Jeg er uenig med Nobelkomiteens tildeling av årets fredspris. USAs president, Barack H. Obama, har altså fått Nobels fredspris. Begrunnelsen var visstnok “hans vilje til å skape et nytt politisk klima internasjonalt”. Skal man få fredspris bare fordi man ikke er George W. Bush Jr., nå?

Faktum er at Obama har åpna opp for at “en mindre kontingent” med amerikanske soldater kan bli igjen i Irak. Han er en aktiv pådriver for fortsatt amerikansk krigføring i Afghanistan. Obama har dessuten arbeida for å øke USAs militære tilstedeværelse i Colombia. Obama fortjener ikke fredsprisen.

Jeg oppfordrer alle til å delta i markeringa mot krigføringa i Afghanistan, tirsdag 13. oktober. Hent soldatene hjem og Fredsinitiativet inviterer den dagen til makering på Eidsvolls Plass, foran Stortinget, i forbindelse med at statsbudsjettet for 2010 legges fram. Det blir markering med følgende bannere: “NATO ut av Afghanistan – Hent de norske soldatene hjem!”, “Ingen penger til ISAF!” og “Støtt de demokratiske kreftene i Afghanistan!”.  Det vil så klart også bli arrangert en demonstrasjon i desember, i forbindelse med utdelinga av årets Nobels fredspris.

Jeg mener at Nobelkomiteen burde ha tildelt årets fredspris til Mordechai Vanunu. Vanunu var en israelsk atomtekniker, og han fortalte omverden om Israels utvikling og besittelse av kjernefysiske masseødeleggelsesvåpen i 1986. Dette førte til at han ble satt i fengsel i 18 år. Vanunu ble løslatt fra israelske fengsel i 2004, men får ikke lov til å forlate Israel, som han ønsker. Vanunu har gitt et svært viktig bidrag til kampen mot atomvåpen. Vanunu burde ha fått årets fredspris. Han bør definitivt få Nobels fredspris i 2010.

Lenker:

Reaksjonene til Rødt og Rød Ungdom: http://roedt.no/nyheter/2009/10/%c3%a5-gi-fredsprisen-til-obama-er-en-skandale/

http://sosialisme.no/nyheter/2009/10/skal_dette_vaere_en_vits/

Obamas fredspris splitter venstresida: http://frontlinjer.no/?p=4614

Begrunnelsen til Den Norske Nobelkomite: http://nobelpeaceprize.org/nb_NO/home/announce-2009/ 

Obama føler ikke at han fortjener prisen: http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/article3312535.ece 

Wikipedia om Mordechai Vanunu: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Vanunu

Ya hace bastantes años que surgió el escándalo de Mordechai Vanunu en los medios. y hace otros pocos que fuera liberado éste personaje (para ser posteriormente arrestado de nueva cuenta por haber “declarado” que Israel se encontraba tras el asesinato de John F. Kennedy) pero sin duda, sus primeras revelaciones siguen dando de que hablar…

Visto en: Iran affairs

Fuentes y enlaces:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/international/newsid_3342000/3342997.stm

http://www.voltairenet.org/article129700.html

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article830147.ece

“Målsetningen må være en verden hvor ikke bare våpnene, men også anleggene som produserer dem, er fjernet “

Fire tidligere statsministere; Odvar Nordli, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Kåre Willoch og Kjell Magne Bondevik, samt tidligere utenriksminister Thorvald Stoltenberg fikk bred spalteplass i Aftenposten da de lanserte sitt initiativ for atomnedrustning ved å gå ut med et opprop til støtte for visjonen om en atomvåpenfri verden. Oppropet er inspirert av en tilsvarende uttalelse fra tidligere toppolitikere i USA og Tyskland. Oppropet legger et særlig ansvar på USA og Russland, som har mer enn 90 prosent av verdens atomvåpen. De to landene må gå i spissen for å forhandle fram balanserte avtaler om reduksjon av atomvåpenarsenalene. Målet på lengre sikt må være å fjerne våpnene og produksjonsanleggene i disse to atomstormaktene og alle andre land som har atomvåpen i dag.

Det hele kan minne om den republikanske president Dwight D. Eisenhowers (president: 1953-1961) avskjedstale den 17. januar 1961 hvor han introduserte termen Det militærindustrielle kompleks og advarte mot å la dette komplekset få for mye makt.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of its children.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower

Presidentperioden til Eisenhower, de alliertes leder under Andre verdenskrig, er kjent for en sterk økonomisk vekst enestående i amerikansk historie, samt en sterk militær opprustning. Under Andre verdenskrig hadde Eisenhower, som leder av de allierte styrkene i Europa, ansvar for å planlegge og lede den vellykte invasjonen av Frankrike og Tyskland i 1944–45. I 1951 ble han den føste øverste leder i NATO. Som president overså han Korea krigen, holdt presset mot Sovjet under den kalde krigen, gjorde atombomber til en høyere prioritet innen forsvaret, lanserte romkappløpet, utvidet det sosiale sikkerhetsprogrammet og begynte utbyggingen av motorveisystemet.

En del av styrkingen av landets forsvar var byggingen av det amerikanske motorveisystemet som ved siden av å bedre det innenlandske transportsystemet i fredstid, skulle effektivisere militær transport i ufredstider. Autobahn-systemet i Tyskland var Eisenhowers inspirasjkonskilde for denne satsingen i USA. I denne perioden ble mye militært utstyr gitt vekk mer eller mindre gratis til andre NATO-land, blant dem Norge, som fikk 200 jagerfly uten å betale en krone.

Eisenhower var den første som tok i bruk TV-reklame, i valgkampene i 1952 og 1956. I 1952 var det om å gjøre å spille på Eisenhowers fortid som krigshelt. Reklamene fra 1956 viste vanlige velgere som stilte Eisenhower politiske spørsmål, og han svarte kort og direkte i et enkelt språk.

Det spiller ikke lenger noen rolle hvem som blir president i USA, fordi USAs president ikke har noen reell makt. De som virkelig styrer USA er det som president Eisenhower kalte Det militærindustrielle kompleks, og som er en allianse av de største bankene og bedriftene i USA.

I tillegg til Det militærindustrielle kompleks har man nå også anskaffet et såkalt fengselsindustrielt kompleks, som er det bl.a jusprofessor Randall G. Shelden ved universitetet i Nevada, som i en oppsiktsvekkende artikkel hevder at det amerikanske fengselssystemet i dag har flere likhetstrekk med de sovjetiske fangeleirene, kaller USAs moderne fengselssystem. Se: Mercenaries at Work – Chalmers Johnson.

Akkurat som president Dwight Eisenhower i sin avskjedstale i 1960 advarte mot veksten i det militærindustrielle kompleks basert på frykt for kommunismen, vokser i dag fengselsindustrien basert på frykten for kriminalitet. USA har langt på vei har privatisert strafferettspleien, noe som innebærer en intens lobbyvirksomhet overfor politikerne for å få dem til å gå inn for strengere straffer. Bygging og drift av fengsler blitt Big Business. Private fengselsentreprenører bygger primitive anstalter og tjener seg søkkrike i et samfunn som prioriterer straff og hevn framfor forebygging og rehabilitering. Det er store penger å tjene på å huse en 18-åring i 60 år når staten betaler … Det er en frastøtende tanke at noen skal tjene store penger på at andre mennesker berøves friheten.

USA har to millioner mennesker i fengsel, noe som tilsvarer halvparten av Norges befolkning. Dette bekymrer forkjempere for menneskerettigheter og ytringsfrihet. Ikke noe annet industrialisert land har en så høy fengselsrate. Mot slutten av 1999 var tallet på 476 personer i fengsel pr. 100.000 innbyggere, i dag er trolig tallet enda høyere. De aller fleste av dem er svarte menn. Det er et stort utslag av rasisme og på tross av USAs president delvis er svart så vil dette neppe endre situasjonen stort.

Det er heller ikke for ingen ting at man nå i tillegg til å snakke om det militærindustrielle kompleks også snakker om et militærindustrielt mediakompleks, et offshoot av det militærindustrielle kompleks karakterisert av General Electric-NBC. Organisasjoner som FAIR har kritisert det militærindustrielle mediakompleks for å bruke deres mediaresurser til å fremme militarisme som tjener selskapets forsvarsresurser.

USA, verdens eneste supermakt, bruker mer på militære enn de neste 45 høyeste forbrukerne i verden til sammen. USA står alene for 48 % av verdens totale militærforbruk. Hvor ble fredsdividenten etter seieren under den den kalde krigen?

Hvorfor kriger Amerika? – Kilder til USAs militarisme (engelsk: Why We Fight) er en engelskspråklig dokumentarfilm fra 2005 som tar for seg USAs militarisme. Dokumentaren omhandler den amerikanske våpenindustrien og forsøker å vise hvordan denne påvirker livet til innbyggerne i USA og tar utgangspunkt i opptrappingen av krigen i Irak og gir seeren den personlige historien til en del mennesker i det amerikanske militære samfunn. Filmen, som vant prisen for beste dokumentar på Sundance Film Festival 2005 og en Peabody Award ved Peabody Awards i 2007, er regisert, produsert og skrevet av den amerikanske regissøren Eugene Jarecki og er en samproduksjon mellom USA, Storbritannia, Canada og Frankrike. Det blir i filmen bl.a hevdet at det finnes en allianse mellom militære, industrielle og nasjonale interesser, og at disse er i et økonomisk avhengighetsforhold som krever at USA må være i en konstant krigstilstand.

Etter Andre verdenskrig, i 1948, gikk daværende president Eisenhower inn for å danne et militærtindustrielt samarbeid, et kompleks. Det la basisen for å knytte sammen militærindustrien, vitenskapen, tekniske institusjoner, universiteter og omtrent alle andre deler av det økonomiske og sosiale liv. Men han var også oppmerksom på farer ved dette. I sin siste tale som president uttalte han bl.a: ”I regjeringen og departementene må vi være på vakt mot å tilegne oss uberettiget innflytelse, bevist eller ubevisst, gjennom det militær- industrielle komplekset.” Men dette militærindustrielle komplekset er nå en betydelig maktfaktor i USA. USA har et større militærbudsjett enn alle de andre medlemmene i sikkerhetsrådet har tilsammen. Militærbudsjettet utgjør ca 50 % av hver skattekrone.

Eisenhower gjorde, som de ovenfornevnte, pent lite med problemet da han selv satt ved makten. De fleste vil hevde at Odvar Nordli, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Kåre Willoch og Kjell Magne Bondevik, samt tidligere utenriksminister Thorvald Stoltenberg historisk sett har vært problemet snarere enn løsningen. Det er kjempebra at de engasjerer seg i kampen mot atomvåpen bare synd de måtte bli pensjonister før de kunne lage et slikt opprop. Og etter at vi har blitt kvitt de kjernefysiske kan vi gå løs på flere og flere våpen for da kan våpenprodusentene lage det verden trenger – mat til de fattige, løse vann- og energimangel, få utdannelse og helse til alle i verden. Og det ville ikke koste halvparten av hva vi i verden bruker på militær budsjetter og våpenindustri.

Offentliggjorte statistikker viser at dagens arsenal av atomvåpen ble utviklet ved bruk av omkring 2070 prøvesprengninger. Til tross for et omfattende arbeid med nedrustning og overvåking, er fortsatt tusenvis av atomvåpen oppskytningsklare. I dag er det omkring 27.000 intakte atomvåpen på verdensbasis og omkring 12.000 av dem er operasjonelle. På det meste – i 1986 – var det i alt 69.000 atomvåpen.

Nordiske Kvinners Fredsmarsj i 1981,1982 og 1983 i Europa, USSR og USA ble latterliggjort og utskjelt. Det er mer enn 25 år siden og først nå tør våre fhv. statministre stå fram samlet og offentlig med sitt NEI til Atomvåpen i Europa Øst og Vest, Nei til atomvåpen i verden og Ja til nedrustning og fred. Det er trist det skal ta så lang tid før topppolitikere tør å reagere og gå imot bl.a. USA. Vi får håpe at oppropet også gjelder for Israels atomvåpen og at Vanunu dermed kan slippes fri fra sin husarrest i Jerusalem.

