Oxford student Bex Tyrer met recently with Israeli nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu. This is her account:
Mordechai Vanunu: Whistleblower. Candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize; several times. Traitor. Winner of the Right Livelihood Award; the ‘Alternative Nobel Peace Prize’. Prisoner; “The World's first Nuclear hostage”. Receiver of an honorary doctorate from Tromso University (Norway). Receiver of numerous death threats, curtsey of the Hebrew press. Imprisoned. “Out of Prison – Not Yet Free”.
A bit of history: From November 1976 - October 1985 Vanunu was employed as a nuclear technician at the ‘Nuclear Reactor Centre’ in Dimona, Israel. On the 5th October 1986 The Sunday Times publishes Vanunu's story with photographs of Dimona under the title: “Revealed: The Secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal”. On the 30th September 1986 Vanunu was 'missing' after being lured away from London to Rome by Israeli Secret Services; he had been abducted after being drugged and put on a boat back to Israel. On the 9th November 1986 Israel admits for the first time that Vanunu is in its custody and being 'legally' detained. On the 24th March 1988 Vanunu was convicted of treason, espionage and revealing state secrets. On the 21st April 2004 Vanunu was released from prison.
Friday 26th November 2004: Good day! Completely unplanned (meeting Vanunu) but a very memorable experience; if ‘memorable’ is the right word. I guess it is memorable because of the way the image of his calm manner – in fact more of a calm ‘presence’ - has stayed with me. He seems such a peaceful man or at least that is how I perceived him to be. Yet one would expect someone who had suffered such unrelenting injustice to begin to embody a similar aggression; spitefulness, but no, just a peacefulness. I guess a peaceful resignation to eighteen stolen years, which according to another member of Friday’s audience ‘made him who he is’.
What struck me most about his appearance was the silver cross and chain which hung around his neck. I'm not sure why, I guess it is because it sat there as a statement; a statement against his state – against the Israeli Zionist State and the Jewish exclusivity it demands of its occupants; of its people. As Vanunu later recalled, he had been described as a ‘double traitor’ a traitor against this Zionist state for revealing high security information about Israel’s nuclear weapons programme and a traitor to his people because of his conversion to Christianity. I wonder to what extent the Israeli state pushed him to reject his ‘Jewish-ness?’ To deny all that it had made him or tried to make him, all that it stood for and still espouses to stand for – democracy and universal human rights included?
Yet as Vanunu argued, its rejection of his Christianity is proof that “they (the state) is not a real democracy”. Their denial of the Right to freedom of religious belief and of the multiculturalism which had characterised the land prior to 1948 jeopardises their claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Ironically, this deluded belief is what justifies the very nuclear weapons program which Vanunu had felt such a moral responsibility to speak out about. He described it as his mission to inform the world: “To give this information was my job”…A nuclear weapons program to protect the defenceless ‘democracy’ amidst the authoritarian aggressors of the surrounding Arab world. It reminded me of what D. had told me the night before; that in Israel your religion defined your rights, “if you are not a Jew in Israel you do not have the same rights…” Here it seems that your “Jewishness” is the only qualification for civil, social and political rights. It is what makes you a citizen in Israel …Ironically Vanunu wanted none of this. He wants out; just as he used his new found Christianity to give him strength through his imprisonment.
He wants to put as much distance between him and his kidnappers, tortures, jailers, continuous surveillance as possible. How ironic when so much blood has been shed to build the Israeli state? How much suffering? “2000 years of exile” to be answered with “My future? My future is NOT in Israel”. To be answered with an un-relentless persecution by his own state. When asked what joys he has experienced after his release from prison Vanunu replied, “The joys each day are to express my freedom. But I will be very happy once I leave Israel”. Alternatively, Vanunu has pledged to work for ‘peace’– for the destruction of nuclear weapons; but from outside.
Eighteen years cannot fail to leave some psychological scars, despite his declaration that “they may have my body in prison, but never my mind. My mind is in my hands”. Will the Israeli state ever let him be? Will they ever stop their continuous intrusive surveillance, their demands? Vanunu explained their preoccupation with him as their demonstration of power as their warning to other would-be-“traitors” of what happens if you try to defy “your state”. Israel is Michael Moore's state of propagated and perpetual fear. A state of fear created and nurtured by Israel to legitimise its undemocratic practices and absence of rights to its own citizens but moreover, the denial of citizenship to those who ‘legally’ reside within its borders.
Eighteen years served and still a prisoner in a state he no longer seeks protection in but protection from. This also hurt. It hurt that although he is now a ‘free’ man – with eighteen years of his life locked away, stolen and banished for future consumption, that his applications for asylum have been repeatedly denied…
Vanunu; a political porn. A political leper. A victim of a nuclear weapons program, of a corrupt state, of a web of international relations, of the concept of ‘Jewishness’ – a victim of today’s Democracy, Peace and Justice.
What made meeting Vanunu memorable was not just his peacefulness – his unruffled resolution – but the simple fact that his testimony should not be forgotten. It is a statement about all that the Zionist state is and continues to be. Vanunu's testimony reminds us of the dangers of ‘democracy’ when it is used to hide and to control.
