Dubai Forums Dubai Discussions Dubai Politics Talk

Why Israel Put Mordechai Vanunu Back In Jail


On 24 April 2004, which was three days after Mordechai Vanunu was released from 18 years in a windowless tomb sized cell jail for providing the photographic proof and telling the truth about Israel's clandestine seven story underground WMD Program in the Negev, Uri Avnery wrote:


"Everybody understands that he has no more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant steps?


"But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United States in the development of Israel's nuclear armaments.


"This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State Department for 'arms control', Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the mighty super-power.



"The Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services have to dance to their tune. The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing, from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full partners in Israel's nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world's sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation." [1]



A brief history since then:



On April 30, 2007, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, convicted Vanunu on 14 [out of 21] counts of violating a court order prohibiting him from speaking to foreign journalists in 2004. Vanunu was also convicted for traveling the four miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem when he hoped to attend Christmas Eve mass at the Church of the Nativity, his first Christmas after being released from 18 years in jail [most of it in solitary] on April 21, 2004.



On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking to foreign media in 2004.



On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s six-month jail sentence for speaking with foreign media in 2004, to three months, "In light of his ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy."



After appealing that sentence, the Israeli Supreme Court returned Vanunu to jail on May 23, 2010, after they refused his counter-offer to do three-months of community service in Arab east Jerusalem, the only community he has known since 21 April 2004. The Court insisted Vanunu must serve in west Jerusalem, which is 99% Jewish-populated, but Vanunu feared attack there by angry Israelis, most of whom consider him a traitor.



The restrictions that have subjected Vanunu to 24/7 surveillance [his movements, phone calls and emails] for the last six years come from the Emergency Defense Regulations, which were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.



Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as "unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany."


Israel also kidnapped Vanunu in 1986, but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: "No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention", including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state.


Vanunu was charged with and convicted of treason and espionage.


Section 99 of the Israeli Penal Code, treason is defined as "an act calculated to assist (an enemy) in time of war...delivering information with the intention that it fall into the hands of the enemy."


Section 113 defines aggravated espionage as "deliver(ing) any secret information without being authorized to do so and with intent to impair the security of the state" and a sub-clause provides for a penalty of seven years for the unauthorized collection, preparation, recording or holding of secret information; if this is done with intent to impair the security of the state and then, the penalty is increased to 15 years.



During my interviews with Vanunu, he informed me that, "All the secrets I had were published in 1989 in an important book, by Frank Barnaby, The Invisible Bomb: Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East."



Frank Barnaby, the Nuclear Physicist, who was hired by the London Sunday Times to interrogate Vanunu, testified at his closed door trial, "I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times...I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically."


But, Vanunu was rendered defenseless during that closed door trial when the court ruled that his motivations were not ideological and they refused to allow Vanunu's own statements regarding his intentions to even be considered in his defense.



On November 24th, 2006 Vanunu wrote:

"My lawyer succeeded to reveal a few very important facts: This General of the Army also was not allowed to see all the secrets that he is required to protect by these restrictions that they claim I know them. So, he gave orders of restrictions without knowing what he is protecting or that he is also following orders blindly, and Mossad Sheen Bet using its authority for just punishing me. He testified that it is not a crime for me to talk with foreigners in general anywhere. He testified that I can speak freely to any Israeli citizens about anything; it is not his concern what I am saying to them. These Israelis can give this information to any foreigners. It was difficult for the Judge to understand why this dichotomy exits between foreigners and Israelis. It means that it is not about secrecy but about something else."


The "Something Else"

In 2004, Yossi Melman wrote for Haaretz:

"This is the secret that hasn't yet been told in the affair: the story of the security fiasco that made it possible for Vanunu to do what he did, and the story of the subsequent attempts at cover-up, whitewashing and protection of senior figures in the defense establishment, who were bent on divesting themselves of responsibility for the failure.

"The 18-year prison term to which Vanunu was sentenced is almost exactly the same period as that in which Yehiel Horev has served as chief of internal security in the defense establishment [who has been] involved in the affair as deputy chief of security at the Defense Ministry, and also after Vanunu's abduction and arrest, as a member of an investigative commission."

Melman described Horev as devoted to duty and bland, petty and acutely suspiciousness, but also a man of personal integrity with a desire to expose corruption and failures coupled with a penchant for vengefulness.