“Vår felles marsj har vist oss at det er mulig for organisasjonenes representanter i de ulike land i Øst og Vest å arbeide sammen og nå frem til enighet i tidenes viktigste spørsmål: å redde menneskeheten fra å utryddes. Vi henvender oss til De forenede nasjoner og til alle regjeringer, parlamenter og nasjoner, om at de skal handle sammen, som vi har gjort det i vår fredsmarsj 1982. Tiden er inne for regjeringer og parlamenter å ta skrittet fra ord til handling: for nedrustning. Bare sammen kan vi makte det!“

Slaget om livet
får ei förloras!
Det kommer an på oss.
Vi är redan många
som börjat tenka:
Det finns en annan veg!

Aldri, aldri, aldri, aldri ger vi upp.

Israel

”Norway sold 20 tons of heavy water to Israel in 1959 for use in an experimental power reactor.  Norway insisted on the right to inspect the heavy water for 32 years, but did so only once, in April 1961, while it was still in storage barrels at Dimona.  Israel simply promised that the heavy water was for peaceful purposes.  In addition, quantities much more than what would be required for the peaceful purpose reactors were imported.  Norway either colluded or at the least was very slow to ask to inspect as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) rules required.³⁸ Norway and Israel concluded an agreement in 1990 for Israel to sell back 10.5 tons of the heavy water to Norway.  Recent calculations reveal that Israel has used two tons and will retain eight tons more.”

”After we exposed the sale of the heavy water on Newsnight last August, the government assured the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that all Britain did was sell some heavy water back to Norway. Using the Freedom of Information Act, we have now obtained previously top-secret papers which show not only that Norway was a mere cover for the Israel deal, but that Britain made hundreds of other secret shipments of nuclear materials to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s.”

”What really happened was this: Britain had bought the heavy water from Norsk Hydro in Norway for its nuclear weapons programme, but found it was surplus to requirements and decided to sell. An arrangement was indeed made with a Norwegian company, Noratom, but crucially the papers show that Noratom was not the true buyer: the firm agreed to broker a deal with Israel in return for a 2 per cent commission. Israel paid the top price – £1m – to avoid having to give guarantees that the material would not be used to make nuclear weapons, but the papers leave no doubt that Britain knew all along that Israel wanted the heavy water “to produce plutonium”. Kelly discovered that a charade was played out, with British and Israeli delegations sitting in adjacent rooms while Noratom ferried contracts between them to maintain the fiction that Britain had not done the deal with Israel.

The transaction was signed off for the Foreign Office by Donald Cape, whose job it was to make sure we didn’t export materials that would help other countries get the atom bomb. He felt it would be “overzealous” to demand safeguards to prevent Israel using the chemical in weapons production. Cape is 82 now, tall, clear-headed and living in Surrey. He told us the deal was done because “nobody suspected the Israelis hoped to manufacture nuclear weapons”, but his own declassified letters from March 1959 suggest otherwise. They show, for example, that the Foreign Office knew Israel had pulled out of a deal to buy uranium from South Africa when Pretoria asked for safeguards to prevent it being used for making nuclear weapons. It also knew the CIA was warning that “the Israelis must be expected to try and establish a nuclear weapons programme”. Just weeks later, however, Britain started shipping heavy water direct to Israel: the first shipment left in June 1959 and the second in June 1960.”

”US was heavily involved in developing Israel’s nuclear capability, training Israeli nuclear scientists and providing nuclear-related technology, including a small research reactor in 1955 under the Atoms for Peace program. Israel developed its nuclear program with the help of Norwegian heavy water and between 1976 and 1985. In early 1968, the CIA issued a report concluding that Israel had successfully started production of nuclear weapons.”

Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

Nuclear Weapons – Israel

BBC – UK helped Israel get nuclear bomb

New Statesman – Britain’s dirty secret

New Statesman – The big threat in the Middle East is Israel, not Iraq

Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Nuclear Weapon Race in Middle East?

Vanunu’s Fifth Year Of Restrictions Begins And Norway Caves

James Lovelock

”Nå må vi må forsøke å redde det som reddes kan, inkludert vår sivilisasjon, og her kan de nordiske landene spille en viktig rolle”, mente den britiske dommedagsprofeten og Gaia hypotesens far, James_Lovelock, da han holdt sitt foredrag om den nødvendige ”økologiske retretten” på et symposium på Blindern til ære for Arne Næss i 2007 hvor han i egenskap av å være den første innehaveren av det nyopprettede Arne Næss’ gjesteprofessorat på Senter for utvikling og miljø (SUM) ved UiO holdt hovedforedraget på symposiet.

”Vi hadde et liknende hot house, som det vi nærmer oss nå, for 55 millioner år siden, ifølge geologer ved universitetene i Cambridge og Oslo. Nærmere to terratonn CO2, eller to millioner millioner tonn, ble da sluppet ut i atmosfæren i løpet av kanskje så mye som 10.000 år. Temperaturen steg med 8 grader i tempererte strøk og polarregionene og med 5 grader i tropene. Det tok 200.000 år før klimaet ble det samme igjen. Vi har sluppet ut halvparten av denne mengden bare i løpet av det 20. århundre, og hvis vi fortsetter som vi gjør, vil Jorden selv slippe ut mer enn ett terratonn CO2. Vi har dessuten ødelagt 40 prosent av Gaias regulative kapasitet ved å bruke land til matproduksjon. Dette er grunnen til at jeg er redd for at vi allerede kan ha satt i bevegelse irreversible klimaendringer”, sa Lovelock.

”Det ville ikke hjelpe noe om vi i morgen fikk til et fullstendig kutt i våre CO2-utslipp, snarere ville det forsterke den globale oppvarmingen. Årsaken er at våre CO2-utslipp også inneholder aerosol-partikler, eller forurensing, som gir global dimming (mørklegging), som bidrar til nedkjøling av planeten. Disse ørsmå partiklene forsvinner fra atmosfæren i løpet av få uker, mens karbondioksydet blir der i 50-100 år. Vi er fordømt enten vi fortsetter å forbrenne fossilt brensel eller slutter for brått med det. Vi er i krig med Jorden, og det er ingen blitzkrig vi står overfor”, konstaterte Lovelock.

”Arne Næss var blant de første som så behovet for en etikk som kunne bringe oss tilbake til samhørigheten med planeten vår. Og hadde verden fulgt Brundtlands råd om å utvikle seg bærekraftig da hun anbefalte det for 20 år siden, hadde vi kanskje greid å stoppe klimaforverringen. Nå kan det være for sent”, sa han.

Nå har mottakeren av universitetets første Arne Næss-professorat, James Lovelock, kommet til Oslo med dystre spådommer for jordkloden. Særlig hvis vi fortsetter å tro på Kyotoavtalen. I følge ham er ”Kyoto vår tids Munchen-avtale”. ”Vi visste det ble krig, men politikerne mente alt ville ordne seg”, sier han. Hvis vi kutter alle utslipp i morgen, vil det ikke hjelpe i det hele tatt, sier han, og mener vi er kommet for langt til å snu oppvarmingen av kloden. Han mener at temperatur-økningene på jorden bare vil fortsette og at vi bør investere i løsninger som gjør at vi takler det, i stedet for å bruke tid og penger på å kutte utslippene. I følge ham kom rapporten Vår Felles Fremtid 200 år for sent om tiltakene skulle ha hjulpet.

Lovelock er grunnleggeren av Gaiateorien, som kort fortalt er teorien om at jorden fungerer som en slags superorganisme der alt levende er med på å regulere dens klima. Gaiateorien møtte mye motstand da den først ble presentert i 1979. Sakte, men sikkert er den blitt anerkjent også blant forskere som først avviste den som en New Age-greie.

”Innen slutten av dette århundret vil kun områdene nær polene være beboelige, resten av verden vil ha blitt til ørken”, forklarer han. ”Javisst, vi kan jo fremdeles forberede oss, ikke sant? Men dere i Norge må innstille dere på at det kan komme veldig mange på besøk”, sier Lovelock. ”I Bangladesh bor det 150 millioner mennesker. Hvor skal de flytte når landet oversvømmes?” spør han, og spår at maks én milliard, rundt en sjettedel av verdens befolkning, vil få plass i de levelige delene av kloden om 100 år. ”Folk må flytte, og vi må satse på produksjonen av syntetisk mat. På et eller annet tidspunkt må vi ta innover oss at vi ikke kan slippe inn alle som emigrerer hit, og det er ikke sikkert at det vil gå fredelig for seg”, sier han nå. På et spørsmål om hvor lenge verdens befolkning må finne seg i å leve rundt polene svarer han 200.000 år.

”For 55 millioner år siden skjedde ingen massiv artsutryddelse, fordi livet hadde tid nok til å migrere til kjøligere strøk og bli der til planeten kjølnet igjen. Dette kan skje igjen, og mennesker, dyr og planter er allerede i ferd med å migrere. De nordiske land og områdene nærmest havet i det nordlige Europa, som de britiske øyer, kan bli spart for den verste heten og tørken som den globale oppvarmingen bringer med seg. Dette gir oss et spesielt ansvar til å forbli siviliserte og gi tilflukt.

Vi mennesker er ikke bare Jordens sykdom. Gjennom vår intelligens og kommunikasjon er vi også planetens nervesystem. Vi burde være Jordens hjerte og sjel, og ikke dens sykdom. Gaia-begrepet minner oss om at vi er en del av en levende jord og at vår kontrakt med Gaia ikke bare handler om menneskerettigheter, men også om menneskets plikter”, avsluttet Lovelock til stor applaus i 2007.

I følge Lovelock: ”Før dette århundret er over vil milliarder av oss dø, og de få som overlever vil primært bo i det arktiske området hvor klimaet vil være tålelig.”

Lykke til!!!

NATO-krigen, USAs ambisjoner og den norske …

USAs fengselsindustrielle kompleks

Det militærindustrielle mediakompleks og Somalia

Militærindustrielle kompleks

Amerikas gulag

Uniforum – Vi er i krig med naturen – og på den tapende siden

Klassekampen : Kritisk terskel

Regner med apokalypse i 2040

Moder Jord tar hevn, og vi må alle betale for våre synder

Apollon: Gaia-teoriens far spår klimakatastrofe før år 2100

James LOVELOCK’s web site

Dette er oppropets tekst:

Sammen for en atomvåpenfri verden

To år har gått siden George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger og Sam Nunn tok til orde for en atomvåpenfri verden. Senere har president Obama gjort det samme, og statsledere fra mange andre land har sluttet seg til. Alle har vist til konkrete tiltak som kan bringe oss nærmere målet.  De fire amerikanske lederne understreket samspillet mellom visjon og handling: ”Uten den djerve visjonen (om en kjernevåpenfri verden) vil tiltakene fortone seg verken rimelige eller nødvendige. Uten tiltakene vil visjonen fortone seg verken realistisk eller mulig.” Skal samspillet virke, må vi være seriøse både på vegne av visjonen og tiltakene. Vi oppfordrer til det, så sterkt vi kan.
Målsettingen må være en verden hvor ikke bare våpnene, men også anleggene som produserer dem, er fjernet. Alt spaltbart materiale for våpenformål må ødelegges, og all kjernefysisk virksomhet må underkastes streng internasjonal kontroll.

USA og Russland, som har mer enn 90 prosent av verdens atomvåpen, må ta de første stegene. De må redusere sine arsenaler til et nivå hvor også de andre atommaktene kan bli med i forhandlinger om globale begrensninger. Alle avtaler må være balanserte og verifiserbare og gi økt sikkerhet på lavere rustningsnivåer. Inntil videre må vi bygge på gjensidig avskrekking.
Alle typer atomvåpen – også de taktiske – må med i nedrustningsforhandlingene. Vi oppfordrer Russland, som har store lagre av slike våpen, til å akseptere dette.

I dag er det fare for spredning av atomvåpen både til stater, ikke-statlige aktører og terrornettverk. Sistnevnte ønsker seg slike våpen for å bruke dem. Sammen med USA og mange andre land har Norge deltatt i programmer for å sikre og ødelegge våpenmaterialer og ferdige våpen. Det er påtrengende nødvendig med en kraftig økning i bevilgningene til disse programmene.

