Mordechai Vanunu Interview: Last Installment
East Jerusalem, January 10, 2005
From The Inside Looking Out: Report-47
On April 21st, Mordechai Vanunu will have been out of prison for a year, but not out of Israeli custody or jurisdiction. Then at that time the one-year ban on travel outside the country ends.
Maybe.
Like the administrative detentions of thousands of political prisoners in Israeli prisons-Palestinian and Israeli-his circumscribed conditions outside of jail could be extended. In official (and unofficial) circles, there still is amongst Israelis great resentment of his lifting the veil of secrecy surrounding Israel's nuclear weapons program nineteen years ago. And, even though he says he revealed all he knows about the program back in 1986, there is the worry that, if allowed to fly the coop, his denials notwithstanding, he will begin sharing as yet unrevealed secrets that will bring activities at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility into a new and still unwelcome glare of international scrutiny.
And, if that happens, this time the Israeli state probably would not
be able to pull off the kind of caper that resulted in his
kidnapping, secret trial and long-term incarceration. This time,
like Salman Rushdie, he would probably be well protected from an
Israeli-style fatwa. But even if all he knows was revealed in 1986,
a Vanunu on the outside indefatigably pointing out the relationship
between the Israeli nuclear program and its territorial designs on
Palestine could be dangerously infuriating to Israel's land hungry
hawks.
"During the cold war," he says, "when I saw how many weapons they
are producing--more than one hundred, two hundred--I worried that if
I do not publish, this very small state, Israel, could use the
atomic bomb. So I was concerned to prevent that and to contribute to
peace by publishing those nuclear secrets."
That concern was and remains closely linked to the occupation of the
West Bank and Gaza. "I make it known to the world that because
Israel is so powerful, there is no reason to keep the occupation and
not give the Palestinians their rights. That was the real target in
my trying to publish about Israel's nuclear weapons."
If you hadn't gone public, what do you think might have happened?
"I think the direction was toward Israel to use the atomic bomb. My
view is there was a long time conspiracy to try to use it. After
Hiroshima there was no one who used atomic bomb against citizens;
and I think some governments were trying to find someone to do it.
And Israel was ready to use it. So these people think that if Israel
do it, all the world will understand, all the world will accept them
to do it because of Jewish history. That history, they would say,
gives them the right. But then I come out of Israel and prove that
just because of their holocaust history they should not have the
right to bring holocaust on others."
You really thought they would use it?
"Yes, yes. That was the scenario during the cold war: to start a
nuclear war here."
Here?
"Yes. There was behind Israel Christian fundamentalists who want
Armageddon here. And they tried to have Israel bring it."
Can all this, if true, be blamed on the Christian right wing?
"No. But Israel is happy to use them. When Europe Jews came about
one hundred and fifty years ago to this Arab Palestinian region;
they say they are a super race, the chosen people race. And they say
the Palestinians are inferiors and not equal. But even more than
that superior feeling, the people in the regimes of the Israeli
people were believing that they are also in all ways superior to the
west, superior to Europe, and superior to the Unite4d States. And
they still believe it."
But you also talk about Israeli paranoia. Can there be both?
"Yes, of course. At the same time, they have this paranoia feeling
that the world is against them. And they should always be standing
against all the world. When they established the Jewish state in
1948 it was after the Second World War. It was after the holocaust:
the persecution of Jews. But since 1945 the world has been changed
and we have many minorities in Europe: Vietnamese, Turkey, Africans,
and Asian people. There is no such thing as the kind of persecution
of the Jewish minority as it used to be in Europe. And Israel should
understand that in this modern age of democracy and human rights it
is gone."
But that's not the Israeli official line, is it?
"No. And as you know, I also found out in 1986 that they are
starting to produce a hydrogen bomb. That is a very strong nuclear
bomb. There is no justification of a hydrogen bomb." And he adds
ruefully, "So if Israelis come to take this land by God, then let
God do this for them. Not do it by weapons. They should be
destroying their nuclear weapons."
