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Israeli Nuclear Whistleblower Under House Arrest
Mordechai Vanunu breaches terms of 2004 jail release by meeting 'a number of foreigners', says Israeli police
A police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld, said Vanunu was accused of meeting with "a number of foreigners". The spokesman, however, did not specify who the foreigners were or where they came from.
Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu arrives at a Jerusalem court. Photograph: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images Vanunu's lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, said his client had been arrested because his romantic attachment to an unnamed Norwegian woman had come to the attention of the authorities.
"Vanunu was arrested [for] a relationship between a man and a woman, with a Norwegian citizen," he told Reuters. "He is not being accused of giving any secrets. She is not interested in nuclear business - she's interested in Mordechai Vanunu [and he] is probably interested in her."
The woman has reportedly been interrogated by police but has not been charged with any offence.
Vanunu has fallen foul of the no-foreigners rule before. In 2007, he was sentenced to six months in jail for talking to non-Israelis.
Vanunu, a former technician at Israel's Dimona nuclear plant, was first jailed in 1986 after he passed on information about Israel's nuclear program to the Sunday Times. The Israeli authorities argue that he may have kept back some information which could still be of use to a hostile foreign power.
His dilemma is compounded by the fact that most Israelis do not approve of his actions and want no contact with him. Vanunu says the feeling is mutual and he would prefer to live abroad, but is banned from doing so.
Israel's supreme court has upheld the restrictions on his freedom of association and movement despite criticism by international human rights groups.
Speaking in court today, Vanunu - who refuses to speak Hebrew publicly in protest at his treatment - said: "This Jewish state has 200 atomic ... hydrogen bombs, atomic weapons, neutron bomb. They are not able to say they have the bomb, they are not able to destroy anyone ... instead they arrest Vanunu."
After talking to the Sunday Times, Vanunu was tracked down in Rome where he was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence agents and brought back to Israel to stand trial.
Israel has never publicly acknowledged its nuclear weapons arsenal.
40 Comments so far
Show All-"Vanunu was arrested [for] a relationship between a man and a woman"
"a relationship between a man and a woman"? Holy Hebrew, Batman! Israel has been taken over by overzealous homosexuals!
Golly gee! "the middle east's only democracy"tm never ceases to suprise does it?
Makes you wonder why Americans pay to send their core of engineers to help out with that underground Gaza starvation barrier? USers being so stereotypically redneck and all?
Do you suppose the US barrier will keep out food better than the Katrina barrier kept out the flooding from the hurricane?
-"After talking to the Sunday Times, Vanunu was tracked down in Rome where he was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence agents "
So really Bush and Obama got the kidnapping idea from the Israelis. I wonder if there are other practices the US can adopt from the Israelis?
And it's not like any Arabs kidnap people.... oh, that's right. They do.
Arabs may kidnap people, but this is a case of a nation state kidnaping someone. There IS a difference. It's not the first time Israel has done this. The thugs who lead Israel think they can do anything with impunity because Big Brother America is there to protect them. If an Arab or Muslim state did this, there would be such an outcry against dirty Muslim terrorists.
Vanunu is a hero in my book. These Zionists Jews who make up the Israeli government are a real nasty bunch. They are worse than their Nazi teachers. How dare they kidnap a person in Italy! The last thing we need in the Middle East is a Zionist state run by thugs with atomic weapons. The fact that Israel doesn't acknowledge nuclear weapons means that there is no international control of them at all.
All Jews out of Palestine! They don't belong there. Any Jew who wants to live there should have to ask a Palestinian government. Unlike in America with the indigenous people, there are millions of Muslims who insist that Palestine be given back to its inhabitants. This is not only the moral thing to do, it is absolutely necessary for peace in the Middle East.
End U.S. support for Zionist Israel! There can be no peace in the Middle East with a U.S. supported Zionist state occupying Palestine.
Here is a hero.
this is what happens when you act like a human being in todays world.
vanunu is a man of principle and courage.
i salute you sir.
You cant make this stuff up....
~Some people live their whole lives without ever waking up~
Israel is as bad as any Arab dictatorship and the fact that the US is so married to their inhumane regime is why the terrorists will win in the end.
It just goes to show that even repressive, genocidal rogue states like Israel have a motherly side.
Perhaps this is just its way of asking Vanunu, "What's the matter, you can't find a nice Jewish girl to settle down with?"
· Yr Obd't Servant
: Don't act so surprised, Your Highness. You weren't on any mercy mission this time. Several transmissions were beamed to this ship by rebel spies. I want to know what happened to the plans they sent you.
: I don't know what you're talking about. I am a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission ...