Etablering av rakettskjold bør unngås, for det stimulerer til opprustning. Atommakter som ikke har et slikt skjold vil treffe mottiltak for å opprettholde den kjernefysiske gjengjeldelsesevnen. Andre frykter at for den som har et skjold er det lettere å bruke sverdet. De planene og programmene som nå er på gang bør derfor underordnes arbeidet for omfattende kjernefysisk nedrustning.

Samtidig som nye forhandlinger settes i gang, må eksisterende avtaler opprettholdes. Det gjelder INF-avtalen, som fjernet mellomdistansevåpen fra Europa, og CFE-avtalen om reduksjoner av konvensjonelle våpen ved den kalde krigens slutt. Det gjelder også de amerikansk-russiske presidentinitiativene fra 1991/92 om tilbaketrekking og ødeleggelse av amerikanske og russiske kortdistansevåpen. Framfor alt gjelder det den kjernefysiske ikke-spredningsavtalen, NPT, som nå er under press. I forbindelse med neste års tilsynskonferanse for NPT er det viktig å bekrefte grunnprinsippene den bygger på: ikke-spredning, nedrustning og fredelig utnyttelse av kjernefysisk energi. Som formann for 7-landsinitiativet kan Norge bidra til å gjøre konferansen vellykket.

Genève-protokollen av 1925 forbød bruk av kjemiske og biologiske våpen. I realiteten var det en konvensjon om ikke-førstebruk. Siden er det inngått avtaler om eliminering av alle slike våpen. I påvente av en liknende avtale om atomvåpen bør det innføres doktriner om ikke-førstebruk også for slike våpen. Ingen våpen volder så store ødeleggelser og lidelser som atomvåpnene. Doktriner om ikke-førstebruk innebærer at atomvåpnene bare har én funksjon: å hindre at andre bruker sine. De har derfor en innebygd nedrustningslogikk: Ingen ville trenge dem hvis ingen hadde dem. USA, Kina, Israel, Pakistan, India, Nord-Korea og andre land som ikke har ratifisert prøvestansavtalen (CTBT) bør gjøre det omgående. Atommaktene bør samtidig forplikte seg til ikke å innføre nye typer atomvåpen.Det må inngås en avtale om stans i produksjonen av spaltbart materiale for våpenformål.

Atommaktene bør overføre overskytende våpenmateriale til IAEA for internasjonal sikkerhetskontroll. Overføringene må være irreversible med sikte på eliminering av alt materiale for militære formål.  NPTs medlemmer har en folkerettslig forpliktelse til å arbeide for kjernefysisk nedrustning (Art. VI). De som står utenfor – Israel, India, Pakistan og Nord-Korea – bør forplikte seg til det samme. Vetomaktene i FNs sikkerhetsråd har et særlig ansvar. Med mindre de greier å samarbeide, vil ikke en kjernevåpenfri verden være mulig. Problemene kan virke uoverstigelige. Men veien blir til mens vi går, og blir det enighet om reduksjoner til for eksempel ett eller noen få hundre våpen for hver, skapes det en annen verden som åpner for nye muligheter.

Egentlig har vi ikke noe valg. Den beste – og kanskje den eneste – måten å hindre at atomvåpen blir brukt er å fjerne dem.

Mordechai Vanunu:

“Who is in prison now, me or the Israelis? I am free.”

Mordechai’s father was a rabbi, and Mordechai was raised to believe that only Jews are made “in the image and likeness of God”, and that Jews are in every way superior  to all non-Jews, who are only put on Earth to serve the Jews. 

However, Mordechai rejected these Talmudic teachings of Jewish supremacism, and was baptized as a Christian in Australia in 1986.

As a scientist, Mordechai had worked on Israel’s then secret production of nuclear missiles. Realizing that these missiles were being produced with the collusion of France, the United States, and the United Kingdom, and with the aid of Jewish spies throughout the world; and discovering that their targets included Rome and other European capitals, and realizing that the response to an attack on Israel from any one enemy would be the slaughter of most of the population of the Middle East (Cairo, Tehran, Damascus, Beirut, etc) as well as much of the population of Europe; Mordechai decided to blow the whistle on this Satanic scheme, and spoke to British newspapers.  

Israeli agents abducted Mordechai in Italy, smuggled him to Israel, where he was held in solitary confinement after a secret trial.  

Vanunu revealed details of his detention by writing on his hand: “Vanunu M was hijacked in Rome. ITL. 30.9.86, 21:00. Came to Rome by fly BA504.”

From Wikipedia:

Abduction

While in Sydney, he met Peter Hounam, a journalist from The Sunday Times in London. In early September 1986, Vanunu flew to London with Hounam, and in violation of his non-disclosure agreement, revealed to the Sunday Times his knowledge of the Israeli nuclear programme, including photographs he had secretly taken at the Dimona site.

The Sunday Times insisted on verifying Vanunu’s story with leading nuclear weapon experts, including former U.S. nuclear weapons designer Theodore Taylor and former British designer Frank Barnaby, who agreed that Vanunu’s story was factual and correct. Vanunu gave detailed descriptions of lithium-6 separation required for the production of tritium, an essential ingredient of fusion-boosted fission bombs. While both experts concluded that Israel might be making such single-stage boosted bombs, Vanunu, whose work experience was limited to material (not component) production, gave no specific evidence that Israel was making two-stage thermonuclear bombs, such as neutron bombs. Vanunu described the plutonium processing used, giving a production rate of about 30 kg per year, and stated that Israel used about 4 kg per weapon. From this information it was possible to estimate that Israel had sufficient plutonium for about 150 nuclear weapons.

Vanunu states in his letters that he intended to share the money received from the newspaper (for the information) with the Anglican Church of Australia. Apparently, frustrated by the delay while Hounam was completing his research, Vanunu approached a rival newspaper, the tabloid Sunday Mirror, whose owner was Robert Maxwell. In 1991, a self-described former Mossad officer or government translator named Ari Ben-Menashe alleged that Maxwell had tipped off the Mossad, possibly through British secret services, about Vanunu. It is also possible that they were alerted by enquiries made to Israelis or to the Israeli Embassy in London by Sunday Mirror journalists.

The Israeli government decided to detain Vanunu, but determined that to avoid harming its good relationship with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and not to risk confrontation with British Intelligence, Vanunu should be persuaded to leave UK territory under his own volition. Masquerading as an American tourist called “Cindy”, Israeli Mossad agent Cheryl Bentov befriended Vanunu, and on 30 September persuaded him to fly to Rome with her on a holiday. Once in Rome, Mossad agents illegally drugged and carried him to Israel on a freighter, beginning what was to be more than a decade of solitary confinement in Israeli prisons.

On 5 October, the Sunday Times published the information it had revealed, and estimated that Israel had produced more than 100 nuclear warheads.

Imprisonment

Vanunu was put on trial in Israel on charges of treason and espionage. The trial, held in secret, took place in the District Court in Jerusalem before Chief Justice Eliahu Noam and judges Zvi Tal and Shalom Brener. He was not permitted contact with the media but he wrote the details of his abduction (or “hijacking” as he put it) on the palm of his hand, and while being transported he held his hand against the van’s window so that waiting journalists could get the information.

On 27 February, 1988, the court sentenced him to 18 years’ imprisonment from the date of his capture. The Israeli government refused to release the transcript of the court case until, after the threat of legal action, it agreed to let censored extracts be published in Yedioth Ahronoth, an Israeli newspaper, in late 1999.

The death penalty in Israel is restricted to special circumstances. In 2004, former Mossad director Shabtai Shavit told Reuters that the option of extrajudicial execution was considered in 1986, but rejected because “Jews don’t do that to other Jews.”

The Israeli government kept him in near total isolation for more than 11 years, allegedly out of concern that he might reveal more Israeli nuclear secrets and because he was still bound by the contract that swore him to secrecy on the subject. While in prison, he refused psychiatric treatment.

Many critics argue that Vanunu had no additional information that would pose a real security threat to Israel, and that the Israeli government’s real motivation is a desire to avoid political embarrassment and financial complications for itself and allies such as the United States. By not acknowledging possession of nuclear weapons, Israel avoids a US legal prohibition on funding countries which proliferate weapons of mass destruction. Such an admission would prevent Israel from receiving, as it does now, more than $3 billion each year in military and other aid from Washington.

Ray Kidder, then a senior American nuclear scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has said:

“On the basis of this research and my own professional experience, I am ready to challenge any official assertion that Mr. Vanunu possesses any technical nuclear information not already made public.”

His last appeal against his conviction, to the Supreme Court of Israel in 1990, failed.

While in prison, Vanunu says, he took part in small acts of rebellion, such as refusing to talk with the guards, reading only English-language newspapers, and watching only BBC television. “He is the most stubborn, principled, and tough person I have ever met,” said his lawyer, Avigdor Feldman.

Release and asylum applications

In 2004, shortly before his scheduled release, Vanunu remained defiant under interrogation by the security service, Shin Bet. In recordings of the interview made public after his release, he is heard saying “I am neither a traitor nor a spy, I only wanted the world to know what was happening.” He also said, “We don’t need a Jewish state. There needs to be a Palestinian state. Jews can, and have lived anywhere, so a Jewish State is not necessary.”

Vanunu was released from prison on 21 April 2004. He indicated a desire to completely dissociate himself from Israel, initially refusing to speak in Hebrew, and planning to move to Europe or the US as soon as the Israeli government would permit him to do so.

A number of restrictions were placed upon Vanunu by Israeli authorities, who stated their reason was fear of him spreading further state secrets and that he is still bound by his non-disclosure agreement. These stipulate that he must inform the authorities of his place of residence and his movements between cities, and may not leave the country. These restrictions were extended to April 2006,[24] and then April 2007, due to his violations of court rulings. While a court found in 2005 that he should be free to go to the Gaza Strip and West Bank, the 2006 restrictions explicitly forbade him to visit either, reversing the court’s initial decision. In addition, Vanunu is not allowed to meet with foreigners or contact them by phone or e-mail, enter or approach any embassy, visit any port of entry, or come within 500 metres of any international border crossing.

Vanunu says that his knowledge is now outdated and he has nothing more he could possibly reveal that is not already widely known. Despite the stated restrictions, since his release Vanunu has freely given interviews to the foreign press, including a live phone interview to BBC Radio Scotland.

On 22 April 2004, Vanunu asked the Norwegian government for a Norwegian passport and asylum in Norway for “humanitarian reasons,” according to Norwegian news agencies. He also sent applications to other countries, and stated that he would accept asylum in any country because he fears for his life. Former conservative Norwegian Prime Minister Kåre Willoch asked the conservative government to give Vanunu asylum, and the University of Tromsø offered him a job. On 9 April, 2008, it was revealed that Vanunu’s request for asylum in Norway was rejected in 2004 by Erna Solberg, Minister of Local Government in the coalition government lead by then Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik. While the Norwegian foreigner directorate (State Department) (UDI) had been prepared to grant Vanunu asylum, it was suddenly decided that the application could not be accepted because Vanunu had applied for it from outside of the borders of Norway. An unclassified document revealed that Solberg and the government considered that extracting Vanunu from Israel might be seen as an action against Israel and thereby unfitting the Norwegian government’s tradition role as a friend of Israel and as a political player in the Middle East. Since the information has been revealed, Solberg has rejected criticism and defended her decision.

Vanunu’s application for asylum in Sweden has also been rejected on the grounds that Sweden, like Norway does not accept absentee asylum applications. He also unsuccessfully requested asylum in the Republic of Ireland, which would require him to first be allowed to leave Israel. He has not applied for asylum in his native Morocco.

In 2006, Amnesty International’s British branch chief, Keith Allen, wrote that Microsoft handed over the details of Vanunu’s Hotmail email account by alluding that he was being investigated for espionage. This happened before a court order had been obtained.

International calls for his freedom of movement and freedom of speech made by organizations supporting Vanunu have been either ignored or rejected by Israel.

