Tuesday, December 29, 2009

May Peace Prevail On Earth


Mordechai Vanunu (Hebrew: מרדכי ואנונו‎) is an Israeli former nuclear technical assistant who revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured to Italy by an American woman named Cheryl Bentov and kidnapped by Israeli intelligence operatives. He was transported to Israel and ultimately convicted of treason and espionage.

Vanunu was born in Marrakech, Morocco, on 14 October 1954 to a Jewish family; his father was a rabbi. In 1963, at the age of nine, he emigrated under the Law of Return with his parents and the first 4 of his 11 brothers and sisters to Israel. He studied in an ultra orthodox elementary school, and attended, but did not finish, a Bnei Akiva yeshiva high school.

Vanunu completed his three years of military service as a sapper in the IDF Combat Engineering Corps, with the rank of First Sergeant. After completing his service, Vanunu began working as a technician at the Negev Nuclear Research Center. Concurrently, he became a part-time geography and philosophy student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

At that time he became critical of many policies of the Israeli government, forming a group called "Campus" with four other Jewish students and five Arab students. Vanunu was also affiliated with a group called "Movement for the Advancement of Peace." In early 1980s Vanunu converted to Christianity from Judaism. Vanunu graduated from Ben-Gurion University in 1985 with a BA in Philosophy and Geography.

Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He says he has been persecuted by the authorities in Israel because of his conversion to Christianity, saying "I want to tell those who say I am a traitor, I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian."

In 2007, Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole. The sentence was considered unusual even by the prosecution who expected a suspended sentence. In response, Amnesty International issued a press release on 2 July 2007, stating that "The organisation considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release." Vanunu has been characterized by some as a whistleblower and by others as a traitor. Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as "the preeminent hero of the nuclear era".

On 28 December 2009, Mr. Vanunu was once again arrested "by Jerusalem Police in a hotel in the capital following an alleged meeting with a Norwegian national. He remained in jail on Tuesday, though was set to be transferred to house arrest..."

(read more)

2 comments:

David Wilson said...

it has been a while since I came over here to visit ... so I'm reading along, I have already been watching Vanunu in the news lately, and then I get to the 'read more ...' and see that it is you who has posted it, and I think, "Hmmm, sure doesn't sound like Oberon?"

and sure enough, it wasn't :-) or only partly :-)

this has been a hard season, my hardest ever, the failure in Copenhagen has left me almost afraid to go out my door, of course I am one of those who thinks that if we don't peak emissions this year then an increase of more than 1.5 degrees is inevitable, sayonara Tuvalu,

and Ian Fry, Tuvalu's spokesman, is so eloquent ... was so eloquent in Copenhagen

I thought I gave it a pretty good run Oberon, put my shoulder to the wheel to get the word out and so on, it didn't work and I am bereft, mourning, don't know where to turn

I literally do not know where to turn

got any ideas?

Oberon said...

...hi david...vanunu on the news is what prompted me to do this post from wiki source...the photo i found made it a must...vanunu is my favorite kind of peace-nik
...and yeah, i know how you feel about global warming and it does seem hopeless...but we must NEVER GIVE UP...

...here are a couple of links to check out...read them and spread them around...this beautiful man has his finger on the solution...

http://www.earthdancer.org/Words/DalaiLama.html

http://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/the-global-community