There are Jews in Israel and elsewhere in the world that are helping
you.
"Yes. There are a very small group of them who have supported me.
Very, very few."
And there are some Israelis on the left who have been working on
your behalf with whom you still have serious disagreements.
"Yes. There are a lot of people from the left who are working for
the Palestinians. They are against the wall, against the occupation.
But their basic ideology or understanding is not like mine. If these
people from the left want peace, they should also accept that the
Palestinian refugees have the right to return.
"And there are others on the left who are supporting the atomic
bomb. Some of them speak of peace, but at the same time they say
they want the atomic bomb: like Shimon Peres. They also say they
don't like the Palestinian refugees to come back. But if you are for
peace, it is contrary to say this."
But to be fair, there is also a small group of Jews in Israel who
are against the atomic bomb and who do support the right of return.
"On the issue of the atomic bomb, you can find some people in Israel
who are ready to be antinuclear weapons; but they are afraid to
speak because of their work, because of the people around them:
their neighbors, their friends who always are telling them, `Because
of the holocaust, how can you be against the atomic bomb? We are
survivors of the holocaust; and now all the Arab world wants to
destroy our Jewish community.' So with that pressure they don't
say, `No, we cannot use the atomic bomb.'"
If you had your way, and could go anywhere you want and do what you
want, where would you go and what would you do?
"We have applied for scholarship to MIT (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) or Harvard to be in an academic institution, to do some
research in history, to write my book, and to spread my message to
young students. I want the young students to know and learn from my
case. I want them to learn and to know that it is important to
spread the message of peace, to abolish nuclear weapons, and to
challenge democracies that won't do it. I want to teach them to
fight for this kind of freedom.
Any response from MIT or Harvard?
"We only made the application in December (2004). And the
application is for the next school year: 2005 September."
Who is helping?
"In London we have a big campaign, and in the United States, Norway,
Sweden, Denmark, everywhere."
And right now you are still a guest at St. George's.
"I am staying here [in East Jerusalem] at Anglican Cathedral St.
George. I am the guest of the Bishop here in the guesthouse. So I
don't have a lot of expense. People bring me many of the things I
need. Clothes. The guesthouse gives me breakfast. Dinner is the only
big expense."
So that's why you are happy to accept dinner invitations?
"Yes, but it's also that I am not alone. It is good to have dinner
often with friends and journalists who are coming to visit."
Not everyone knows you have to take care of dinner. Has there ever
been an evening when you didn't have a dinner invitation?
"Yes, of course. Then I go and buy very cheap food: take away.
Shawarma or Falafel. And I eat it by myself. I could do that for
eighteen years in prison. I can do that now."
After eighteen years in prison do you have any resources of your own?
"I don't have a lot because I spent a lot on the trial and the
lawyers. Some people said I should ask money from the newspapers for
interviews; but I am not doing that. The campaign in the United
States sends me $300.00 each month. So that helps me. And if I can
get to MIT or Harvard I have an award of $50,000 from Yoko Ono
waiting for me in the United States. So, when I can get there, I can
start my life with it."
When asked, what if someone wants to help out?--his reply, as
always, is unembarrassed and direct, "If people want, they can send
directly to me or to the campaign in the United States. I have an
account here in Jerusalem."
As my interviews with Mordechai Vanunu came to a close, I decided to
end as we began by seeking one more set of insights into the meaning
he has derived from his acquired faith: meanings which drove him, he
has said, along the lonely and too often repudiated path of the
whistleblower. Whistleblower can, of course, be a synonym for
prophet.
"It was the new way of Jesus Christ teachings," he said, "his way of
teaching for peace; especially his way of teaching nonviolence. It's
hard to understand. It is very hard to follow. I even tried to
follow: if they slap you on one side, give to them the other side.
But that is how people should live in peace: forgive those who are
enemies. That is the way we can live together."
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This is the forty seventh in a series of micro-reports, commentaries,
and or analyses that I am sending routinely from the Occupied
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will be grateful for any feedback-- Jerry Levin .
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