On 15 May 2008, the Norwegian Lawyer’s Petition for Vanunu was released. It calls on the Norwegian government to urgently implement a three-point action plan within the framework of international and Norwegian law and allow Vanunu to travel to, live and work in Norway.

Arrests and hearings

Vanunu was denied parole at a hearing in May 1998. Five years later, parole was again refused. At this parole hearing, Vanunu’s lawyer Avigdor Feldman maintained that his client had no more secrets and should be freed. But the prosecution argued that the imminent war with Iraq would preclude his release. After the hearing Mr Feldman said:

“The prosecutor said that if Vanunu were released, the Americans would probably leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel’s nuclear weapons – which I found extremely ridiculous.”

The real force blocking Vanunu’s release who had been known only as “Y” was exposed in 2001 as Yehiyel Horev, the head of Mossad’s nuclear and military secrets branch. Following his release in 2004, Vanunu appeared in Israeli courts on numerous occasions on charges of having violated the terms of his release. He was arrested and detained for attempting to go to Bethlehem, on at least one occasion his room in St. George’s Cathedral was raided by policemen and his belongings were confiscated.

On 11 November 2004, Vanunu was arrested by the International Investigations Unit of the Israeli police at around 9am while eating breakfast. The arrest stemmed from an ongoing probe examining suspicions of leaking national secrets and violating legal rulings since his release from prison. Police officers wearing bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns entered into the walled compound of St. George’s Anglican Church in East Jerusalem, where Vanunu had been renting a room since his release. Police removed papers and a computer from his room. After a few hours’ detention, Vanunu was put under house arrest, which was to last seven days.

On 24 December 2004 in a vehicle marked as belonging to the foreign press, Vanunu was apprehended by Israeli Police while he was attempting to enter the West Bank in violation of his release restrictions (see above), allegedly to attend mass at the Church of the Nativity. After posting bail of 50,000 NIS, he was released into five-day house arrest.

On 26 January 2005 the BBC reported that its Jerusalem deputy bureau chief, Simon Wilson, was banned from Israel after he refused to submit interview material made with Vanunu to Israeli censors. Vanunu gave the interview in violation of court orders. Wilson was allowed to return to Israel on 12 March 2005 after signing an apology letter acknowledging that he defied the law.

On 17 March 2005 Vanunu was charged with 21 counts of “contravening a lawful direction” (maximum penalty two years’ imprisonment per count) and one count of “attempting to contravene a lawful direction.”

On 18 November 2005 Vanunu was arrested at the al-Ram checkpoint north of Jerusalem as he was returning by bus from the West Bank. The Israeli authorities say Vanunu’s travel ban includes visits to the Palestinian territories.

On 13 April 2007 Vanunu was informed that the Israeli government has continued his house arrest in Jerusalem and has renewed all the restrictions against him, for the fourth time and third year of detention in east Jerusalem.

On 30 April 2007 Vanunu was convicted of violating the order barring foreign contacts and traveling outside Jerusalem.

In July 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to a further six months imprisonment for speaking to foreigners and traveling to Bethlehem. The court’s sentence was unexpected, and even the prosecution expected the court to hand down a suspended sentence, meant solely as a deterrent. Following his sentence, Vanunu commented that his conviction proved that Israel was still ruled, in effect, by the British Mandate because the law under which he was convicted is from that era. “Maybe I need to turn to the Queen or to Tony Blair in order to grant me justice,” he said.

While having dinner at the American Colony in East Jerusalem with a foreigner, Vanunu was arrested for the second time on a Christmas Eve.

On 7 January 2008, the day before his appeal against the above sentence was to begin, Israel instead re-sentenced him to six months of community service.

On 19 February 2008 Vanunu wrote: “The court hearing today Feb. 19 was again postponed, because of a small snow here. We are waiting for the next hearing date” which would be “soon.” Vanunu’s appeal hearing was scheduled to resume on 23 March 2008 but on that date he learned that it was rescheduled to 13 May 2008.

On 7 April 2008 Vanunu learned that Israel had renewed the restrictions against him for the fifth year. On 9 April 2008 it was reported that Norway had joined Sweden, Canada and Denmark in refusing asylum to Vanunu. [That's strange; they all have no problem granting asylum to Muslim terrorists.]

On 9 April 2008 unclassified documents revealed that the former Norwegian coalition government led by former prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik denied Vanunu asylum in 2004 as a supportive action to the Israeli government.

On 13 May 2008 Vanunu wrote that although three judges attempted to convince the Government Lawyer to offer community service in East Jerusalem, it was denied. Vanunu’s appeal against his six months jail sentence was set to resume on 8 July 2008.

On 15 May 2008 the Norwegian Lawyer’s Petition called upon the Norwegian government to urgently implement a three-point action plan within the framework of international and Norwegian law, to grant Vanunu asylum and permission to work and stay in Norway.

On 8 July 2008 Israeli judges announced that they would delay their decision until September.

On 23 September 2008 the Jerusalem District Court announced: “In light of (Vanunu’s) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy, we believe his sentence should be reduced.” Vanunu said his health is fine and that, “The issue is about my right to be free, my right to speak and my right to leave the state.”

In October 2008, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond called for Vanunu’s release, saying:

“The Scottish Government is well aware of the campaign by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and supports the lifting of all restrictions imposed on Mr Mordechai Vanunu.”

November 26, 2008:

“Vanunu’s Supreme Court appeal fighting a three month jail sentence [reduced from six] for speaking to foreigners — who happened to be media — in 2004, is scheduled to be heard in the New Year.”

Support, awards and honours

Amnesty International described his treatment as constituting “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment [...] such as is prohibited by international law.”

Vanunu received the Right Livelihood Award in 1987, and was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Tromsø in 2001. He was nominated by Joseph Rotblat for the Nobel Peace Prize every year from 1988 to 2004.

In March 2009 Vanunu wrote to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo:

“I am asking the committee to remove my name from the list for this year’s list of nominations. I cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres [the President of Israel].”

Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Risks Arrest, Again

Mordechai Vanunu interview 2004.08.18

By AMY GOODMAN

Mordechai Vanunu worked as a nuclear technician at Dimona, Israel’s secret nuclear installation from 1976 to 1985. He worked there at a time when Israel was insisting it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East. What Vanunu discovered is that Israel had secretly developed an extensive nuclear program, hiding its existence from the Israeli people and parliament, and the world.

Vanunu leaked information and photos of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the Sunday Times in London. He was subsequently kidnapped by Israeli spy agency Mossad in Italy and then jailed. He would go on to spend 18 years behind bars including 11 in solitary confinement.

He was released on April 21 under strict government restrictions.

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman reached Vanunu on his cell phone in East Jerusalem where he has been staying since his release in April. He defied the Israeli government’s restriction on speaking with foreigners to talk with us.

Democracy Now! aired the first part of its interview with Vanunu on its Aug. 18th broadcast. (The remaining portions of the interview will be aired on Aug. 19th)

Below is a transcript of the first part of the interview. 

AMY GOODMAN: Hello? Is this Mordechai Vanunu?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Hi. This is Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! And I would like to be able to talk to you. We are a public radio and television program in the United States.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Good evening.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to be with you.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: How does it feel to be free? How does it feel to be out of prison?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well it is wonderful to be free. But I am not allowed to speak to foreigners and I am not allowed to leave the country. So I’m not so happy. But on the other side I am very glad that I can at least enjoy some freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli government has called you a traitor. What is your response to that?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well, I answer this. When I get out of the prison, I am saying many, many times that I am very glad, happy and proud to reveal its nuclear secrets to all the world and to let all the world to see the stupidity of Israel’s nuclear weapons policy and the danger of a nuclear weapons policy in secret by Israel. And I was not a traitor. The real traitors are Israel’s government who was behind this nuclear weapons policy for 40 years, and continues. They are betraying the Israeli citizens, and betraying the Arab community, and betraying all of humanity and the world, the human beings of all the world. They are the real traitors.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the secrets that you reveal that you think were most significant?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Excuse me, but I could not understand, hear you.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain, Mordechai Vanunu, the secrets you feel were most significant for the world to know? You were imprisoned 18 years ago. Can you say what you were trying to reveal to the world?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well, it was very open and very clear: the secrets that were published by the Sunday Times in 1986. The main points were: one, the amount of Israel’s nuclear weapons, how many Israel had, that no one could predict or know, including the CIA. They were thinking about a number like 10 or 15. But I came out with a number between 150 to 200. Second point is no one here could predict or know that Israel was involved or started producing the hydrogen bomb — the most advanced and powerful atomic bomb that can kill millions of people. And that has no justification — no need for Israel’s existence. They don’t need hydrogen bomb. That was my revelation that was proved, with photos, to all of the world. That was the very important news that I brought to the world.

AMY GOODMAN: And how did you know this?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I knew that because I worked in the place, in the building where my job was producing the materials for nuclear weapons. My job was to produce plutonium that was used for atomic bomb. I knew how much they produced every day, every year. So I could make out the amount and see exactly how many bombs can they do. I also was producing, working on other materials for the hydrogen bomb. They call it lithium-6 and tritium. I was working on these and the only use for lithium-6 is the hydrogen bomb. And I also take photos of hydrogen bomb, from another part of the building. It was not part of my job, but I succeeded to go and take photos of the hydrogen bomb. My revelation was Israel [had] started producing a neutron bomb. I succeed to take photograph of the model of the neutron bomb. This means Israel was ready to use nuclear weapons in the next war, in 1986 if it had war with Iraq, or Iran or Syria. It could use them against armies. That means the beginning by Israel using atomic bomb…. That was the most dangerous point in the Middle East: Israel, they could have used nuclear weapons like no other state there…

AMY GOODMAN: So, Mordechai Vanunu, you say that they had 150 to 200 atomic bombs, that they had developed them. That they were building a hydrogen bomb, and a neutron bomb?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: And have they done that at this point? It’s 18 years later.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I don’t know what they did in 18 years. We can just assume they have much more and powerful, more advanced technology, all the new computers, everything could be much more easier and help them to build much more and many more nuclear weapons. I just assume. I don’t have any new information, what happened in 18 years.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you describe what you did at that point? You took photographs, you wanted to get the information out. How did you end up doing that? And how did you end up being captured?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: When I worked in Dimona in 1980’s, I decided I was going to bring this information to the world. Because they were lying, cheating and no one predicted or knew what exactly was happening. So, all the information was in my brain. In my mind. I worked every day there, so I knew all the details. But I needed only some proof. So the proof was photos. I smuggled the camera, it was no problem to smuggle the camera there. And I took 60 photos, two films, during the time when there was no one in the control room, in the building. Night shift or Saturday shift there are less people. After that I didn’t develop the films. I keep them closed because I knew that if I develop them, someone can report me to the Shin Bet. So I decided the only place I can speak to the world is from outside Israel. So decided immediately to leave Israel as soon as possible. And with the two films went on my way towards the United States. But I decided then to take them to the far east because I knew with speaking these secrets there would be danger to my life and could end my freedom. So that was then. And I also did not have much experience with the media. But on the way, I met someone who brought me to the Sunday Times. And the Sunday Times made the story. And I gave them the films, the photos. And that’s how we had the Sunday Times article.

