Israel was trying to maintain the “cover” for itself in the beginning of this case. It’s like those spy shows on TV - where they say that they will disavow knowledge of you, if you are caught.
WELL ... Israel disavowed knowledge of it - and then later they said that Jonathan Pollard was working directly for the State of Israel.
AND this brings up another issue as to why some of the US officials still try to keep Jonathan Pollard in jail — not for his crime - but in order to punish Israel for denying it in the first place and fooling the USA. The jail sentence has nothing to do with Jonathan Pollard himself.
That’s why his time in jail is so disproportionate — it is a “state to state” conflict and a “punishment” that some officials think they have to IMPOSE ON ISRAEL.
Keep in mind that Israel didn't just change their statement after Pollard was arrested and sentenced. He was in prison for nearly a decade before he was granted citizenship, and the Israeli only admitted he was working for Israel in 1998 when Netanyahu was trying to make a deal with Bill Clinton to get him released.
Based on what I've read and heard since then, one of the things that may be more than just a coincidence was a strange side story to the Clinton-Lewinsky affair that culminated in Clinton's impeachment in 1998. The Starr Report contained a small reference to a comment that was made in March of 1997 during a phone conversation between Clinton and Lewinsky, in which Clinton told her that he suspected a foreign embassy was tapping his telephone conversations. There have been a number of allegations over the years since then about the Mossad tapping the White House phones for the sole purpose of blackmailing the president.