In an echo of Vanunu's own words:
Faith – in my belief,
In the truth Truth – in the injustice.
Cold War – still here in the Middle East
Corruption – Intrinsic, all pervading, invading
our Democracy – not in this Israel
Peace and Reconciliation – not without Rights
Freedom – only in a dark cage
A bit of history: From November 1976 - October 1985 Vanunu was employed as a nuclear technician at the ‘Nuclear Reactor Centre’ in Dimona, Israel. On the 5th October 1986 The Sunday Times publishes Vanunu's story with photographs of Dimona under the title: “Revealed: The Secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal”. On the 30th September 1986 Vanunu was 'missing' after being lured away from London to Rome by Israeli Secret Services; he had been abducted after being drugged and put on a boat back to Israel. On the 9th November 1986 Israel admits for the first time that Vanunu is in its custody and being 'legally' detained. On the 24th March 1988 Vanunu was convicted of treason, espionage and revealing state secrets. On the 21st April 2004 Vanunu was released from prison.
Friday 26th November 2004: Good day! Completely unplanned (meeting Vanunu) but a very memorable experience; if ‘memorable’ is the right word. I guess it is memorable because of the way the image of his calm manner – in fact more of a calm ‘presence’ - has stayed with me. He seems such a peaceful man or at least that is how I perceived him to be. Yet one would expect someone who had suffered such unrelenting injustice to begin to embody a similar aggression; spitefulness, but no, just a peacefulness. I guess a peaceful resignation to eighteen stolen years, which according to another member of Friday’s audience ‘made him who he is’.
What struck me most about his appearance was the silver cross and chain which hung around his neck. I'm not sure why, I guess it is because it sat there as a statement; a statement against his state – against the Israeli Zionist State and the Jewish exclusivity it demands of its occupants; of its people. As Vanunu later recalled, he had been described as a ‘double traitor’ a traitor against this Zionist state for revealing high security information about Israel’s nuclear weapons programme and a traitor to his people because of his conversion to Christianity. I wonder to what extent the Israeli state pushed him to reject his ‘Jewish-ness?’ To deny all that it had made him or tried to make him, all that it stood for and still espouses to stand for – democracy and universal human rights included?
Yet as Vanunu argued, its rejection of his Christianity is proof that “they (the state) is not a real democracy”. Their denial of the Right to freedom of religious belief and of the multiculturalism which had characterised the land prior to 1948 jeopardises their claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. Ironically, this deluded belief is what justifies the very nuclear weapons program which Vanunu had felt such a moral responsibility to speak out about. He described it as his mission to inform the world: “To give this information was my job”…A nuclear weapons program to protect the defenceless ‘democracy’ amidst the authoritarian aggressors of the surrounding Arab world. It reminded me of what D. had told me the night before; that in Israel your religion defined your rights, “if you are not a Jew in Israel you do not have the same rights…” Here it seems that your “Jewishness” is the only qualification for civil, social and political rights. It is what makes you a citizen in Israel …Ironically Vanunu wanted none of this. He wants out; just as he used his new found Christianity to give him strength through his imprisonment.
He wants to put as much distance between him and his kidnappers, tortures, jailers, continuous surveillance as possible. How ironic when so much blood has been shed to build the Israeli state? How much suffering? “2000 years of exile” to be answered with “My future? My future is NOT in Israel”. To be answered with an un-relentless persecution by his own state. When asked what joys he has experienced after his release from prison Vanunu replied, “The joys each day are to express my freedom. But I will be very happy once I leave Israel”. Alternatively, Vanunu has pledged to work for ‘peace’– for the destruction of nuclear weapons; but from outside.
Eighteen years cannot fail to leave some psychological scars, despite his declaration that “they may have my body in prison, but never my mind. My mind is in my hands”. Will the Israeli state ever let him be? Will they ever stop their continuous intrusive surveillance, their demands? Vanunu explained their preoccupation with him as their demonstration of power as their warning to other would-be-“traitors” of what happens if you try to defy “your state”. Israel is Michael Moore's state of propagated and perpetual fear. A state of fear created and nurtured by Israel to legitimise its undemocratic practices and absence of rights to its own citizens but moreover, the denial of citizenship to those who ‘legally’ reside within its borders.
Eighteen years served and still a prisoner in a state he no longer seeks protection in but protection from. This also hurt. It hurt that although he is now a ‘free’ man – with eighteen years of his life locked away, stolen and banished for future consumption, that his applications for asylum have been repeatedly denied…
Vanunu; a political porn. A political leper. A victim of a nuclear weapons program, of a corrupt state, of a web of international relations, of the concept of ‘Jewishness’ – a victim of today’s Democracy, Peace and Justice.
What made meeting Vanunu memorable was not just his peacefulness – his unruffled resolution – but the simple fact that his testimony should not be forgotten. It is a statement about all that the Zionist state is and continues to be. Vanunu's testimony reminds us of the dangers of ‘democracy’ when it is used to hide and to control.
In an echo of Vanunu's own words:
Faith – in my belief,
In the truth Truth – in the injustice.
Cold War – still here in the Middle East
Corruption – Intrinsic, all pervading, invading
our Democracy – not in this Israel
Peace and Reconciliation – not without Rights
Freedom – only in a dark cage