AMY GOODMAN: And how, Mordechai Vanunu, were you ultimately captured?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: When they heard, when they receive the information about what I am doing in London. Even before London they come, two agents of the Mossad come to Sydney, Australia, when I first meet Peter Hounam, the Sunday Times journalist, they started to follow me. They continued to follow me in London and tried to stop the article by all they could do. So, what they decide to do is to kidnap me. The way is to send someone to bring me to Rome, because they did not want to kidnap me in England. They sent an agent, a woman and American citizen working for some US secret organization. They used her. They convinced her to bring me to Rome. I decided that I should leave London because I knew that they followed me in London. I said I should run away from London. So after the Sunday Times published the article I decided to go with her to Rome. When we arrived to Rome, they were waiting for me in her home, and immediately they jump on me and drug me and took me by car from that home to an abandoned ditch — where there was a yacht waiting in the sea. From the sea came a boat with some Israeli commando soldiers who took me by the commando boat to the yacht and put me on the yacht. In the yacht I asked people, who are you. And they said we are Israelis, French and British. I saw French men who speak only French, I saw Israeli men who speak English, I never saw any British. But they say there are British. There are much more involved. Many more countries involved in the kidnapping. Like, the Italian driver who drove us from the airport, the American woman, Cindy. She is not Jewish. She is not an Israeli woman. She is an American woman from Philadelphia. All these, this cartel of spies who kidnapped me was the same group also involved in the nuclear proliferation during the Cold War. They tried to [inaudible] the man who tried to reveal their nuclear proliferation to Israel and to try and stop this nuclear proliferation. So they kidnapped me and sent me back to Israel. Israel silenced me for 18 years.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know Cindy’s full name?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: No. She just used the name Cindy. But if there is any real investigation, they can go to the British airport and find the files they filled in 1986 in October. The airplane is British Airways Flight 405 to Rome. There are files that can reveal her own identity. I have the airplane ticket from London to Rome with her signature. But Israel’s Shin Bet, the Mossad do not want to give it to me. They are holding it [inaudible] at the moment.

AMY GOODMAN: So you weren’t suspicious of her from the beginning? Are you saying that she lured you with a physical relationship?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I wasn’t suspecting her, because I thought what they can do in Rome they can do anywhere. They should not bring me to Rome. But her task was to lure me to Rome. And I went with her to Rome.

AMY GOODMAN: So, when they captured you, you contend that they drugged you, they brought you to Israel. Talk about the famous photograph of you in the back of an Israeli vehicle with your hand up. You’d written a number on it.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: When I arrived to Israel, they told me you are not allowed to speak about the kidnapping, just secret. I was very angry. I don’t accept such rule. I said the kidnapping is a crime. I have the right to speak about the crime done against me. They didn’t like me to speak about this crime. So I decided to reveal it to the public. I also was worried that they are spreading lies. They tried to say that I wasn’t kidnapped. I’d come back. It means if I’d come back to Israel, it means I was a spy, a Mossad spy who had revealed some secret and come back. So the kidnapping is the proof that what I said was true… So I decided to let the world know this truth. So when I had the opportunity to come to talk to public after 7 weeks in the ShinBet jail, I wrote on my palm hand, Vanunu Mordechai kidnapped in Rome. So I used the word hijacked, not kidnapping, because I didn’t know English very well at the time. And then we now added to the press, I put my palm on the ground, and they saw the message. And that message destroyed another conspiracy to cheat the CIA and many [others] who didn’t know the truth about how I ended up in Israel. And those spies who kidnapped me tried to save their face or their game, their spy game, by cheating the world telling them the men who kidnapped you would return. So I destroyed another cheating by the palm hand destroyed by a very big game.

AMY GOODMAN: We are talking to Mordechai Vanunu, who is speaking out for the first time on a national broadcast in the United States on Democracy Now!, the largest public media collaboration in the country. You were imprisoned for 18 years. Can you talk about your treatment in jail.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well, the Shabak Mossad, ShinBet Mossad were very very angry upset with my revelations. After making a mockery [of them] to all the world… They were very angry and they tried to destroy this man who made them zero in all the world. The spy organization who was respected in all the world find themselves naked. So they decided to get him to give themselves the chance to change this man to destroy him to make him … to prove that they are still strong, this spy organization. So from the beginning they put me in total isolation for seven weeks after my kidnapping they even didn’t admit I am in an Israeli prison. No one knows where I am. Only by my standing against the judge and all the Israelis who wanted to keep me in administrative arrest. I demanded I should be in trial-no administrative arrest– so that forced them to admit I am in an Israeli prison.

Next they decided to put me in total isolation. The first two years, they keep me in a small room, filled with light 24 hours and camera inside. I couldn’t sleep for two years, they tried to break my nerves. They used a lot of psychology to brainwash. I demanded to meet a priest. They give me a priest, but without able to speak to him or him speak to me, only through notes. A ShinBet man sitting near the priest, reading the notes. I’m sending him notes, they’re reading them. We couldn’t meet as a human being. A woman came to Israel from U.S. I had a girlfriend. She came to see me. And again they did not let us meet, they said only by notes, you cannot speak to her, touch her nothing, so I refused to this condition.

During the 11 and half years I was in total isolation alone in a cell, only for two hours everyday to go to walk in a courtyard also alone. The cell was also isolated from all the prison. I was allowed to meet my family every two weeks for a half hour. I wasn’t allowed to use the phone. My mail was delayed for three months and censored. Some of it disappeared, some destroyed. The Ashkelon prison was controlled by Shabak Mossad, because they have a section inside the prison. Could you believe Shabak Mossad are sitting inside the prison hiding themselves from the people. They used the guards to control the prison so the real people who control the prison is the Shavak Mossad

AMY GOODMAN: Where is the Ashkelon Prison?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Ashkelon prison is… about 40 miles from Tel Aviv or 20 miles from Dalia .

AMY GOODMAN: How did you maintain your sanity? You were completely isolated for how many years in solitary confinement?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: 11 years in total isolation. I decided from the first weeks that it’s going to be a big war between me and the Shabak-Mossad who are now my enemy, and they will do all they can to destroy me, and I shall do all I can to survive. So I use my simple brain, and my initiative. Like if they say I cannot speak to anyone, I decided I can speak, I spoke by reading in a loud voice from the New Testament in English… I used to do a lot of psychology exercises or physical exercise, I did Yoga. I hear the BBC World Service, I hear the Voice of America. I read books, and I used to follow anything that happened to me there, anything that come by food, by letter, anything I knew. The Shabak Mossad psychologic spy are fighting me and I should follow them. That was my way, and I also use the music after five years, I started hearing opera, opera, it was very good instrument to keep the spirit very strong because you feel like you are yourself singing opera, and I used to hear a lot of opera, they send me tapes. I used to hear the opera Fidelio. That was similar to my story. I used a lot of psychology for my initiative.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Mordechai Vanunu. He is now out of jail after 18 years. Are you allowed to speak on the telephone?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I’m allowed to use the phone, but I’m not allowed to speak to foreigners. Now when I am speaking is contrary to the restriction. But I think because I have given interview to the BBC and the day passed, nothing happened and I think – what I’m talking is about my humanity, my human rights and I think it’s the government, or either a spy, who looks very stupid to fight someone who is speaking about his freedom of speech, freedom of movement, his human being, human rights. So I don’t think they will be stupid [enough] to arrest me or to question. But if they can do anything – it is Israel. Israel, all of the world knows, they’re [able] to do anything.

AMY GOODMAN: Mordechai Vanunu can you talk about the restrictions on you right now since you have left prison. First of all where are you?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Since I left the prison April 21st, I took straight car from the prison to Saint George Cathedral in East Jerusalem, so I’m staying now in the Saint George Cathedral guest house. The Bishop accepted me and is expecting me to stay here, and since that day until now I’m sitting here, and the restriction is not to speak to foreigners for 6 months, that is a very stupid restriction. I can speak to any Israeli citizen about anything, but not to foreigners. And I rejected this restriction by speaking English to everyone. The other restriction is if I want to move from Jerusalem to another city, I should [notify] the police. Anywhere I want to move, I should [notify] the police. If I want to sleep in other home, I should [notify] the police. I am not allowed to go to any embassy, because they are afraid I will go ask for asylum. Another important, very danger- or important restriction is not to leave the country for one year, I’m not allowed to leave Israel for one year, they are not giving me a passport. So, those are the restrictions. We appealed to the Supreme Court. The leader of the Supreme Court followed the Shabak Mossad demand in fact they just give them another stamp. The Supreme Court again proved to be injustice, and not respecting the basics of democracy, the basics of human rights – to have the right of movement and the right of movement and the right of freedom of speech.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you like to leave Israel?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Absolutely. I want to leave Israel after suffering seventeen and a half years in total isolation and very cruel , barbaric treatment by the Mossad Shabac inside the prison. Also because Israeli media damaged my image in all of Israel amongst the Jewish people, and some of them hate me, some of them threatened my life when I was released. Some of them are anti-Vanunu because I became a Christian, so I am not free and I am not safe in Israel. And I am demanding to leave Israel to be free… It could only happen in a free state, the United States or Europe.

AMY GOODMAN: Would you like to move to the United States?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Yes. I would like to move to the United States. I have adopted parents in Minnesota. I have many, many friends in the United States, who used to write to me and send me letters and cards for many years during eighteen years. I read a lot of your history of United States and am very appreciative of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. freedom.

AMY GOODMAN: What date were you released from prison, Mordechai Vanunu?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: April 21.

AMY GOODMAN: So it’s April 21, and now we’re coming on the end of August. May, June, July, August. Four months later, why have you decided to speak out at this point? Which could well risk your having access to a telephone or – well, it’s not clear what will happen now that you are violating the restrictions that have been placed upon you.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: When I came out of prison, I was ready to speak. But what happened is we met a very large riot of rightwing people, religious Jewish people who threatened my life. Then my brother was staying with me, and others say “Don’t speak. Stay in the center. Don’t get out. Don’t have any access to the media.” But I am now, since my two months of work start speaking after the BBC interview, I am ready to speak. Why does the media didn’t come to me? I was ready to speak. Then I start giving my phone number and meeting people… So I am ready to speak because I used all my fight and want in seventeen and a half years in prison was the demand for freedom of speech. I believe the human being have the right to freedom of speech. I don’t have any secrets. All what I’m speaking about is my view. My political view as a human has a right to express his view in any subject. That is my risk speaking again and again, as I am not speaking about secrets, because all the secrets have been published by the Sunday Times. And all what I have to say is my political view. And I have the right to speak them if Israel is a real democracy. And I hope you in the United States will support me, and support my right to freedom of speech. It does not damage Israel. I have a right to say my view, and anyone want to hear me, it’s OK. If any one doesn’t want to hear, they have the right to not to hear.

AMY GOODMAN: The foreign affairs and defense committee chair Yuval Steinitz of Likud party, said that you should be returned to prison or placed in administrative detention or house arrest to prevent you from revealing more of Israel’s nuclear secrets. He said that you broke the law by giving an interview to the Arabic newspaper al Hayat and should be prosecuted for it. He said that it’s unfortunate that the defense establishment doesn’t take the committee’s recommendation to place you under house arrest as was done with Marcus Klingberg who was convicted of espionage. And then you have the member of Knesset, Ophir Pines-Paz of Labor, who said you are playing with fire and continuing to hurt Israel’s security, saying I don’t know why this phenomenon is being treated with equanimity. He said this is a professional provocateur who’s making a joke of the legal system. Your response.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: My view, there is people who make jokes is they – those who put the stupid restriction not to speak to foreigners, that I am allowed to speak to Israel, but then not allowed to speak to foreigners. If they had said I have secrets, then they should say you are not allowed to speak to anyone, not only to the foreigners. If there is danger, they should say from the beginning, “Don’t speak to anyone.” So they make joke from themselves, not me. Second point, Marcus Klingberg, the spy, was released from freedom before ending his sentence, so he was under restriction because he was freed five years before the end of his sentence, so they gave him this privilege to get out and to live in freedom. If they had want me, they should have done the same with me, take me out of prison five years ago. But in my case I am after seventeen and a half years in prison, served all my sentence, and I should be free and should be allowed to leave the country. And the main point is I have the right to speak my views. I’m speaking my political view, my analysis. I have not revealed any new secrets. I do not have any secrets. All that I’m saying it was repeating what have been published at least eighteen years ago.

AMY GOODMAN: You said that Israel had 100 to 200 atomic bombs and was developing a neutron and hydrogen bomb but at that point didn’t have it.

MORDECHAI VANUNU: The hydrogen bomb was started to be built in 1986 or 1985. I took the photo of part of the real hydrogen bomb which was published by the Sunday Times.

AMY GOODMAN: [And Israel] had already made 100 to 200 atomic bombs?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Yes. They used to produce about 40 kilograms of plutonium each year which is enough for 10 atomic bombs.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was your job at the Dimona plant?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: At the Dimona plant my job was producing plutonium, producing lithium-6, tritium and I also worked part-time in the nuclear waste area where they are dealing with nuclear waste. But my main job was to produce this material: plutonium, lithium, tritium.

