Mordechai Vanunu’s July 4 Indictment concluded with one Guilty and two Non-Guilty Charges
Israel continues to forbid Nuclear Whistle Blower’s right to speak to foreigners
By Eileen Fleming
Mordechai Vanunu blew the whistle on Israel’s Nuclear deceptions in 1986. On 18 January 2017, Vanunu reported at Twitter and Facebook:
In court today…the judge find me guilty of not following the order not to meet foreigners. Guilty.
But not guilty by speaking again about Israel Nuclear weapons, Israel nuclear secrets, and not guilty by not reporting my correct address. For this he will not send me back to prison.
The sentence will be in March.
[Background HERE]
No mention of the fact that Vanunu wed a foreigner from Norway in 2015; or the reality of this UNCENSORED “30 Minutes with Vanunu” which has been freely streaming at YouTube since 2006!
Among Israel’s ludicrous restrictions against Vanunu -that began the moment he stepped out of 18 years in jail in 2004- was denying Vanunu the right to publish his story under threat of more jail time.
Vanunu has told his story to hundreds-perhaps thousands of internationals over a drink or dinner.
This American happens to be the only one who bothered to enshrine the stories Mordechai Vanunu shared about his childhood, crisis of faith and identity which were my primary interest:
UNTIL Vanunu told me the JFK, LBJ and Nixon connections to Israel’s nuclear deceptions!
Those facts birthed the realization of my childhood dream to be an author/reporter and have fueled my eleven years of documenting the Mordecahi Vanunu Saga in ARTICLES and BOOKS.
I recall one dinner meeting encouraging Mordechai Vanunu to write his story for history’s sake.
Vanunu replied, “I don’t care about history. I just want to leave Israel and never return.”
Israel incarcerated Vanunu for 78 days in 2010- the outcome of his historic and under-reported FREEDOM OF SPEECH TRIAL, which this American reporter published for histories sake and because it was my destiny!
[Learn More: It’s ALL A God Thing]
I only printed 400 copies and donated all proceeds to Mordechai Vanunu Trust Fund that was established by his American adoptive parents Nick and Mary Eoloff. Learn more about the Eoloff’s at:
Vanunu’s Family Affair and US-Israeli Reality-Check: Nukes and ‘Peace Talks’
In August 2015, Vanunu wrote at Facebook: “So time to end this case, and to let me start new life with my Wife in Norway, we will be in the court again next month…to end this case, to send me free.”
Israel can continue to deny Vanunu justice and mercy for the remaining years of his life, but Vanunu’s story has wings as well as book bindings!
Book Review of Beyond Nuclear: “Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and My Life as a Muckraker”
By Mark John Maguire
Eileen Fleming’s book “Beyond Nuclear: Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and My Life as a Muckraker” is a fascinating insight into the life and mind of an activist pursuing a moral crusade against the might of a nation – in this case Israel.
It also provides a journal of such an individual’s experiences in the complex and protracted struggle of the Middle East. Her journey of faith and belief in support of the Palestinian cause – and in particular that of Vanunu Mordechai, the Israeli dissident who served 18 years in prison for revealing Israel’s illegal nuclear programme – has been a remarkable one: she clearly believes she has a purpose and that she is guided by a higher will and perhaps this is the secret to the huge radical energy she exudes.
Her book is an expression of that energy and of the uncompromising commitment she shares with Vanunu in attempting to right the injustices she sees in the daily lives of Palestinians.
Her conflict, which is charted in the book – and to a lesser extent Vanunu’s – has been the wider Palestinian problem and the human rights abuses of the Israeli State
Her visits to Israel and her meetings with Vanunu and others in her efforts to publicize the story the mainstream media largely ignore – especially in the US – is inspiring.
There are few who would doubt the hardships and injustices suffered by the Palestinian people in Israel and its adjacent lands, nor the inadequacy of the international community’s efforts to lessen their plight, but Beyond Nuclear brings this sharply into focus.
It also puts the Vanunu Mordechai case in the spotlight – the story of his abduction, his incarceration and the subsequent restrictions placed upon him are all recorded her.