"The affairs of the secrets that leaked from the two places considered Horev's holiest sites - the Biological Institute, which produced a senior spy in the person of Prof. Marcus Klingberg, and the Dimona nuclear plant, about which secret information was revealed through Mordechai Vanunu - were formative events in the development of his world view. Shortly after taking office as chief of security at the Defense Ministry, Horev began to take punitive measures to hobble Vanunu. He is responsible for the harsh conditions in which Vanunu was held, which included years in solitary confinement, and the sharp limitations on the number of visitors he could have…[and has fought] a rearguard battle to prevent Vanunu from leaving Israel and to place him under supervision and restrictions that will be tantamount to house arrest. Horev has always been considered the strictest of all the security chiefs in Israel, especially in regard to the protection of institutions such as the Dimona facility and the Biological Institute. He is apprehensive that if Vanunu goes abroad, he will continue to be a nuisance by stimulating the public debate over Israel's nuclear policy and the nuclear weapons he says Israel possesses…all the hyperactivity being displayed by Horev and those who support his approach is intended only to divert attention from what has not yet been revealed: the security blunders and their cover-ups."



"Vanunu told the world that Israel had developed between one hundred and two hundred atomic bombs [in 1986!] and had gone on to develop neutron bombs and thermonuclear weapons. Enough to destroy the entire Middle East and nobody has done anything about it since."-Peter Hounam, 2003 for the BBC.



In 2005, Vanunu told me:

"President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection.

"When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.

"Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year."


On March 26, 2006, Vanunu told me:

"Many journalists come here to the American Colony, from CNN and NY Times. They all want to cover my story, but their EDITORS say no...CNN wants to interview me; but they say they can't do it because they don't want problems with the Israeli censor. BBC is doing the same thing.

"Sixty Minutes from the United States from the beginning they wanted to do a program, but because of the censor situation they decide not to do it. Also big media from Germany, France, Italy, Japan. None of them wants problems with the Israelis."

I began the taping of “30 Minutes with Vanunu” with this question: "If the British Mandate has expired why not the British Mandate's Emergency Defense Regulations?"

Vaunu replied, "The reason given is security but it is because Israel is not a democracy unless you are a Jew. This administration tells me I am not allowed to speak to foreigners, the Media, and the world. But I do because that is how I prove my true humanity to the world. My freedom of speech trial began January 25, 2006 for speaking to the media, the same day as the Palestinian elections."


The day before Vanunu returned to jail he emailed me:

From: Vanunu Mordechai J C.
To: [me]
Date: Sat, May 22, 2010 at 5:10 AM
Subject: SHAME ON YOU


SHAME ON YOU.

ISRAEL VERY STUPID SPIES.

MOSSAD SHABACK FOR PUTTING ME BACK IN PRISON AFTER 24 YEARS FOR SPEAKING THE TRUTH.

SHAME ON YOU. ISRAEL MEDIA STUPID SPIES, HAAREZ EDIOT AHARONOT MAARIVE FOR SELF DECEPTION.

SHAME ON YOU. ISRAEL DEMOCRACY, KNESET=BET KNESET=SINAGOUGS DEMOCRACY FOR NOT LEARNING IN 2000 YEARS THAT THE BASIC RIGHT IN DEMOCRACY IS FREEDOM OF SPEECH.


SHAME ON YOU. ALL WORLD MEDIA BBC PPC CNN ABC CBS NBC FOX SKY HERALD TRIBUNE NEW YORK TIMES AND ALL THE WORLD MEDIA NRK NHK STA WD ZDF 24 FRANCE ALZAJJIRA SUNDAY TIMES FOR LET SUCH CASE HAPPENING AND NOT PROTECT FREEDOM OF SPEECH.


SHAME ON YOU ALL THE ARABS STUPID SPIES FROM EGYPT TO DUBAI SAUDI,LEBANON.JORDAN FOR LET ME GO BACK TO PRISON.


SHAME ON YOU. US SENATE CONGRESS WHITE HOUSE. UN IAEA MOHAMED ELBARADY FOR NOT PROTECTING MY FREEDOM.

SHAME ON YOU ALL THE RELIGIOUS STUPID SPIES JEWS, CHRISTIAN, MUSLIMS, BIG SHAME ON YOU FOR NOT BRINGING MY RELEASE IN 24 YEARS, RELIGION IS BIG BULLSHIT SHOW,

SHAME ON YOU.ALL THE WORLD STUPID SPIES CIA FBI MI5 MI6 AND ALL THE STUPID SPIES OF EVERY STATE WHO WANT ME BACK IN PRISON YOU WILL NOT GET ANY THING FROM ME.


FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM WILL SURVIVE AND CONTINUE FOR EVER,

VMJC FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM I NEED NOW.

VANUNU MORDECHAI John Crossman.

KIDNAPPED IN ROME SEP' 30 TH'-1986.

18 YEARS IN ISRAEL PRISON.OUT IN APR'-21-2004.

Waiting In East Jerusalem. To Be Free,To Leave .



PS:

Within days of the announcement of a record 205 nominations for 2009’s Nobel Peace Prize, [one of several prizes endowed by Swedish industrialist and dynamite inventor Alfred Nobel] perpetual nominee Mordechai Vanunu began to decline the honor in a letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo:


"I am asking the committee to remove my name from the nominations…I cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres…Peres established and developed the atomic weapon program in Dimona in Israel…Peres was the man who ordered [my] kidnapping…he continues to oppose my freedom and release…WHAT I WANT IS FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM….FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM I NEED NOW."