AMY GOODMAN: And how long did you work there?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Nine years.

AMY GOODMAN: When you spoke with your co-workers, did other people share your feelings?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: No. No one. Maybe some of them were concerned that Israel was producing nuclear weapons. But no one there doubted what was the policy. Maybe some of them in their hearts they were worried what was going on. But no one would dare to go and speak. That is the difference.

AMY GOODMAN: And who did you see at that plant? Did you see people from other countries coming through — visitors or even working there? Or government officials, perhaps from the United States?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: No. I have no information about foreigners working there… When I worked there they brought the prime minister Shimon Peres in September 1985. In 1984 I saw… the Defense Minister. Every new prime minister and new defense minister came, the head of Mossad, the head of Shabak came to visit to see Israel’s nuclear power, not foreigners. Maybe there were but I didn’t know about it.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do you think Israel being a nuclear power effects the Middle East?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: My view: the nuclear weapons Israel built make it very aggressive and powerful. In 1962 Israel was ready to deal to make real peace with the Arab world after the independence war in 1948… But then I believe some people had the idea to get Israel nuclear weapons, to build the French reactor in Dimona. That power made Israel free not to make real peace with the Arabs; made Israel free not to solve the Palestinian refugee problem. … they [took] the West Bank, Golan Heights and Sinai and keep them until now. Now Israel is much more aggressive, not to give anything to the Palestinians or to make real peace with Syria or Lebanon or Jordan or the Palestinians. So the nuclear weapon is used as a political power. Without even using nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons help Israel do what it wants without respecting international law or respecting the Middle East states… But my view is that my revelation in 1986 it prevented Israel from using nuclear weapons. Otherwise it is my view that they were ready to use nuclear weapons in their next war, it could have happened in the Cold War. My revelation let the world see what they had and made it impossible for Israel to use nuclear weapons.

AMY GOODMAN: Has Israel ever admitted that it had nuclear weapons?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: You and others can find out. I am like you, reading the newspaper, hearing the media. You and others can see what they said. Everyone in fact thinks they have, but they are playing games. My view is that they are cheating themselves. Israel continues to cheat themselves and with the United States play this cheating game — to play like no one is watching them. The king is naked but no one wants to see the king is naked. That is the truth. And Israel is succeeding to impose on the United States and all the world to play this game.

AMY GOODMAN: Did they ever tell you at the Dimona plant not to speak about what you saw inside? AV: I signed a secret document not to speak about anything. More than that no one at Dimona were telling you that you are producing nuclear weapons. No one mentioned the word ‘atomic bomb.’ Some of them there don’t know what they are doing –they are producing materials without knowing exactly what those materials are used for. Everything you are watching there you are not allowed to speak about.

AMY GOODMAN: if they do end up putting you back in detention, if they jailed you again, how do you feel about that?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I would feel very bad but I will continue to demand to be a human being, to believe and to behave as a human being; to have the right to speak; the right to have freedom of speech. And I will continue to demand my total freedom to leave Israel. I hope they will not do not do such a mistake and someone — possibly from abroad, from the United States or Europe — will tell them that they should respect the human rights of this man. And to end this game of tricking the world by claiming there is no atomic bombs when all the world knowing exactly what they do and exactly what they saw when I gave photos to all of the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Mordechai Vanunu, do you have any regrets about what you have done?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Well, what do you expect, if I am strong enough to survive all that they have done to me, it means that I have never regret. And much more, I all the time always was convinced and convinced that I did the right thing. That I was following my conscience and the right of the people in all the world to know such teaching and the most danger atomic bomb subject. And also when I saw the cold war ended and Russia collapse and South Africa become free and the nuclear race ended and the United States and Russia started destroying nuclear weapons from 100,000 nuclear weapons to twenty nuclear weapons, all this only was encouraging me that I did the right thing. And also I think what Israel spy Shabak did to me in prison fighting me that make it very clear that I did the right thing. I’m very happy and glad that I revealed the true face of Israel and let all the world and the Israeli people see the true face of Israel who used to remind the world “holocaust, holocaust” every hour, every day, but in fact Israel have a holocaust factory. This Jewish state was producing holocaust weapons and they have no right to speak about holocaust so I was very happy to reveal this truth.

AMY GOODMAN: Mordechai Vanunu now your life every day, are you confined to the house you are in? How do you spend your days?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: Now I’m staying in St. George Cathedral guest house in East Jerusalem, I decided not to visit the West Jerusalem, not to visit any Israel state because if I’m not allowed to leave Israel, I’m not allowed to speak to foreigners, so I too will not go see Israel. So I’m staying in East Jerusalem, walking around, going to restaurants outside, going to the old city, meeting a lot of Palestinians. Many Palestinians are happy to see me, and very – appreciate what I did, they saw me as a hero. I’m staying in St. George, doing emails, trying to learn computer, trying to read newspaper, watching TV and this summer also enjoy to go to swim – it’s very good psychological treatment to swim everyday. And very happy and glad to meet human beings, I like to meet human beings, to speak and to eat with them and to be among the people. And point – the issue I want to remind you why the Shabak-Mossad will not do anything because if I am staying here in East Jerusalem among the Palestinians, those Palestinians who are recognized by Israel as the enemy, so if I have any secrets I could have passed to this enemy. So if I am staying among Palestinians for three months, four months, the Shabak-Mossad give up, they cannot expect from me anything – so what they can do? So I am staying here in East Jerusalem among Palestinians.

AMY GOODMAN: Mordechai Vanunu, you said that after six months they would lift the restriction on you speaking on the cell phone to foreigners and after a year you could travel. So you’re only two months away from that restriction being lifted and yet you are risking a lot now by speaking on the cell phone to a foreigner. Why take that risk now?

MORDECHAI VANUNU: I don’t know if they will lift the restriction after another two months, they have the right to extend them or to end them, I don’t know what they will do on October 21st. Especially after the supreme court rejected my appeal now they can do anything they want, no one can say anything, they can extend them. The Supreme Court give them a blank check to do what they want so I don’t know. Again, I am not risking anything because what I am telling you, I told to many Israeli people here from the left who come to see me. I said the same to the BBC that was broadcast in Israel TV. So all what I am telling you is repeating what I already said and what I already published 18 years ago. So that was the way to see it and I will not see it as risking anything. I’m only trying to bring my case to the United States to raise the awareness to my case in the United States because I have no chance here in Israel that someone will help me to get out or to receive my rights. I would like that someone in the United States to do for me – to demand my human rights. Imagine if a man like me was in another state. Imagine, or remember what the United States – when Sharansky was in Moscow. What you do, what the Congress in Washington – Senate did – to Russia for nine years when Sharansky was in prison. But when it comes to a man like me in Israel, all the Congress, Senate in Washington is ignoring me and not doing [anything] for my release, or [fighting] for my human rights. So I hope you and others can bring my case and raise the awareness to these situations and demand my human rights.

Comparison with Natan Sharansky:

After being denied an exit visa to Israel from the USSR on the grounds of national security in 1973, he became an activist in the human rights movement led by prominent physicist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, and became internationally known as the spokesperson for the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group. Sharansky was one of the founders of, and spokesmen for, the Jewish and Refusenik movements in Moscow.

In March 1977, he was arrested, and in July 1978 convicted on charges of treason and spying for the United States, and sentenced to 13 years of forced labor. After 16 months of incarceration in Lefortovo prison, he was sent to Perm 35, a Siberian labor camp, where he served for nine years. The fate of Sharansky and other political prisoners in the USSR, repeatedly brought to international attention by Western human rights groups and diplomats, was a cause of embarrassment and irritation for the Soviet authorities. As a result of increasing pressure of a mounting international campaign led by his wife, Avital Sharansky, in 1986, he was released to East Germany and led across the Glienicke Bridge to West Berlin where he was exchanged for a pair of Soviet spies: Karl Koecher and his wife, Hana Koecher. Sharansky then emigrated to Israel.

In 1986, the U.S. Congress granted Sharansky the Congressional Gold Medal for his work in exposing Soviet secrets.

In 2006 US President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

On 17 September 2008, Sharansky was awarded the 2008 Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, by former U.S. first lady Nancy Reagan. Those present at the ceremony included Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Cindy McCain.

April 2005:

Nästa vecka inrikesministern vill förnya, för femte gången, beslut om förbud mot Mordechai Vanunu lämnar Israel. Detta vid sidan av restriktioner utfärdade av hemmafronten Command, förlitar sig delvis på brittiska Uppdrag Akut förordningar som förbjuder Vanunu från närmar utländska ambassader och från att tala med utlänningar. Han har varit begränsad till Jerusalem, och måste rapportera sina rörelser utanför staden. De begränsningar som i praktiken fortsätter att straffa honom för hans brott, för vilket han redan har betalat.

Vanunus trakasserier från Israel Regeringen saknar motstycke och innebär en snedvridning av alla accepterade juridiska normen. Vanunu, som på 1970-talet och 1980-talet arbetat som biträdande tekniker i Dimona kärnreaktor, gav Israel nukleära hemligheter till The Sunday Times år 1986. Som en följd av att han kidnappades av Mossad agenter medan i Italien, drogade, transporteras tillbaka till Israel, försökt dömts anklagade för spioneri och förräderi och dömdes till 18 års fängelse, av vilka han i isoleringscell att nästan körde honom sinnessjuk.

Efter sin frigivning i april 2004, Vanunu försökt lämna landet, för att höja en familj och att börja ett nytt liv. Det har nyligen rapporterat att Norge var beredd att acceptera honom och ge honom ett arbete visum. Men den israeliska regeringen, med ett godtycke och ett ologiskt Förstörelseverkan, vägrar att tillåta detta. Efter Vanunu fullgjort sin mening, en särskild kommitté som ingick rättvisa, försvars-och inrikesministrarna beslutat att införa grym restriktioner för honom. Vanunu vägrade att acceptera detta och brutit mot några av de begränsningar, särskilt förbudet mot att tala med utlänningar. Han gav många intervjuer till utländska medier och har försökt att göra det. I Jerusalem Magistrates’ Court dömde honom till sex månader i fängelse, som har stängts av tills efter hans överklagande hörs i tingsrätten nästa månad.

Vanunu är en svår och komplex person. Han är fortfarande envist, beundransvärt uncompromisingly sant att hans principer, är villig att betala priset. Han vandrar mellan lägenheter och vandrarhem i östra Jerusalem, och har haft problem med att hyra sin egen plats och hitta ett arbete. Palestinierna i östra Jerusalem är rädda för att interagera med honom, medan israeliska judiska samhället förkastar honom och han inte domstolen det.

Det är populärt att försvara Vanunu, en av de mest reviled människor i Israel. Statsråden, mest Knesset ledamöter och högre tjänstemän, däribland justitieminister, har förblivit tysta. Sedan Vanunus frigivningen har det funnits fyra justitieministrar: Yosef Lapid, Tzipi Livni, Haim Ramon och nu Daniel Friedmann. Inte en enda har försökt att ens fråga i vilken utsträckning staten har visat omänsklighet, orättvisor och dumhet i detta smärtsamma kapitel.

Ledande kampanj för att begränsa Vanunu till Israel är försvarsdepartementet viktigaste säkerhetstjänsteman som är ansvarig för att förhindra att information läcker vid Dimona-reaktorn. För år denna ståndpunkt var fylld av Yehiel Horev, vars beteende på många områden var kontroversiellt. Horev avgick flera månader sedan, men hans politik mot Vanunu har varit.

Säkerheten främsta huvudargument som ministrar och högre tjänstemän accepterat till nominella värdet, var att Vanunu fortsätter att hota landets säkerhet. Med andra ord, han synes ha konfidentiell information som han kunde publicera om tillåtelse att lämna landet. Detta antagande är problematiskt. I intelligens verksamhet, man måste utgå från det värsta scenariot, vilket innebär att Vanunu berättade Times allt han visste. Genom statens logik, Vanunu kommer att förbli en säkerhetsrisk för evigt, och de restriktioner som aldrig kommer att hävas.