: You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor! Take her away!
guess what folks- this will start here soon as well. we who
come here are under the watchful eye of whatever govt. agency
is in charge of spying on people like us. when the
things we do like public demonstrations protests and the
like are made illegal and i doubt that its not far off
they will do this here! don't forget for a second that
habeus corpus was never restored by obomba like he promised
when he was a candidate for the presidency! everyday these
weasels are taking our civil liberties are taken away
under the guise of security and unless we either have a
revolution or the government collapses under the weight
of its own corruption and evil ala east germany or the
ussr. this airline threat last week will give them more
to do this by scaring people who ultimately don't even
live in a geographical location that is useful or
attractive to the enemies we have made due to our
leaders evilness and corruption.i live in nyc and
some clown in nebraska is freaked out when thats
the last place terrorism would occur unless its
homegrown! the good people of israel have to suffer in
a system that's even crazier and warlike then ours if
that's even cosmically possible !
guess what folks- this will start here soon as well. we who
come here are under the watchful eye of whatever govt. agency
is in charge of spying on people like us. when the
things we do like public demonstrations protests and the
like are made illegal and i doubt that its not far off
they will do this here! don't forget for a second that
habeus corpus was never restored by obomba like he promised
when he was a candidate for the presidency! everyday these
weasels are taking our civil liberties are taken away
under the guise of security and unless we either have a
revolution or the government collapses under the weight
of its own corruption and evil ala east germany or the
ussr. this airline threat last week will give them more
to do this by scaring people who ultimately don't even
live in a geographical location that is useful or
attractive to the enemies we have made due to our
leaders evilness and corruption.i live in nyc and
some clown in nebraska is freaked out when thats
the last place terrorism would occur unless its
homegrown! the good people of israel have to suffer in
a system that's even crazier and warlike then ours if
that's even cosmically possible ! may whoever your deity
is please pray to him her or it to protect mordicai
and bless him as he is one of the more beautiful
and transparent of our species and needs all the
help he can receive! remember friends walk with
impunity and fear none of these war mongers and fascists!
peace to all!
Don't fear the reaper guys. "Home of the Brave" is not just some catch phrase. It's our social compact with the government. When you see a man acting like a King, it is your sacred duty as an American citizen to pull him to the ground; to restore self-government. If you see "Consolidators" as Jefferson called them, doing the same thing, it's your Yankee Obligation to endeavor to break them in little pieces like Teddy Roosevelt did. Anti-American Monarchists may pick off a few of us, but they can't jail everybody.
While an attempted overthrow of the government is likely impossible and probably unwise, cutting government down by 90 percent is legal, prudent and obtainable. It is your right as a voter and a taxpayer to demand that the government live within it's means.
So don't give in to fear. Realize that if all parties remain with the law, there's not going to be crisis. The highest law of the land is the Constitution, and no law passed that violates it, is legal.
In the previous crisis, in the days just before the Civil War, Whig party leader William H. Seward while maneuvering for president demanded slavery be abolished based on the nation being bound by a higher authority (i.e. god). Abraham Lincoln maneuvering for president, rejected this, saying flatly there WAS NO HIGHER AUTHORITY than the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
I agree. We must draw our strength from those two documents. Make copies and give them to your neighbors who are glued to the tube. Do it on nice paper and just skip right to the bill of rights since TV addicts have Attention Deficit Disorder.
We're all in this together (even you government trolls reading this).
Cheers mate,
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
everybody needs to google up "jfk and israel". when you do, you will be astounded to find a copy a july 5, 1963 letter that president kennedy wrote to the israeli prime minister. kennedy told the israelis that they needed to immediately open up their nuclear plants to united nations inspectors. kennedy told the prime minister that he trusted that the israelis were not up to developing weapons of mass destruction. of course, we know what happened the next november, and sadly enough, each of kennedy's successors has pretty much kowtowed to israel. lbj hardly protested when israeli jets killed 41 u.s sailors on the uss liberty. that happened during the 6 day war when israel struck first and hard against the arab countries and expanded into greater israel. the liberty's stars and stripes were flying high on that bright and sunny june day in 1967, so there was no way that the israeli pilots could not have known that they were bombing an american destroyer. of course, lbj also sat back and let israel develop nuclear weapons, something our boy johhny fitzgerald was dead set against. jfk's was the right stand to take, as the israel of 1963 evolved into the israel of 2009, a rogue nation that flaunts its 200 atomic and hydrogen bombs, veritables swords of damocles that allow it to flout any international standard. it's the same leverage that it doesn't want any arab state to have, especially iran.
Vanunu informed me in 2005:
"President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only for peace.’
"Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection. The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French, when I was there, almost twenty years ago.
"Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground. In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
"When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to ’69, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them.
"Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium for ten bombs a year."