In 1963, when Vanunu was nine years old the Zionists came to his home town of Marrakech, Morocco and convinced his Orthodox father to abandon his general store and pack up the first seven of his eleven children for the land of milk and honey. Instead, the Vanunu's were banished to the desert of Beesheva, an ethnically cleansed Palestinian village.

A few months later, Shimon Peres, then Israel's Deputy Minister of Defense met with President John Kennedy, inside the White House.


Kennedy told Peres, "You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?"


Peres replied, "I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first."


By September of 1986, Peres was convulsing over Vanunu, who had been employed as a lowly tech in his progeny; Israel’s clandestine underground nuclear weapons centre in the Negev called the Dimona.


Peres ordered the Mossad, to "Bring the son of a princess back here."

Peres ordered Vanunu's kidnapping that included a clubbing, drugging and being flung upon an Israeli cargo boat back to Israel for a closed-door trial, 18 years in jail, six years under 24/7 surveillance and another three months behind bars that began 23 May 2010.




In 1985, before quitting the Dimona, Vanunu shot 56 photos of the top-secret labs and production processes that proved Israel had become a major nuclear power by stockpiling between 100 and 200 atomic bombs within the seven underground levels where plutonium production, and secret nuclear weapons were assembled without any knowledge, debate or authorization from its own citizens. Israel has yet to allow International Inspectors into the aged Dimona plant, which is leaking and endangering the health of its own citizens.


In April 2005, two months before my first of seven trips to Israel Palestine, I turned the TV on- it had last been tuned into the History channel. At that moment, they were broadcasting a show called, "Sexpionage" all about Russian female spies and one from the Mossad.

The very first clip that ran before my eyes was of Vanunu being transported to his closed-door trial. It was the few famous seconds of Vanunu’s inspired move to write upon his palm: "HIJACKED" and the Rome flight number he had been on.



That clip was followed by one of Shimon Perez in 1986, resurrecting the spirit of Machiavelli as he mendaciously claimed that Israel would never be the first in the Mid East to possess nuclear weapons.

As we live Orwell’s nightmare, Peres was the one awarded for playing a part in achieving the Oslo Declaration of Principles.

According to the preamble of the DOP, this peace was supposed to be based on mutual respect and reconciliation.

Ever since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in achieving the Oslo agreement, Peres has been most instrumental in helping to destroy the agreement.

Alfred Nobel’s intention was to reward people with a moral backbone. Nobel had hoped to create icons and examples to humankind. Annually since 1986, Vanunu has been nominated for The Nobel Peace Prize. When Bishop Tutu nominated him in 2007, Vanunu told me that he didn't want the award if Israel refused him the liberty and freedom to go and accept it.


In April 1999, thirty-six members of the House of Representatives signed a letter calling for Vanunu's release from prison because they believed "we have a duty to stand up for men and women like Mordechai Vanunu who dare to articulate a brighter vision for humanity."


President Clinton responded with a public statement expressing concern for Vanunu and the need for Israel and other non-parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to adhere to it and accept IAEA safeguards, but ever since the silence has been deafening.



However, the times are always a’ changing, and with the revelations of Sasha Polakow-Suransky, another left to the liver of Peres has been dealt as well as exposing his connection to Niccolo Machiavelli.




Machiavelli offered the Renaissance monarchy advice designed to keep power with policies that discouraged mass political activism. Machiavelli held that political life cannot be governed by a single set of moral ethics or religious absolutes.


Machiavelli offered the monarchy excuses and rationales to enable them to sleep at night after ordering calculated acts of deception, lies, cover-ups, and ethically indefensible acts of violence upon innocent lives.



To call a politician “Machiavellian” is to say that politician excels in the politics of manipulation and deception and is driven by lust for power and Peres just might be a 21st century personification of that side of Niccola.


But Machiavelli had another side, which has been ignored, such as his concern with “republics” [states] controlled by a politically active citizenry. In his “Discourses” he emphasized that for a republic to survive, it needed to foster a spirit of patriotism and civic virtue among its citizens.



Machiavelli argued that a republic would be strengthened by the conflicts generated through open political participation and debate.

This lesson Peres-and CNN-have yet to learn, but not due to the efforts of Mordechai Vanunu and this muckraker!



When Vanunu exposed Israel’s nuclear arsenal in photographs taken in 1985, he wanted to open up the dialogue on nuclear weapons as well as opening the Dimona up to international inspections.



As of this writing, Vanunu is back in jail and the Dimona remains uninspected.


Eileen Fleming, Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" freely streaming @
WeAreWideAwake: THE VANUNU SAGA 2005-2010!