Man skulle kunna ha förväntat Friedmann, som syftar till att rätta till orättvisorna i det rättsliga systemet, åtminstone ifrågasätta ledningen av försvaret etablering. Han har inte svarat på en begäran från Haaretz för sin ståndpunkt i frågan. Det nya försvarsdepartementet säkerhet chef, Amir Kain vägrade att svara på frågan hur länge Vanunu skulle fortsätta att straffas.

Samtidigt har de begränsningar som förnyas automatiskt varje halvår, hålla Vanunu en fånge av staten. I ett stolt land som firar sin 60-årsdag, som utger sig för att iaktta de rättsliga och moraliska normer av den upplysta världen kunde man ha förväntat sig att fatta mod och göra det möjligt för Mordechai Vanunu vara fria, en gång för alla.

Ref: Haaretz

By Eileen Fleming

March 10, 2009

The best understanding of a martyr is one who chooses to suffer, to die rather than renounce their principles. A martyr is also one who has given themselves up as a witness. The essence of Christianity is to bear witness to what Jesus was always on about; forgiveness, love, reconciliation and the intrinsic equality of all people.

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 declined 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.

More Here

Gerne möchte die kriegerische Lobbyorganisation AIPAC, die in den USA die Interessen der “Falken” in der israelischen Politik und im Militär nachhaltig unterstützt, den Eindruck, erwecken, sie spräche für alle Juden in den USA und letztlich alle Juden auf dieser Welt. Das ist gottlob nicht der Fall. Es gibt weltweit viele jüdische Persönlichkeiten und Organisationen, die die kriegerische Politik der israelischen Militaristen scharf kritisieren. Sie sind allerdings nicht mit solchen extremen Geldsummen ausgestattet wie die AIPAC, und sie sind auch bei weitem nicht so gut vernetzt wie die Rüstungslobly AIPAC.

Im Folgenden dokumentieren wir die Erklärung einer Gruppe von jüdischen Einzelpersonen und Organisationen zur Kriegshetze gegen den Iran, veröffentlicht am 12.8.08:

Bemühungen, die Kriegspropaganda anzuheizen für einen Angriff gegen die Atomanlagen im Iran werden sowohl in amerikanischen wie israelischen Kreisen vorangetrieben. Ein Kommentar in der New York Times vom 18.7.08, geschrieben von dem israelischen Geschichtswissenschaftler Benny Morris, dient genau dem Zweck, diese politischen Kräfte zu unterstützen. Wir als jüdische Opposition bringen an dieser Stelle unsere Empörung über die entsetzlichen Vorschläge zum Ausdruck.

Diese Stimmungsmache für einen Krieg mit dem Iran findet nicht nur den Widerspruch in breiten Kreisen der Bevölkerung; sondern er arbeitet auch der stillen Diplomatie entgegen, die den Iran in fortlaufende Verhandlungen mit der Atomenergiebehörde der Vereinten Nationen einbindet, und auch gegen Handelsvereinbarungen in den USA selber. Israel ist zudem in einen Waffenstillstand eingetreten, der nun seit einem Monat anhält – sehr zur Erleichterung der Völker in Israel und Gaza. Im Angesicht der sich entwickelnden politischen Atmosphäre von Vernunft und Verhandlungen hat die militaristische Mentalität ihre Anstrengungen erheblich verstärkt, die Voraussetzungen für einen weiteren Krieg zu schaffen. Morris bemüht sich, solche Stimmung zu erzeugen, indem er sagt:

“Sie (die Iraner) werden höchstwahrscheinlich jede Bombe auch einsetzen, die sie bauen – sowohl aus ideologischen Gründen als auch aus Angst vor einem israelischen Erstschlag. Deswegen ist ein atomarer Erstschlag wahrscheinlich, um die Iraner davon abzuhalten, die letzen Maßnahmen für den Besitz der Bombe zu vollenden. Die Alternative ist, Teheran seine Bombe zu gewähren. In beiden Fällen ist ein nuklearer Holocaust im Bereich des Möglichen.”

Diese Betonung der Unausweichlichkeit spielt mit der jüdischen und israelischen Erinnerung an den Holocaust der Nazis, um jede nur erdenkliche Quelle der Unterstützung für einen israelischen Milirtärschlag gegen Iran zu mobilisieren. Was eine Reaktion herausfordern würde und zu einem ausgedehnteren Krieg führt, in den die USA hineingezogen wird. Das ist deswegen besonders ungeheuerlich, weil 16 Geheimdienste der USA zu dem Schluss gelangt sind, dass der Iran aktuell über kein Atomwaffenprogramm verfügt, und dies auch in den letzten fünf Jahren nicht der Fall war.

Wir würdigen den Heldenmut von Mordechai Vanunu, der das Atomprogramm Israels öffentlich gemacht hat, und stimmen ein in seine Verurteilung von Israels heimlichem Besitz atomarer Sprengköpfe und unterstützen die Forderung nach einem atomwaffenfreien Mittleren Osten.

Die Mentalität, die nach einem Krieg der gegenseitigen Auslöschung als Lösung der Sicherheitsprobleme ruft, ist erstaunlich widersprüchlich. Nur das Heraufbeschwören einer Bedrohung auf Nazi-Niveau erhofft einem solchen Kriegsruf die nötige Glaubwürdigkeit zu verschaffen, ganz ähnlich wie die Kalkulation auf die Wahrnehmung, die Palästinenser hätten einen Plan, die Juden ins Meer zu jagen. Der Bezug auf eine iranische Ideologie (nämlich dem Islam) hält keiner genaueren Betrachtung stand, denn die politische Herausforderung für Israel durch den iranischen Präsidenten Mahmud Ahmadinejad besteht nicht in einem Aufruf zur Vernichtung (der Juden), auch wenn einige Falschübersetzungen das nahelegen.

Wir streben Sicherheit für alle Betroffenen an, indem wir allen das Recht auf Sicherheit zugestehen. Während wir der Aussicht auf einen unausweichlichen Konflikt keine Glaubwürdigeit zugestehen, widersprechen wir nichstdestoweniger der Hysterie, die von Anti-Iran-Hetzern erzeugt wird, die jetzt großen Eifer zeigen in ihren falschen Ansätzen, einen weiteren unnötigen Krieg vom Zaum zu brechen. Der Versuch, den Iran auf ein Eingehen auf die Resolutionen des UN-Sicherheitsrates zu verpflichten, verliert ihre gesetzliche, diplomatische und politische Durchsetzungskraft, wenn die USA und Israel fortwährend die Diplomatie der Vereinten Nationen ignorieren sowie wichtige UN-Vollversammlungsentschließungen, die die Palästinafrage betreffen. Wir rufen alle Gegner einer militärischen Konfrontation mit dem Iran dazu auf, ihren Regierungsvertretern zu schreiben mit der Forderung, dass Israel seine Nuklearanlagen der internationalen Inspektion unterstellt und den nuklearen Nichtweiterverbreitungsvertrag unterzeichnet, so wie es Iran bereits getan hat, anstatt Kreigsdrohungen auszustoßen.

Die Liste der Unterzeichner hier

Published on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 by The Guardian/UK

Let Vanunu Go

Twenty-two years after Mordechai Vanunu told the truth about Israel’s nuclear weapons, ordinary people must rally to free him

by Mairead Corrigan-Maguire
In 1986, a young Israeli man called Mordechai Vanunu followed his conscience and told the world that Israel had a nuclear weapons programme. He was convicted of espionage and treason and sentenced to 18 years in prison. After serving this (12 years of which were in solitary confinement), Vanunu was released. In April 2004, about 80 people from around the world went to welcome him out of prison. Unbelievably, upon his release Vanunu was made subject to severe restrictions, which forbade him many basic civil liberties (including his right to leave Israel, to speak to foreigners and foreign media) and restricted his travel within Israel.

Each year, around April 21, Vanunu receives a letter from the prime minister renewing these restrictions, and he starts, yet again, the process of appealing against them through the Israeli courts. Most recently, he has been charged with breaking the restrictions by talking to foreign media and sentenced to six months in prison; when he appealed, this was commuted to community service. On July 8, he will appear before an Israeli court regarding this service and his case.

Four years since leaving Ashkelon prison, and 22 years since he told the truth about Israeli nuclear weapons, Mordechai Vanunu lives in modest accommodation in East Jerusalem, unable to earn a living, unaware of what to do to gain his freedom, unable to leave Israel, left wondering if the Israeli security services will ever agree to let him leave the country. They say he is a threat to national security, but everyone knows that it is 22 years since Vanunu worked in the Dimona nuclear plant, and the nuclear industry has moved on. A well-known Israeli nuclear scientist has testified that Vanunu can know nothing about the contemporary industry after such a long period, yet Israeli security insists he is a risk to national security, and the Israeli courts and government refuse to let him go, thereby compounding an injustice, and breaking international laws.

Governments around the world have let Mordechai Vanunu down. They remain silent when they should be demanding that the Israeli government uphold its obligations under the universal declaration of human rights – according to article 13, everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return.

So will Vanunu remain in Israel until he dies, or can anything be done to secure his freedom? I believe his freedom now rests in the hands of the Israeli people themselves. Some years ago I asked a young Israeli friend why she though Israel was holding him. She replied, “because our government does not trust its own people” and she added “if the Israeli people demanded his release, it might be possible he would be free to leave Israel and get on with his life.”

I don’t know if she is right or wrong: I don’t know the Israeli mind or politics well enough to guess. But what I do know is that in the Jewish faith and tradition, there is a great deal of emphasis put on justice and doing what is right. I can now only hope and pray that some Israeli voices will be raised to call for justice for Mordechai Vanunu, who has paid the high price of 22 years of his life for following his conscience. Whether you hate or love Mordechai Vanunu, you have got to admit that he has suffered enough: it’s time to let him go.

Mairead Corrigan-Maguire founded the Northern Ireland Peace Movement (later renamed the Community of Peace People) and won the 1976 Nobel peace prize.

The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.

(Israel ‘has 150 nuclear weapons’, BBC News, 26 May 2008)

BBC is very careful about quoting—they put ‘has 150 nuclear weapons’ in quotes because they don’t claim that this is true, but because it’s just something that Jimmy Carter said. I’m not sure that all BBC readers actually understand this subtlety, but it’s good that they do it.

However, they say that ‘a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.’ Obviously, they refer to Mordechai Vanunu, but he wasn’t a scientist, just a technician. According to vanunu.org, a website that supports Vanunu, it is an “important point often misunderstood or forgotten”; quoting that site, “Vanunu was not an advanced scientist, but a subordinate technical assistant.” But BBC misunderstood and forgot.

I don’t strongly support Vanunu, because he makes too much of a joke out of himself, but i do support nuclear disarmament.

What is the objective condition of Palestinians? They were victimized by superior military power and displaced from their lands of old, ending in a sort of reservation or concentration camp, where they are routinely victimized, while being blamed for transgressions.

Having had the “mask of villain” imposed upon their faces by Western media–almost as a playwright might impose villainous actions upon his antagonist, they find themselves and their religion routinely mocked in the same media, typically in the guise of “humor.” [Parenthetically, this is done by people who elsewhere beat the drums for "tolerance"--the new Masonic watchword which has been added to their other ludicrous watchwords of "liberty, equality and fraternity."]

Bogus Christians have been organized, plied with absurd doctrines that advance Zionism, and let loose to scream taughts at the pitifully injured and distressed Palestinians–many of whom are Christians, somewhat after the Shiites chanting with gleeful mocks, as Saddam Hussein was lynched in a procedure bearing the Federal U.S.’s nihil obstat. This comparison is meant to suggest the deep antipathy of bogus Christians and Shiites for these respective targets, but it is not meant to equate the targets, Palestinians and Saddam Hussein, respectively.

The entirety of the real policy of the Jewish state is to expropriate the property of all the Palestinians, sending them into their “natural” home of The Royal Kingdom of Jordan.

To justify this usurpation, Jews must defeat any enquiry into the question of whether or not they are even Israelites. This cannot be successfully done by intellectual argument upon the evidence, so Jews have organized “the world community” [typically by threatened economic injury] into passing a “snowballing” array of legislation which have the purpose of thwarting and punishing responsible academic investigation. The Western media being largely under Jewish control or economic influence, there is little chance of any meaningful enquiry from that source. Self-serving, tendentious articles don’t amount to “responsible reporting.”

