Apr 10, 2011

Mordechai Vanunu and Israel's Secret Weapon watch online

Mordechai Vanunu and Israel's Secret Weapon watch online

Mordechai Vanunu, Israel's nuclear whistleblower was jailed in 1986 for publishing photographs of Israel's nuclear bomb factory at Dimona. Olenka Frenkiel reveals the extent of Israel's nuclear gagging. Vanunu has spent 17 years in jail, 11 of which were in a minute solitary confinement cell - and he has just had his appeal for parole denied. He will stay in jail until 2004, when his term is expected to end. Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam heard rumours in 1986 that an Israeli whistleblower was offering proof of what the world had long suspected. Vanunu was that whistleblower. His revelations confirmed that Israel was building advanced nuclear weapons.


After the Sunday Times published this scoop, Vanunu was lured to Italy and kidnapped by Mossad agents and illegally smuggled back to Israel. He was tried in secret and convicted of treason and spying. In court, at his parole hearing, Avigdor Feldman, Vanunu's lawyer, argued that his client had no more secrets and should be freed. But the prosecutor had a new argument: the imminent war with Iraq. After the hearing Mr Feldman told Correspondent: "The prosecutor said that if Vanunu were released, the Americans would probably leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel's nuclear weapons - which I found extremely ridiculous." The real force blocking Vanunu's release is a man who was known only as "Y". In 2001, "Y" was exposed as Yehiyel Horev and it is said that the only thing he fears is publicity. Mr Horev is the head of Israel's most powerful intelligence service, dealing with nuclear and military secrets. His accountability has only been to the many prime ministers he has watched come and go in the 16 years he has built his power base. He has been likened to the head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover - an autocrat out of control. Ronen Bergman, security correspondent for one of Israel's leading newspapers - Yediot Ahronoth - says: "Horev is a grave danger to Israeli democracy. "He operates with no law, no real scrutiny and no monitoring by the Israeli parliament. "Horev was afraid that veterans of the Israeli intelligence and the Israeli nuclear effort would try to maintain their footprint in the history of Israel and tell their story. "He wanted to frighten them."



مرسلة بواسطة variety في 00:41
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eileen fleming said...

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."


On March 26, 2006, Vanunu told me:

"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.

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

I began the taping of "30 Minutes with Vanunu" with this question: "If the British Mandate has expired why not the British Mandate's Emergency Defense Regulations?"

Learn more: "BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's
FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker" by eileen fleming

April 10, 2011 at 1:18 PM

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