Just a couple of weeks ago, on November 11, anti-nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu was re-arrested in Jerusalem by Israeli police. The Socialist Alliance has joined the call for his immediate release, and the removal of all restrictions on his right to travel internationally and to speak publicly about Israel's stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We are also calling on the Australian government to provide him with asylum in this country, should he request it. We urge all progressive people in Australia to raise their voices in protest at Vanunu's re-incarceration.
Vanunu's story says a great deal about the kind of society we live in, and the highly repressive nature of the Israeli state. Vanunu's story also demonstrates his profound and principled opposition to the existence of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and the lengths to which a state apparatus will go to maintain its grip on political power.
Vanunu was born in Morocco in 1954 to Jewish parents. When he was 9 years old, his family migrated to Israel. From 1971 to 1974 he performed military service in Israel. Between 1976 and 1985 he worked as a nuclear technician at the Nuclear Reactor Centre in Dimona, Israel. During that time he pursued undergraduate and postgraduate studies in philosophy and geography. He was dismissed from his job at Dimona in 1985. In 1986 he travelled extensively in Asia, and visited Australia where he was baptised in an Anglican church.
During his travels, Vanunu contacted various media outlets with information on Israel's secret nuclear weapons program. Eventually, the British Sunday Times published an explosive article based on his evidence, entitled "Revealed: The Secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal". Vanunu's information demonstrated that Israel had stockpiled 100-200 nuclear warheads, without any discussion or agreement from its citizens. It highlighted the tremendous threat of Israel's nuclear weapons to the lives of millions of people in the region. The newspaper's editor at the time, Andrew Neil, later described the revelations as "the most important scoop that the paper carried" while he was editor.
The Israeli authorities have never formally confirmed or denied the truth of Vanunu's claims, but extensive attempts to repress him make it clear that Vanunu had indeed revealed some of Israel's nuclear secrets.
A few days after the article was published, Vanunu was lured to Rome where he was drugged and kidnapped by Israeli secret service agents. He was spirited back to Israel, where he was tried in secret and convicted of treason, espionage and revealing state secrets. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Vanunu was held in solitary confinement for more than 11 years — a terrifying denial of basic human rights. Yet, remarkably, Vanunu's spirit and conviction was not broken by this brutal treatment.
The conditions of his release included being barred from leaving Israel for a year, meeting with foreigners for six months and discussing his work at the highly secret Dimona nuclear facility. He was also denied a passport and forbidden to enter embassies or airports.
When Vanunu appealed the conditions of his release, Israel's High Court judges noted that "the long period he was locked up in prison did not remove his desire and intention to reveal Israel's nuclear secrets".
Although released from prison after 18 years, Vanunu is far from free. His conversations were closely monitored by the Israeli authorities, who have been particularly irked that he has continued to grant interviews with foreign reporters.
Israeli police say he had classified documents when he was re-arrested, and that his notebooks and laptops contained "loads of information that he has not yet revealed".
Vanunu's tenacity speaks of the fundamental nature of human beings, reminding us that we both need and are capable of building a truly democratic, sharing society — socialism. It is people's urge to live co-operative, self-affirming and sustainable lives that provides the engine of an alternative world, free from the massive costs of capitalist exploitation and oppression.
Vanunu is more familiar than many with one of the sharpest ends of the present brutal and destructive social order, and yet his desires and actions also bring into sharp relief other, liberating, possibilities.
"They won't succeed in shutting my mouth", he told reporters not long after his re-arrest. "If you don't have the right to express yourself you are like an animal. The atomic secret has been sold and I have nothing left to sell." Vanunu is currently under house arrest at St George's Cathedral, waiting to be charged.
I urge you to express your public support for Vanunu. Send messages of support to Mordecai Vanunu, St George's Cathedral, PO Box 19018, 20 Nablus Road, Jerusalem, 91191, Israel.
Louise Walker
[The author is a national co-convenor of the Socialist Alliance.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 1, 2004.
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