#AskNetanyahu went viral within moments after Prime Minister Netanyahu asked for it!
By Eileen Fleming
#AskNetanyahu backfired as a PR stunt for which I am very grateful for it enabled this article which includes my Letter to the New York Times, following my TWEET at Prime Minister Netanyahu:
eileen fleming @wearewideawake
@IsraeliPM #AskNetanyahu Will U #FreeVanunu Read Vanunu RESPOND to #30Minutes #Vanunu
On May 10 I emailed and received auto-replies from the New York Times Editors regarding their AP report which ignored Israel’s 30 year vendetta against Vanunu
I have also TWEETED at the NYTimes asking them to #AskNetanyahu if he will #FreeVanunu
To: nytnews@nytimes.com,
“letters@time.com” <letters@time.com>,
editorial@nytimes.com,
executive-editor@nytimes.com,
foreign@nytimes.com,
news-tips@nytimes.com,
public@nytimes.com,
books@nytimes.com,
OP-ED Dept <oped@nytimes.com>,
opinion.video@nytimes.com
Dear New York Times,
RE: Your report Israel Indicts Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
In 2005, I was just an American in Jerusalem in the midst of writing my first fiction, when I met Mordechai Vanunu and we began a series of interviews.
I became a reporter because Vanunu told me:
“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….
“Did you know that 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.’
“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.” – Beyond Nuclear: Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and My Life as a Muckraker 2005-2010
When I last saw Vanunu in 2013, he told me a CNN reporter had recently asked him for an interview but Vanunu said “NO, because everything is already on the internet.”
My first two questions to Vanunu
“30 Minutes with Vanunu”
Thank you for consideration,
Eileen Fleming
- Vanunu still has more nuclear secrets to spill, Israeli court declares - December 29, 2021
- 9/11 and a 20th Reflection of That Day - September 5, 2021
- Mordechai Vanunu: Final Annual Update and this Writers Next Steps - June 19, 2021