But it is the humdrum indignities that are suffered by Vanunu, the petty restrictions, the heavy handed reactions of the authorities that are most striking: the sense of isolation which Vanunu endures daily, an outcast from his own people – a man on the outside – which has become a metaphor for the Palestinian situation: the Middle East has always been a cauldron of tension and conflict – it is the story of the Old Testament – but it has never been more complex than it is now; a web of related issues: nuclear, racial, religious and geo-political are stirred into an explosive mix. Vanunu’s plight seems to epitomize this concoction: he is a Jew who converted to Christianity, a stranger amongst Palestinians, a man with whom the international community is ill at ease.
Nor are the problems of the Middle East likely to be resolved soon – the international resolve, as well as that of the immediate combatants is simply not there: in August 2009 – in the wake of a long catalogue of such wrongs – Fleming recounts how the eviction of Palestinians from the Sheikh Jarrah area of Jerusalem drew international censure from the European Union, the UN, Britain and the USA: yet nothing has been done to this day to address such breaches of international law.
Indeed, one of the recurring themes in Eileen Fleming’s book and in Mordechai’s many interviews given since his release from prison in 2004 has been the fact that although the international community tacitly acknowledges Israel’s nuclear capability, it has never subjected Israel to a single Atomic Weapons Authority Inspection. It is the white bear in the corner no-one will speak of.
There is much to exercise activists like Eileen Fleming. In some ways Beyond Nuclear is a dispiriting tale of episodic and endemic complaisance by the international community to serious abuses of international law, an unending cycle of oppression, resistance and terrorism; but it is also an affirmation of the ability of human beings to speak out, their willingness to take enormous risks with their own personal safety and to refuse to be cowed by the might of the State
And there are the occasional brighter moments – for instance, the Israeli soldier playing with Palestinian children and Fleming’s making contact with him from a Palestinian position and exchanging gestures of goodwill. It is a reminder that human beings populate such stories, committing kindnesses and atrocities with seeming equal randomness.
But a state is not the sum of its people, it has its own personality. Israel, as a State, is determined to defend itself and believes its prime objective is to protect its security by whatever means it deems necessary.
Fleming quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu saying that after a visit to Israel in 2006: “Israel will never get true security and safety through oppressing another people.”
Such wisdom and perceptiveness seems to fall on deaf ears, however – even when it is spoken by respected people like Tutu and it is hard not to escape the conclusion that until people of good will on both sides control the argument, progress will not be made.
Eileen Fleming’s book reveals the frustrations of the truly committed in dealing with the half-committed – and the merely good-willed.
There is no doubting the strength of her own convictions and sense of mission – she will always, one suspects, have difficulty in finding people who can match her relentless energy and conviction…
I interrupt Mr. Maguire to add NO TRUER WORDS have ever been written about me!
Maguire concluded:
In the end, Beyond Nuclear: Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and My Life as a Muckraker is an extraordinary tale of courage and conviction and the struggle of the individual’s right to tell the truth and the State’s determination to obscure it or subvert it for a perceived greater good:
The truth, as Oscar Wilde observed, is rarely simple and never pure.
And by the same token, the lesson Eileen Fleming would have us draw would be that the perceived good is seldom so good as to be worth it.
MJ Maguire, Author of The Night Traveller
Follow MJ Maguire on Facebook.
Reflecting on my eleven years of activism in pursuit of Mordechai Vanunu’s right to leave Israel driven by my burning desire to END USA collusion in Israel’s nuclear deceptions, I conclude by quoting Mother Teresa:
In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway
Read Beyond Nuclear: Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and My Life as a Muckraker on any electronic device [with a FREE Kindle APP] HERE
Buy one of the few remaining collector copies of the FIRST and ONLY Press Editions HERE
Eileen Fleming, Author, Producer “30 Minutes with Vanunu” is the Senior Non-Arab Correspondent and Health Reporter for TADN, she ran for US HOUSE in 2012 on a Platform that included ending federal regulations on cannabis, to establish every June 8 to be known as USS LIBERTY Remembrance Day, and to end USA collusion in Israel’s nuclear deceptions and military occupation of Palestine.
Eileen Fleming’s contact information is HERE
- 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