Eileen Fleming,
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" FREELY STREAMING @ VANUNU ARCHIVES:
WeAreWideAwake.org
Yada Yada Yada ---
Poor little Israel never be a suspect in the JFK assassination.
But Israel was the Number one benefactor -- Israel got her Nuclear Arsenal and more.
http://www.rense.com/general42/enemies.htm
Again the motive for 9/11 -- Israel benefited the most with the aftermath.
Funny but shameful how these motives were never investigated ????
http://www.rense.com/general64/moss.htm
.
eileen fleming: good script. thorough explanation. a nation of 7 million dominates a world of 6 billion.
Hmm
What a world.
Most people just want to be left alone to enjoy their lives on this beautiful planet.
And it seems that there is a constant struggle to take over other people's land and resources which makes a few rich and a lot more unhappy.
And governments and police are put into place to protect people but they usually end up with the moneygrubbers.
And so it goes.
If you don't stand up for the truth tellers eventually you will be approached and made to chose which side you will be on.
Most people seem to choose the side that offers them physical security (for the moment) and then they turn into monsters also.
Until people get sick of it all and realize that risking their lives in a revolt against their oppressors is better than being the walking dead.
As I see it...there are a lot of walking dead around these days.
People who have given up the sweet and simple joys of life for material comfort and
personal gain at the expense of the common good.
Around and around.
What a conumdrum.
and they call this a Democracy?!? hahahahah - what a Joke
hello
Mordechai Vanunu is a true hero.
Vanunu should be shot for telling the world that the Zionists in Israel have a Nuclear Doomsday Stockpile,,,,,,
I wonder why Israel parades him around: and gives him all of this frightening publicity ?????????
Maybe, Israel is bluffing and lying,,,,,otherwise why hasn't Vanunu been shot ???????
.
He should be shot? For talking?
Goebbels
"... vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
On January 25, 2006, after nearly two years of speaking to hundreds of foreigners since his release from prison, Vanunu was convicted by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court of 15 violations of a military order that had prohibited him from talking to non-Israelis and because he attempted to "leave the state" by taking a cab from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to attend Christmas Eve mass at the Church of the Nativity in 2004. The original indictment included 22 different violations; Vanunu was charged with 19 and acquitted of four. He was acquitted of speaking to foreign nationals on the internet and via video and voice chats.
Just prior to the taping of "30 Minutes with Vanunu" [freely streaming @ VANUNU ARCHIVES http://wearewideawake.org/ ] on March 26, 2006, Vanunu told me, "Many journalists come here to the American Colony, from CNN and NY Times. They all want to cover my story, but their EDITORS say no...CNN wants to interview me; but they say they can't do it because they don't want problems with the Israeli censor. BBC is doing the same thing. Sixty Minutes from the United States from the beginning they wanted to do a program, but because of the censor situation they decide not to do it."
On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking to foreign media in 2004. On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s sentence to three months, "In light of (Vanunu’s) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy."
On June 14, 2009, Vanunu told me, “The Central Commander of the General Army testified in court that it is OK if I speak in public as long as I do not talk about nuclear weapons.”
The rest of "What The WORLD Needs to know about Vanunu"
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1517&Itemid=227
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
Anyone here remember what happened to weapons inventor Gerald Bull?
Also, it pays to remember that Mordechai has renounced his Jewish faith, and has converted to Christianity. The Norwegian woman he was seeing is quite possibly also Christian. It wasn't that long ago that Israel had a street advertising campaign that was clearly against Jewish Israelis dating or marrying anyone outside their faith.
Israel is just as racist and intolerant as Nazi Germany. And just as totalitarian.
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Mohandas Gandhi
Was Gandhi Anti-Semitic? (I'm not asking - that was the title of this article on CD):
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0828-01.htm
Thank you.
The article was well put and to the point.
Israel has no real basis for existence at this time. It has ceded any moral legitimacy it may have once had.
But in fact it never had any moral legitimacy. It was pure land grab, from the beginning. You aren't supposed to go into an area where land is owned and farmed and has been for generations and say: this is mine, and I'm going to get the United Nations to make it so. And boo hoo, my people, the chosen people, who once grabbed this land 2500 years ago, have a right to grab it again because we have gone through the holocaust. That is what the Zionists were preaching back in 1947. If there were any justice in the world, a huge section of Germany would have been given to the Jews as a homeland. It's as though a boy named Franz had bullied me to distraction, lo unto death and stolen all my toys--and then this boy was stopped by his parents, and I rushed over to Ahab's house and started stealing all his toys because I'd been so badly treated by Franz. This is twisted logic, even by Zionist standards.
t_g
OK, here it is: I come from a Jewish family, but down the generations we have become less and less observant. We do observe the most important holidays and I do remember the most important prayers, but that's it. My husband is Jewish too, from a conservative family, who were quite traditional and they even objected him marrying someone like me.
