I Support Mairead Maguire’s Appeal to Free Mordechai Vanunu
NOBEL LAUREATES, 19 Jul 2010
Johan Galtung – TRANSCEND Media Service
I endorse every word by TRANSCEND member Mairead Maguire.
Mordechai and I got the Right Livelihood Award, aka the alternative Nobel Peace Prize, the same year, 1987. He embodies the best of Western Civilization: courage, honesty, truth, dedication to peaceful resolution. By disowning him from the narrow angle of state security interests Israel acts against its own interest: to stand as a beacon for such values, so often trampled upon by non-Jews when carried by Jews.
Nobody asks the Israeli government to agree with Mordechai, even if very many nourish the hope that one day they will. All that is demanded is to treat him decently, proving in practice that Israel is a human rights respecting democracy; the exact opposite of a nazi Germany in its treatment of Ossietzky. The level of democracy is not measured by the tolerance of minor disgreements but by how the country treats people like whistleblowers. Mordechai is one of those. The world needs them more than ever. So does Israel. Wake up, Israel, be truthful to your own deeper values!
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 19 Jul 2010.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: I Support Mairead Maguire’s Appeal to Free Mordechai Vanunu, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
July 13, 2010, FAX To:
Dear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of Justice Prof. Yaakov Neeman, Attorney General Menahem Mazuz and President Obama,
Whereas in October 2009, President Obama agreed to persist in America’s four-decade-old ‘secret’ understanding that allows Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections,
Whereas in July 2010, President Obama pledged to sell Israel nuclear technology and other supplies, despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
Whereas there is increasing international pressure for Israel to be more transparent about its nuclear arsenal,
Whereas Israel locked Mordechai Vanunu back up in solitary 23 May, 2010 for speaking to foreign media in 2004,
Whereas on 18 June 2010, Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East Programme stated:
“Mordechai Vanunu should not be in prison at all, let alone be held in solitary confinement in a unit intended for violent criminals. Mordechai Vanunu is a prisoner of conscience. The prison authorities might claim that he has been put in isolation to protect him from the risk of attack by other inmates, but if the Israeli government is really concerned for his safety it should release him without delay. His re-imprisonment is both harsh and unjustified. The restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu arbitrarily limit his rights to freedom of movement, expression and association and are therefore in breach of international law. They should be lifted and he should be allowed to start his life again as a free man.”
Whereas on 24 April 2004, Uri Avnery wrote:
“Everybody understands that Vanunu has no more secrets. What can a technician know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant steps?
“But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the United States in the development of Israel’s nuclear armaments.
“This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State Department for ‘arms control’, Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the mighty super-power…The world must be prevented by all available means from hearing, from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full partners in Israel’s nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world’s sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation.”
Whereas, in 2005, Vanunu told me:
“President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons. Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. 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.”
Whereas if Israel had allowed Vanunu the right to leave Israel in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, or 2009 and fade into history, instead of continuing to make it, I would not have written my third book:
BEYOND NUCLEAR: Some of my Experiences of Mordechai Vanunu and the Holy Land: 2005-2010, which documents Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and acts of individual conscience vis-à-vis government policies, secret police operations and judicial decisions.
BEYOND NUCLEAR was also written as a matter of my destiny, as I was NOT a reporter until after I met Vanunu!
I established my website three weeks after my first of seven trips to Israel Palestine, compelled to do what THE MEDIA has failed at: report about life under military occupation and the reasons for the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land.
Whereas the longer Israel denies Vanunu his full freedom, the larger his legend and greater international compassion will grow; thus the time is NOW to FREE VANUNU!
Most sincerely and in solidarity with Micah 6:8: “What does God require? He has told you o’man! Be JUST! Be Merciful! And walk humbly with your Lord.”
Eileen Fleming, Producer “30 Minutes with Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Staff Member of Salem-news.com
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com and Dandelionsalad.wordpress.com
Author of “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory”
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
+972 2 566 4838
Minister of Justice Prof. Yaakov Neeman:
+972 2 628 7757
Attorney General Menahem Mazuz:
+972 2 530 3367
+972 2 627 4481
President Obama:
1-202 456-2461
Morde Vanunu is an old friend, and a great man. We must not forget him – especially now as he continues to pay for his honesty with his freedom. God bless you Ms Maguire, Prof. Galtung, and all who continue to stand alongside our dear brother, Morde.
As a Jewish Canadian and believer in social justice and peace, I applaud your efforts and admire your clarity of purpose. I fear that the extremist government of Natanyahu will as usual ignore such a reasonable appeal. It seems that almost all the political parties have developed a callous disregard for human rights and have hardened themselves to the project of maintaining Israel’s oppressive character. What they fail to recognize is that future generations will pay the price in a collective shame. That is, after all, what happened to the new generations of post-war Germans.