At Facebook on Sunday, Israel’s nuclear whistle blower Vanunu Mordechai reported that for the 16thyear, after 18 years behind bars Vanunu is still “not to meet foreigners, not leave the country” and all Vanunu can “do is to continue to wait, continue to demand my freedom, from 1986-2019.”
By Eileen Fleming
Image is a screenshot taken from Vanunu Mordechai’s Facebook Wall:
Captivity, or being held captive, is a state wherein humans [or other animals] are confined to a particular space and prevented from leaving or moving freely.
In June 2005, Vanunu [his family name] Mordechai [his first name] and this American who was in Jerusalem for the first of seven more times, began a series of interviews.
On the second day we met, Vanunu told me that after he was freed from 18 years behind bars in April 2004, a writer met with him at Jerusalem’s American Colony’s open-air restaurant.
They began to write Vanunu’s book, but the authorities warned them both that if they persisted; they would both go to jail!
While that was the end of their endeavor, I welcomed the opportunity to be arrested for freedom of speech and press issues! Vanunu already knew Israel was bringing charges against him for his 2004 interviews so I was blessed to be the one to document the stories Vanunu shared about his childhood, IDF service, university activism, crisis of conscience and faith, as well as the details of his Mossad kidnapping, and how Israel’s lax security within the Dimona nuclear plant enabled him to obtain two rolls of film from top-secret locations, and wrote all about it HERE!
Excerpted from IMAGINE
June 8, 1967 remains a day in infamy that most Americans have no knowledge of, because The Media failed to pursue the story of Israel’s wanton, unprovoked and brutal attack on the USS LIBERTY, America’s premier spy ship, as it navigated in international waters off the coast of Egypt.
On October 13, 2007, I met my first LIBERTY survivor, then President of the USS LIBERTY Veterans Association, Petty Officer Phillip F. Tourney. We both spoke at the “No More Wars for Israel Conference” in Irvine, California. When Tourney said, “It was God that kept us afloat” I knew I would do more than just listen to him….
And that leads me back to Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu, who has been denied the right to leave the state ever since he emerged from 18 years in a windowless tomb sized cell on April 21, 2004. I met him first in June 2005. I saw him last in June 2009, and he 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.
I think the court will realize even if they send me back for three months-what will they do after that?
It is all about freedom of speech and they cannot keep me here forever. They want revenge because I survived the system. The isolation in prison made me feel like I was loosing my mind. I felt like I was dying.
Jesus Christ’s strong message to the Israelis of 2,000 years ago is that they were wrong in rejecting him. By going to church I am reminding Israel of JC. JC and I both did a good job for humanity.
America needs to free itself from the Israeli state. Five million Jews should not dictate to America what they shall do.
The USA needs to wake up from 9/11. That was when America lost her way. [End book excerpt]
SINCE publishing the above I last saw Vanunu in November 2013.
I remember him telling me his Norwegian girlfriend, a professor of the Hebrew Scriptures was visiting frequently and I asked, “Can she move here?”
Vanunu shrugged but by May 2015 the two had wed!
The couple applied for Norwegian asylum, which was granted but it is still not honored by the state of Israel that continues to renew such ludicrous restriction as Vanunu is “not to meet foreigners.”
A Very Brief History:
A few weeks before being kidnapped by the Mossad in September 1986, Vanunu was baptized at a social justice Episcopal Church in Sydney, Australia.
Within minutes of emerging from his windowless tomb sized cell on April 21, 2004, Vanunu announced:
“I am not harming Israel. I am not interested in Israel. I want to tell you something very important. I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian, because I was baptized into Christianity. If I was a Jew I wouldn’t have all this suffering here in isolation for 18 years. Only because I was a Christian man.”
On April 30, 2007, the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, convicted Vanunu on 14 [out of 21] counts of violating a court order prohibiting him from speaking to foreigners [meaning journalists] in 2004.
Vanunu was also convicted for traveling from Jerusalem to Bethlehem to attend Christmas Eve mass at the Church of the Nativity, his first Christmas after being released from 18 years in jail. He spent that night behind prison bars instead.
On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six 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.”
I phoned Vanunu after reading that in the Israeli press and he said Israel was referring to his “mental health”, which was “just fine.”
After appeals Israel ‘reduced’ Vanunu’s freedom of speech sentence to 78 days back in solitary confinement, which he served in the summer of 2010.
EXCERPTED from “30 Minutes with Vanunu”, he talks about torture by Solitary Confinement
Screenshot of Vanunu Mordechai’s Facebook Wall 5 June 2019:
This American responds to Aslam Minhas “Enrich the world; write another book.”
Vanunu has NOT yet written his own book but his saga has been thoroughly documented HERE!
Eileen Fleming writes for TADN: HERE
Eileen Fleming produced: “30 Minutes with Vanunu”
AND
“We Americans and the USS Liberty”
Contact her 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