Mordechai Vanunu: Big Media and The Big Get The Media Didn’t Get

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The restrictions preventing Israel’s infamous nuclear whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu from leaving the state expire this November.

Vanunu’s Norwegian wife, Professor Kristin Joachimsen applied for his asylum in 2015 after their wedding in Jerusalem.

Asylum applications in Norway average four months to be approved. Norway finally approved the Vanunu family reunification application in September 2017, after the Norwegian Media reported on their delayed asylum process.

By Eileen Fleming

The creator and producer of “60 Minutes” Don Hewitt, died in 2009, but he continues to inspire reporters and writers: “The formula is simple and it’s reduced to four words every kid in the world knows: Tell me a story. It’s that easy.”-Don Hewitt

Don Hewitt created and produced Big Event television news with anchors on location who reported on a Big Get: facts delivered with guts.

In 2006, I snail-mailed Mr. Hewitt a DVD copy of my “30 Minutes with Vanunu”, because on 26 March 2006, Mordechai Vanunu told me:

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. 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. Also big media from Germany, France, Italy, Japan. None of them wants problems with the Israelis.

A few Big Get Facts:

On January 25, 2006, Vanunu was convicted by the Jerusalem Magistrates Court of 15 violations of a military order that prohibited him from talking to non-Israelis and because he supposedly attempted to leave Israel by taking a cab to go 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.

On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking to foreigners-who happened to be 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 Mordechai Vanunu informed this American via email:

“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.”

On July 6, 2009, Supreme Court President Dorit Beinish continued to deny Vanunu the right to leave Israel claiming his “case is still generating great interest, like any other security-related case. The media’s attention he gets is proof of that.”

Fast Forward to 2013:

During this American’s last trip to Jerusalem in November 2013, Vanunu told me a reporter from CNN had recently asked him for an interview but Vanunu told him, “No, everything is already on the Internet.”

Although released from 18 years behind bars in 2004, Vanunu has been held in Israel under the Emergency Defense Regulations, which were implemented first by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.

Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who also served as a Minister of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as “unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany.”

At the start of “30 Minutes with Vanunu” this American asked Vanunu:

“If the British Mandate has expired why not the British Mandate’s Emergency Defense Regulations? “

Vanunu replied:

The reason given is security but it is because Israel is not a democracy unless you are a Jew. This administration tells me I am not allowed to speak to foreigners, The Media, and the world. But I do because that is how I prove my true humanity to the world. My freedom of speech trial began January 25, 2006 for speaking to the media, the same day as the Palestinian elections.

When I decided to expose Israel’s nuclear weapons I acted out of conscience and to warn the world to prevent a nuclear holocaust

The Israeli media demonized me, they published many lies about me. Israel kept me totally isolated in prison for most of the 18 years [behind bars].

I am also regarded as a traitor because I was baptized a Christian. My Christian conversion was also considered as treason and led to me receiving more time in jail than any murderer has ever served. The Israelis have this very beautiful article about freedom and liberty but they want to destroy anyone who criticizes them for revealing the truth to the world. The world must look and see what kind of democracy Israel is when one speaks out the truth.

It’s very sad that Hilary Clinton went to the Jewish Wailing Wall and forgot the real crying wall is the Palestinian wall-the apartheid wall. The wall is not for defense, but to keep this conflict permanent. The people who need the help are the Palestinian Christians.

Israel propaganda portrays all Palestinians as Muslim extremists and Hamas terrorists and neglect that Palestinian Christians are following the true message of Jesus Christ with nonviolent resistance. We need all Christians to come and see the true facts on the ground.

The Dimona is 46 years old; reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and Israel has never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but all the Arab states have.

Twenty years ago when I worked there they only produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan ten miles away. No one knows what is happening now.

The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism. The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime for 40 years.

The only way to peace is peace; the only way is nonviolence. The only answer to Israeli nuclear weapons, their aggression, occupation and oppression, and the wall and refugee camps is to answer them with truth and a peaceful voice. When I became the spy for the world, I did it all for the people of the world. If governments do not report the truth, and if the media does not report the truth, then all we can do is follow our consciences. Daniel Ellsberg did, the woman from Enron did, and I did.

The United States needs to wake up and see the truth that Israel is not a democracy, unless you are a Jew. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where America can right now find nuclear weapons.

America can also find where basic human rights have been denied Christians: right here in Israel. The time has come for the United States to see the truth of Zionism. It began as a secular nationalist movement, not a religious one.

Then some Christians believed that when Israel became a nation, it was the beginning of the second coming. They are deluded if they believe peace will come through atomic weapons. Atomic weapons are holocaust weapons. Christians should be the first people against them. We need all Christians to come and see the truth for themselves.

Vanunu also informed me that, “All the secrets I had were published in 1989 in an important book, by Frank Barnaby, The Invisible Bomb: Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East.

A few days before Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by the Mossad, he spent three days being interviewed by Nuclear Physicist, Frank Barnaby.

Barnaby had been employed by the London Sunday Times to review the 57 photos Vanunu had obtained at various restricted locations in the Dimona.

Barnaby also went to Jerusalem to provide expert testimony at Vanunu’s closed-door trial and testified:

I found the fact that Vanunu was able to smuggle a camera and films into and out of Dimona and photograph highly sensitive areas in the establishment astonishing.

I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times…I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel’s secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically.

Israel’s political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israel’s nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy.

The knowledge that Vanunu had about Isreal’s nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today.

He left Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today’s Israeli nuclear weapons will have been considerably changed since then…Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980.