, but what he did makes absolutely no difference.”