Jonathan Pollard.

NEW YORK— Israeli Minister of Environmental Protection Gilad Erdan closed his address at the Jerusalem Post conference on Sunday by calling on President Barack Obama to grant clemency to Jonathan Pollard, who is serving his 27th year in U.S. prison after being convicted of spying for Israel.

Following Erdan’s remarks on Pollard, Jerusalem Post Editor in Chief Steve Linde said, “We certainly echo and support his appeal.”

Pollard’s advocates in the Jewish community, the U.S. government and elsewhere say his life sentence is disproportionate to his crime. At the conference, Isi Leibler—a Jerusalem Post columnist and former head of the Australian Jewish community—said at the conference, “It is one of the greatest scandals of Diaspora Jewry that Pollard is still in jail.”

“It is an absolutely unspeakable situation… we’ve got to shout more and more and more, [that] this man should be released, yesterday,” Leibler said.