We have one child, a son, who has become a Buddhist. My parents were sad upon hearing this, my husband's parents considered this a tragedy. They passed away a couple of years ago and they made our son promise that he'll keep his family's religion alive by "at least marrying" a Jewish girl.
That he did, however they young woman in question is similarly converted to Buddhism like him. To please his grandparents, they had a traditional Jewish wedding.
I am writing all this, just to demonstrate how important it is to Jews not to marry out from the religion. If you convert, even your family tends to distance themselves from you.
As for Vanunu: for Israelis, he is a traitor. After all he blabbed about state secrets!!!! What would happen to an US American, a Brit or a Frency if they publicly discussed state secrets? How would the fellow countrymen feel about him?
I'm sorry people, I do agree with a lot of criticism of Israel, but Mr Vanunu I also consider a traitor. A traitor to his country. As I am not in a position to judge his conversion, or him dating a Christian woman, I don't say anything about that.
I take your point
But..
Is Israel supposed to have nuclear weapons under International law?
And if they break that law...shouldn't someone speak out?
Please clarify.
Maybe their weapons are legal. I really don't know. But I don't think so.
I am sorry for the troubles with your family over what should be joyous occasions.
But most families have issues. LOL
Have a Happy and Prosperous New Year!
t_g
G'Day, I am writing from Australia, so the time difference makes it quite difficult to answer within a short time.
I don't disagree with people who dispute Israel's right to have nuclear weapons! I don't even dispute - as a Jew living and having always lived in the diaspora - that Israel has a very questionable right to exist.
However the issue is not that. The issue is Mr Vanunu's suffering and of him dating a Christian woman. I can only stress, that as Israel is a state, has been for more than half a century, generations have been born and brought up there - if a citizen is exposign state secrets, he/she is a traitor! Yes, his life is hell, has been since he did this, but just think about it: he shared state secrets with the world! He has muddied his country's reputation! Is that really something commendable in the eyes of his people? Should they be proud of him?
That's all I am saying.
Thank you for your kind wishes and I am also wishing you and your loved ones all the best in the new year and beyond!
Crazy little humans, all puffed up and full of themselves.
Still waiting for the great leap forward.
The fact Mordechai Vanunu was tried and jailed for telling a truth, is a mockery of justice.
He is a hero, who few American would know if you asked them..
Yet, their government provides Israel with nearly $3 billion dollars a year to develop weapons systems and has given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region’s first nuclear weapons program and then jailed a man for revealing it.
I think Israelis are bluffing..I second an earlier comment.
1. Even if they have the nuclear arsenal they would never ..ever use it against any immediate neighbor or the greater ME for that matter..why..that would mean shooting themselves on the foot.The whole area would be contaminated for eons.
2. And if the samson option is their end game..then Israeli citizens are really dumb.They are right there on ground zero like sitting ducks.Ok maybe their future dumb great grandchildren will suffer that fate.
This guy is no hero, just a propaganda asset.Methinks
But what do I know!!
Why is it that the Iranian nuclear program is subject to incredible scrutiny by the international capitalist community while Israel is permitted to keep their own nuclear program details "secret"? Dear Mr. Fantasy: no country should possess nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.
Bring America Back !!!!
****Yes. Vanunu is a Hero in the same sense as in the current movie "Invictus".
****Israel has de-volved into its own worst nightmare of
Nazism==gunning down 300 to 400 innocent, defenseless children at Gaza, along with the other 1100 dead==exactly
one year ago !!!
***Do not ever forget, Israel Mossad motto is to make war
under false flag attacks. They do it well.
***Mossad agents were caught on 9/11 celebrating the burning of the World Trade Centers, on the Jersey shore of the Hudson, then failed lie detector tests when they denied being Mossad Agents. They danced, laughed, took pictures, and were using a Moving Company as a false Cover. That moving company business had received US financial support from Small Business Administration loan programs.
***Those cutie pies were then released by the FBI (worthless govt fingerprint factory), and permitted to return to their
homeland in Zion !!!!
***This is one reason that when the JFK assassination is brought up in here, and tied into the Nuke Achievements of Israel, it holds interest to me. In the words of Lee Harvey Oswald, just before he was murdered, he said "I am a Patsy,
I did'nt shoot anyone."
WAKE UP El Generalisimo!
ALL Vanunu has been asking ever since he was released from prison to open air captivity on 21 April, 2004 has been to LEAVE Israel!
LEARN the truth by listening to him speak for himself in my 2005, 2006 and 2008 video interviews with him @
Vanunu Archives:
http://wearewideawake.org/
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"