What U2’s Bono doesn’t know about Peres and Vanunu

Last Tuesday in Toronto, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Israel’s former president Shimon Peres was in the house for a U2 concert.

On the anniversary of Operation Protective Edge, Bono said, “We understand, president Peres, that you have tried to be a voice of reason and have dedicated a great part of your life – all of your life – to try to bring peace to this really dangerous region.”

Bono then dedicated the song “One” to Peres “with two ancient peoples in mind.”

By Eileen Fleming

 

Within days of the announcement for 2009’s Nobel Peace Prize, Israel’s Nuclear Whistle Blower the still NOT Free Mordechai Vanunu declined the honor in a letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo:

I am asking the committee to remove my name from the nominations…I cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres…Peres established and developed the atomic weapon program in Dimona in Israel…Peres was the man who ordered [my] kidnapping…he continues to oppose my freedom and release…WHAT I WANT IS FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM….FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM I NEED NOW.

 

Alfred Nobel’s intention was to reward people with a moral backbone and he hoped to create icons and examples to humankind.

In 1994, Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Peres were all awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for playing a part in achieving the Oslo Declaration of Principles. According to the preamble of the DOP, peace was to be based on mutual respect and reconciliation.

The Oslo process brought about a dangerous breach in Palestinian consciousness, an occupation, even, of the consciousness of a significant number of Palestinians. Oslo was the second victory for the state of Israel, behind the Nakba. Shimon Peres succeeded in dividing the Palestinian people and their land, and in the process dismantled and destroyed the Palestinian social fabric.

 

In 1963, when Vanunu was nine years old the Zionists came to his home town of Marrakech, Morocco and convinced his Orthodox father to abandon his general store and pack up the first seven of his eleven children for the land of milk and honey.

Instead, the Vanunu’s were banished to the desert of Beesheva, one of over 500 ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages and towns that Israel destroyed to create their facts on the ground.

 

Also in 1963, Shimon Peres, then Israel’s Deputy Minister of Defense met with President John Kennedy, at the White House.

Kennedy told Peres, “You know that we follow very closely the discovery of any nuclear development in the region. This could create a very dangerous situation. For this reason we monitor your nuclear effort. What could you tell me about this?”

Peres replied, “I can tell you most clearly that we will not introduce nuclear weapons to the region, and certainly we will not be the first.”

 

 

 On October 2, 2009, The Washington Times reported that “Obama agrees to keep Israel’s nukes secret and reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections.”

 

If I can’t laugh and “if I can’t dance it’s not my revolution” [Emma Goldman] so I will end with “ONE”

 

 

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you
Now you got someone to blame

You say
One love
One life
When it’s one need
In the night
It’s one love
We get to share it
It leaves you baby
If you don’t care for it

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?
You act like you never had love
And you want me to go without

Well it’s too late
Tonight
To drag the past out
Into the light
We’re one
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other
One

Have you come here for forgiveness
Have you come to raise the dead
Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head
Did I ask too much
More than a lot
You gave me nothing
Now it’s all I got
We’re one
But we’re not the same
We hurt each other
Then we do it again

You say
Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple
Love the higher law
You ask me to enter
But then you made me crawl
And I can’t be holding on
To what you got
When all you got is hurt

One love
One blood
One life
You got to do what you should

One life
With each other
Sisters
Brothers

One life
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other

Carry each other
Carry each other