Mordechai Vanunu and ''The Double Standard''
East Jerusalem, January 8, 2004
From The Inside Looking Out: Report-46
Now that our visas have almost expired, my wife, Sis, and I will be leaving Palestine and Israel for a few weeks. That is more than Mordechai Vanunu can do, hemmed in as he is by official Israeli restrictions, which he ticks off one by one. "Number one: not to leave the country for one year. Number two, if I want to move in Israel, I should report every day to the police where I am going and where I am staying. But I don't want to go into Israel. I want to leave it.
"Number three: Even though, I don't have to report where I am going in Jerusalem, if I want to sleep in another house, even in Jerusalem, I have to report where each night. Number four: I am not allowed to go to the Palestinian territories." So Palestinian East Jerusalem is "home" for now, and the Anglican St. George's Cathedral guesthouse is his current address.
"Number five," he continues, "I`m not allowed to go to any foreign
embassy or foreign consul, and I am not allowed to go to the
airport."
And then there is, "Number six: not to speak to foreigners like you�
especially the news media. And that," he says scornfully, "is a
stupid restriction. Who can know--if you don't see the passport--if
you are speaking to a foreigner? So I am trying to stand against
this restriction. I am trying to tell the authorities they cannot
put such a restriction on my talking."
So he doesn't pay any attention to number six. In fact he is
surprisingly accessible: willing--in fact eager--to just chat non-
stop or to be very intentionally interviewed at length. Anyone who
asks (journalists; admiring Israelis, Palestinians, and
internationals; authors of the humblest of blogs; or members of tour
groups serendipitously fortunate enough to come across him as they
move about East Jerusalem): all are encouraged warmly to come ahead.
But even though he is available to the news media and the curious,
he refuses to speak in Hebrew during interviews or news conferences
being covered by Israeli news organizations, especially radio and
TV. "I am ready to tell my news in Hebrew," he says. "It is very
important, because Israeli media are always telling the people a lot
of distortions about my story; so I need to correct that. But I
don't do it."
Why not?
"Because I am ready to forgive but, he admits, not to forget."
And what he can't forget is an acquired wariness based on what he
feels is the Israeli news media's long running "distorted" coverage
of his kidnapping by the Israeli government back in 1986, his
subsequent trial and conviction followed by eighteen years in prison
(most of that in isolation), and the short leash he has been on
since his release last April. Their handling of his story, he
asserts, demonstrates how the "Israeli media have used propaganda to
develop the minds of the people here to keep quiet about Israel's
big secret, its nuclear weapons program, and also not to respect
Palestinians. Nothing has changed."
There are those, however, who, although sympathetic with his ideals,
courage, and long confinement nevertheless do part company with him
on this specific issue. His thinking, they worry, is convoluted and
counterproductive, a kind of self imposed catch-22. By standing the
Israeli press in the corner, so to speak, when it comes to speaking
Hebrew--especially on TV and radio--he is missing an opportunity to
reach out more directly to more Israelis.
His answer, "The trouble for me is how can I fight the restrictions?
How can I best do that? How can I best express my demand to receive
full human rights: my freedom of speech, my freedom of movement? To
do that I am giving the Israeli news media, who understand my
English very well, a message to get the restrictions lifted. Then I
will talk to them in Hebrew."
But the government makes the restrictions, not the press.
"The media helps the government with its propaganda to build the
minds and the opinions of the people here. I think the media here
are a kind of dictatorship. If the media would help me, that means
the state would do it too."
Failing that, he says, help could come from another quarter but it
has not. "I have to fight against these restrictions by myself,
alone. But if other states would do something to fight Israel on
this not respecting democracy, if they would help me, that would
solve the problem."
But to do that apparently means solving a series of other catch-22s,
beginning with his desire to jettison his Israeli citizenship. "Six
years ago, I ask them to take my citizenship; and they said you
cannot cancel your citizenship unless you have another citizenship.
So I tried to find another country to give me a citizenship. I asked
even Arafat about five or six months ago for the Palestinian
authority to give me citizenship. But the only one to answer was
Sweden.
"Sweden said, we cannot give you asylum, because you are still in
Israel territory. When you are in a foreign territory, then you can
ask. But then some people, who wanted to help me, told the Swedish
that I am in East Jerusalem and that East Jerusalem is not part of
Israel. It has been annexed; it is foreign country. But that has not
convinced Sweden."
He said that he also has officially applied to Norway, Ireland,
Canada, and France; and "indirectly to England and to the United
States. But no one will even give those who are making indirect
approaches for me the papers needed for asking for asylum."
What's your reaction to all those turn downs by so many big
democracies?
"It's very sad. The same thing happened during my eighteen years in
prison. No democratic state demanded my release. So I am used to
fighting by myself. And I understand, why, even when I don't
understand it. I understand that no democratic state wants to risk
the relationship with Israel for one man. But what I don't
understand is the world was doing that during the cold war. All the
democracies were fighting Russia for Andrei Sakharov and Natan
Shransky. All of them were fighting this superpower Russia for
Sakharov and Shransky: punishing it, fighting it, making sanctions
against it for those two men who were doing what I am doing. But
when it comes to the Israel state no one is ready to fight or punish
for my human rights. So it's very strange and unacceptable that the
western states are not doing this for me."
His take on why?
"It's a double standard by the United States and Europe. The United
States has one standard for all the world and one standard for
Israel. When it comes to other states, like Arab states, the United
States is fighting nuclear proliferation. That is one standard. But
with Israel, they don't want to know. They don't want to see. They
don't want to speak. But they know exactly what's going on. Even
more than that, they cooperate. They help each other. So I must keep
on to ask, how can a democracy have one standard for one state and
another standard for another?"
Is that a rhetorical question?
"Maybe the answer is: it is a nuclear conspiracy. Maybe it means
that states in the west don't want to support a man who is fighting
everyone's nuclear weapons, who is continuing to fight alone to
report to the world against Israel's nuclear weapons and against
foreign government who are actually helping the Israeli state to
keep on doing this.. So maybe that is why they don't want me to come
to their states, because I continue talking about this nuclear issue.
Why is it important for us to know as much as we possibly can about
Israeli nuclear development?
"So that Israel cannot play any more games and think that they
actually can be allowed to use the atomic bomb. They must be stopped
because the atomic bomb is a holocaust weapon that is going to kill
children�everyone. It will be genocide."
Are you a one-issue man or is their room for the issue of
Palestinian human rights and freedom?
My case is one issue. But my story is part of the same issues for
Palestine. The same as Israel is doing to Palestine they did to me.
We are suffering from the same government policies.
"So I think, Palestinians can learn from how I stand and fight with
nonviolence. They can fight with nonviolence too, not by condemning
what Israel is doing to them and then doing violence back to Israel,
but by standing very firm and demanding their rights always with
nonviolence."
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This is the forty sixth in a series of micro-reports, commentaries,
and or analyses that I am sending routinely from the Occupied
Territories and other areas in the Middle East. If the information
or ideas seem helpful, please feel free to forward them to others.
It would be a privilege to add their names to this mailing list, if
so requested. I can be reached at: jlevin0320@yahoo.com. As always I
will be grateful for any feedback-- Jerry Levin .
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