By smoothing the way for corrupt Palestinian leadership to hold nominal sway under the watchdul guns of the Jews, the world is provided a suitable (though temporary) puppet for the “world community” to attend, proffering to this puppet the usual state protocol.

Frequent spokesperson for the “world community,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice typically applauds such movements as being on the “road map to peace.” Naturally, the U.S. president shares this view. What this road map really envisions is an autonomous Palestinian Reservation, under the benign oversight of the kindly Jewish state. Perhaps the Bush family will invest in a casino there, seeing the Palestinian Reservation as a future Las Vegas of the Levant.

If President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Rice envision a “road map to peace” between the gun-loving Jews of the State of Israel (sic) and the puppet Reservation of Palestine, is it not possible for them to bring the same combination of economic and martial pressure elsewhere, including the U.S.A.? If Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice can apply the same principle of “watchful gunfulness” to Bible-believing Christians, won’t a “new road map” result in the long-hoped-for callapse of Christianity itself? Will not the day be near when there will be slot machines in every church?

Far fetched? Maybe not. There are so few members of the Christian clergy at the Watch Tower that the only thing that most Christians are vigilant about is the opportunities for fun. Thankfully, the Rev. Ted Pike mans the Watch Tower still and shouts warnings to the frolicking Christians below. Apparently, he isn’t heard. Consider some matters that he finds compellingly dangerous.

“The State Department ‘Office of Global Anti-Semitism’ says the New Testament claim that the Jews had Christ crucified is ‘classical anti-Semitism’–a historic form of hate. It included as an ‘anti-Semitic incident’ the case of a Polish priest who said Jews killed Christ.”    [AMERICAN FREE PRESS, May 19, 2008, p.9, article by Rev. Ted Pike]

Office of Global Anti-Semitism? As Jews have solidified their power over the American political machinery, they have scattered throughout the major departments of government and agencies of government these “search and destroy” offices, whose sole purpose is to find and destroy opposition to Jewish hegemony on a global scale. The U.S. State Department probably has more than one. Great effort is made to create the image of an upper echelon staff there, which is pro-Arabian, which is Jewish slight of hand for anti-Jewish. This is a mask.

Another Jewish “search and destroy” office is found within the Department of Justice. It is the Office of Special Investigations (“OSI”), which was established in 1979 at the urging of Rep. Holtzman (NY) and other Jews. It is part of the Criminal Division of Justice. It’s first head was a Jew named Neal M. Sher, and he was assisted by a largely Jewish staff. It was created to hunt down Nazis. Recently, Mr. Eli Rosenbaum was appointed to head the OSI. His newly appointed “Principal Deputy” is Ronnie L. Edelman.

Parenthetically, as Michael Chertoff formerly was the head of the Criminal Division at Justice, prior to his appointment to a federal judgeship, followed by appointment to “Homeland Security,” he must have worked closely with these “Nazi hunters.” Since Nazis are getting scare due to natural mortality, and since federal police offices (and most any other federal office) don’t like to perish along with their reason to be, is it not possible that “far-out” Christians and other non-Jewish, “kookie” & “wacko” religions may not be coming into the gun sights soon?

Consider the attack on the religious family at Ruby Ridge, characterized by fedcop lies and “shoot’em-up.” Consider the holocaust of the David Koresh-led congregation at their compound at Waco, TX, which again is characterized by fedcop lies and “shoot’em up.” Lastly, consider the recent assault on the “polygamist” compound of the offshoot Mormon sect. This was inspired by a “sixteen year old girl” who became a phantom. The likelihood is that there never was such a girl, and “authorities” simply wanted a pretext to stop what they probably viewed as a thinly veiled sex cult, whose primary crime from the point of view of federal and Texas authorities was producing too many children. Don’t be surprised if they are shipped off to “foster” homes with lesbians and homosexuals–or even worse.

These types of goverment “search and destroy” missions always begin with groups that seem so different that the mass of people accept the actions as “OK,” not noticing the precedences that are being established which can later be applied to less different groups.

Jews are the Grand Masters of the world in police state operations. They operated all the diabolical policing machinery in the U.S.S.R, along with its concentration camps, which were truly “death camps.” Many disciple of these experts drifted over to the Jewish state or America, where they were welcomed and put to good use. President Bush appointed two such to advise federal agencies on “security” issues. The Israeli Mossad is legendary and operates freely in the U.S. There is advantageous cross-pollination between the Jewish state and its primary colony. 

Consider: “In the many countries now ruled by hate laws, it is already a federal offense to repeat the claim of New Testament ‘hate literature’ that the Jews had Christ crucified…The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith–architect of hate laws worldwide (and primary ideological and statistics-gathering force behind the Office of Global Anti-Semitism)–is moving rapidly to create bias against Christians as haters, particularly of Jews and homosexuals.   [AMERICAN FREE PRESS, supra]

Now, throughout recorded history, in one country after the next, prominent and even great voices have denounced Jews as being full of hate or for hate-spewing. it is a peculiar characteristic of Jews that they consistently accuse others of committing the very crimes that Jews themselves commit. Hence, the Jews see a need to enact “hate crime laws”–not to curtail their own violent hatred of non-Jews but to keep the relatively few honest and intelligent voices left in the world from being able to publish–or even utter–the truths, facts, and evidences which they uncover.

For the same reason there is little doubt that Jews will gain control of every library in the world in which there are books that provide evidence that casts a negative light upon some aspect of Jewry, and steal, destroy or make permanently unavailable such books. In the past Jews have been suspected of burning down libraries. Even now, at the Library of Congress, some books seem “off limits” except to “designated scholars.” Further, if a Jewish-controlled Library of Congress offered to provide “copies,” offending sections may have been removed. All of these things would be done in the name of “decency.”

Parenthetically, many book stores are owned by Jews, and I personally suspect that these stores also act as “filters” by which “indexed” books can be found and removed from circulation by the store owner(s). Knowledge can be power. Why put loaded guns in the hands of children, reason “responsible” Jews.

Consider: “Despite passionate support of Israel by evangelicals, the ADL claims Christianity is inherently anti-Semitic. The ADL says the New Testament is the seedbed of suspicion and blame against Jews leading to the Holocaust of World War II. Televangelist John Hagee, recipient of numerous Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith awards, upholds ADL propaganda. He preaches that Jews did not reject or kill Christ, do not have to accept Him, and that New Testament Christianity is a primary source of anti-Semitism throughout the ages.”   [AMERICAN FREE PRESS, supra)

Although in Jewish-inspired, bowdlerized versions of the Bible, anything is possible, excepting the death and resurrection of Yahshua, in standard texts of New Testament Scripture, it is evident on numerous occasions that Yahshua thought that the Jews were trying to kill him. It is evident that Yahshua was first brought before the High Priests (Edomite Jews), who found him guilty of "capital offences," which warranted death according to their reading of the law. Roman law prohibited their executing Yahshua. Therefore, they sought Rome to be a proxy.

Furthermore, John Hagee and similar televangelists are on national television because they serve the interests of Jewry and serve to advance their agenda, not because Hagee, et al, serve the Most High and Yahshua. As with other "Christian Zionists," televangelists, and other intellectually misbegotten, John Hagee enjoys "third heaping platters" of food, apparently, thanks to the generous gifts from his friends in Jewry. It is too bad that John Hagee and his followers have decided to model themselves after Judas Iscariot, rather than Christ. If they had followed Christ's example, they'd have chased the "money changers" out of the Temple, rather than invite them in, discreetly accepting "bulging envelope donations," as the money changers filed in to set up shop.

John Hagee and his followers try to serve two masters, but everyone knows that the money changers are king with these people.

Duping the "wandering sheep of Israel" isn't a limited game. First, the shearing, then the slaughter. Consider:

"Bible believers aren't the only ones at risk. The State Department report also says it is anti-Semitic to: Allege 'intentionally or unintentionally' that the state of Israel (sic) persecutes Palestinians; criticize 'intentionally or unintentionally' Zionism or Israel if such criticism leads to lowering of public opinion of Jews or the government, military, or people of Israel; publish cartoons depicting the Israeli government and military as similar to Nazis; diminish the 6 million figure of holocaust dead in any amount; allege that Jews exert undue influence in Congress, the White House and the media; and/or allege that American Jews are equally loyal to Israel."   [AMERICAN FREE PRESS, supra]

Who would charge that Jews in America are equally loyal to the Israeli state? They are clearly biased in favor of the Jewish state. Vanunu informed the world of the Israeli state’s development of a nuclear bomb. He was shanghaied into the Jewish state, tried, and sentenced to a long stretch of incarceration. In time he became a Christian. His was and is a remarkable voice that was stifled. No Nobel Prize for Peacewill go to Mr. Vanunu. Yet, he wasn’t an American spy who betrayed the Jewish state. On the other hand the U.S.A. has seen numerous American Jews who spied in behalf of and to advance the Jewish state. Jonathon Pollard, the Navy-based Israeli spy, is a hero to many Jews throughpout the world. He’s probably a hero to “Christian” Zionists here in America.

This State Department report from its Office of Global Anti-Semitism is apparently a preliminary step to getting Congress to pass a “Hate Crime” Law (often with innocuous title), which embodies these concepts and undoubtedly other “nifty” ideas–if you’ll pardon my Orwellian touch.

That Jews do, in fact, have undue influence on the White House and especially the Congress is certain. The Bush administration is like an extension of the Israeli Likud Party. Congress is filled with members who turn to organized Jewry, as flowers turn to the sun. Over half the money donated to the Democrat Party comes from Jews. Jews have also begun to take command of the Republican Party in an open fashion. Jews frequently hold high party positions, regardless of political party in control. There, they operate to advance the ”Jewish world agenda.” They are heavily represented in the most influential areas affecting policy, such as committee staffs. Over half of the high appointees of the Clinton administration were Jews. At least one such appointee wasn’t even an American; he was Australian who had dual Israeli citizenship, and he was placed in an under-secretary position dealing with the Middle East at the State Department or DOD. As America is a de facto colony of World Jewry now, the necessity of a local governor does not carry absolute weight.

Even as Jews gather in increasing numbers at all the powerful position in government, media, entertainment, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve Board, and business, they piously lecture the world on “diversity.” On the outside they are veritible monuments of finest marble, and nobly crafted. Inside, like the Borg of Star Trek, they have consumed hundreds of cultures whose bones rot inside the lovely walls. 

The Rev. Ted Pike–and I–hope that this is not to be the fate of most Christians. We know it can’t happen to all of them. Why? It’s in the Book.

Note: Rev. Pike reminds us that Congress UNANIMOUSLY created this office of thought crimes disinformation in 2004. He ask that you cast your vote to end its influence: call your senators and representative toll-free at 1-877-851-6437. Tell them: “Please revoke funding for the State Department’s Office of Global Anti-Semitism. It does not represent scholarly research but the anti-Christian biases of the Anti-Defamation League.”

Christians, it’s time to stop being prodigal sons and come back to your Father. If you do not, your sons may not even have the life option to be either prodigal or righteous. It’s time to stop the Borg.

Gobigfoot, 2008.

Israël aurait déjoué une attaque terroriste contre le réacteur nucléaire de Dimona, selon des sources britanniques. Les forces de sécurité israéliennes ont arrêté un haut responsable travaillant à Dimona après avoir découvert un plan visant à faire exploser un des chauffages dans le réacteur. L’employé en question serait également soupçonné d’avoir filtré des informations sur le réacteur de Dimona à des sources étrangères. La famille de l’employé de Dimona, qui n’avait pas été informée de son arrestation, pensait qu’il participait à un exercice militaire secret à l’étranger. Les sources britanniques ont également indiqué que le suspect sera bientôt jugé dans un tribunal israélien, tout en assurant que l’affaire est plus grave que celle de Mordehai Vanunu qui a révélé en 1986 au Sunday Times l’existence du programme nucléaire militaire israélien.

Un responsable israélien a cependant nié cette information, tout en la qualifiant de « sans fondement ».