By Bill Dienst MD

On Monday March 7, the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility met with Mr. Mordechai Vanunu at St. George's Hostel in East Jerusalem. Mr. Vanunu is famous around the world for exposing Israel's secret nuclear weapon's program at the Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev Desert in Southern Israel.

Mr. Vanunu explained his life's story to our group. He was born to a Jewish family in Morocco. When he was 10, his family immigrated to Israel. After high school, he completed his compulsory military service in the Israeli Armed Forces. He then finished a year studying physics at Tel Aviv University. When he was 22 years old, he was hired on at Israel's Dimona Nuclear facility, in a top secret lab 23 meters underground. His job was to help in producing plutonium.

He described himself as being 'apolitical' at this stage of his life, and simply in need of a job. He worked at Dimona for 9 years, starting in 1979. In the 1980's, he also witnessed the production of materials to produce a hydrogen bomb. He left Dimona in 1985, and returned to the University, studying Geography and Philosophy.

By this time, he had become a political activist, and was active in "Peace Now" against Israel's elective war and occupation in Lebanon. He also had developed very serious concerns regarding Israel's ambitious nuclear weapons program.

by Jerry Levin
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.

by Jerry Levin
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.

By Felice Cohen-Joppa

Long-imprisoned nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu emerged from Ashkelon Prison on April 21, welcomed to freedom by several hundred supporters from Israel and around the world who were gathered outside the prison gate. Moving deliberately past the throng of press just inside the prison compound, surrounded by assorted officials and guards, Vanunu walked to the gate. Holding both hands high with the signs of victory and peace, he stepped up onto the bars to acknowledge his supporters.

The just-released prisoner of conscience then made a statement to the international reporters. "I am proud and happy to do what I did," he said. "I will continue to speak against all kinds of nuclear weapons, against all democracies' nuclear weapons."

by Delinda C. Hanley

After serving nearly 18 years in an Israeli prison-11-1/2 of them in solitary confinement-Mordechai Vanunu should be a free man on April 21. Now 49 years old, he has spent the prime of his life locked in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell in Ashkelon prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear arsenal.

Vanunu's friends and enemies alike worry about what will happen next.

As his release date nears, Vanunu is said to be in good spirits. He knows he did the right thing by telling Israelis and the rest of the world what his country was up to, and he looks forward to a new beginning-perhaps moving to the United States, where his adoptive parents live, and becoming a history teacher.