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NUCLEAR VANUNU BACK IN ISRAELI COURT
<br>
<br>By Jerry Levin
<br>
<br>(Hebron, West Bank, Palestine January 26, 2006). Here's a Palestine
<br>election day story that was probably not reported in your local,
<br>regional or national mainstream press outlets. It took place in a tiny
<br>but definitely not crowded court room in West Jerusalem where the
<br>second trial of Mordechai Vanunu got underway. Given the fact that the
<br>trial began on the day when the attention of the entire international
<br>press corps stationed in Israel was concentrated in the West Bank and
<br>Gaza, it was virtually assured that the episode would pass by mainly
<br>unnoticed and unremarked. "At first, the judge arranged the trial for
<br>the 15th of January," Mordechai explained good naturedly while waiting
<br>for the proceedings to begin. "But then he moved it, because the
<br>Israel government wanted it be on the day of the election,"
<br>
<br>"Why?"
<br>
<br>So all the attention by the public and the media would not be on
<br>Vanunu but on the elections.
<br>
<br>"But why that?"
<br>
<br>"Because each time I am in the courts it reminds them of Israel's
<br>atomic weapons. The Zionists want to keep hiding them and stopping the
<br>talk.".
<br>
<br>Vanunu, of course, is the irrepressible whistle blowing former
<br>Orthodox Jew turned Anglican gadfly who back in 1986 at considerable
<br>risk revealed to a British newspaper the fact of Israel's secret full
<br>speed ahead nuclear armaments program. After letting that particular
<br>cat out of the bag, he was kidnapped to Israel by secret agents and
<br>sentenced to eighteen years in solitary confinement for revealing that
<br>specific truth. Most First World governments still officially pretend
<br>that the little man on the stair he revealed is still not there…on the
<br>stair. The fiction allows them to resist seeking to curtail the
<br>program like they have been trying to do in Iran and North Korea.
<br>
<br>After serving the full eighteen year term, Vanunu was released from
<br>jail, confined to Jerusalem and forbidden to give interviews to
<br>foreign journalists. He has observed the travel restriction
<br>scrupulously; but the minute he was released in April 2004 he launched
<br>a nonstop campaign of civil disobedience by talking to foreign
<br>reporters in English either in person or by electronic hook up. In
<br>fact he remains eagerly accessible to any one who cares to call him up
<br>to see if he is available.
<br>
<br>So after eight months of deliberately thumbing his nose at what he
<br>considers an intolerable infringement on his right to speak publicly
<br>and on the day when the attention of the international press was
<br>otherwise occupied reporting the death of Yassir Arafat, his room in
<br>the guest house of Anglican St. Georges' Cathedral was raided by
<br>Israeli police. All of his materials: tapes, DVDs, notebooks,
<br>computers were seized; and he was taken away for hours of
<br>interrogation before being let go [See From The Inside Looking Out,
<br>Report-44:Mordechai, December 21, 2004].
<br>
<br>"And this trial relates back to that raid over a year ago?"
<br>
<br>"Yes, that was the beginning. They arrested me. They questioned me.
<br>And now we have this trial about how they want to continue to
<br>interfere with me. See, what I say to the reporters is only what I
<br>said in 1986. What I am doing that is new, now that I am out of
<br>prison, is expressing my political views about what I found out then.
<br>I don't know any new secrets. I told all I knew. So they are against
<br>my freedom of speech and movement. They don't want me to talk against
<br>Israel making nuclear weapons proliferation in the Middle East. They
<br>don't want me to say that they should be abolished because in 1986
<br>they already had 230 atomic bombs and the hydrogen bomb. They don't
<br>need all that for defense. Those are holocaust bombs. They are for
<br>extermination."
<br>
<br>The trial is taking place in the lowest tier of the Israeli court
<br>system; it's called the Peace Court in the hopes that the disputants
<br>can come to some kind of agreement before a trial has to take place.
<br>"So, are you willing to make a deal with the prosecutor, like for
<br>instance, you let me go and I'll stop talking to the foreign press
<br>while I am here?
<br>
<br>"Yes, that's what I told to my lawyers when the government said, `We
<br>want to end this case by agreement, by deal.' So, I said, `I am ready
<br>for that when you tell me when and how I can leave the country, to
<br>start a new life, to work, and to write my story for the record.'"
<br>
<br>"So what did the prosecutors say when you said, `Just let me go?'"
<br>
<br>"I'm still waiting to hear from them."
<br>
<br>"And," I replied, "I'm still trying to get my mind around what they
<br>are prosecuting you for?"
<br>
<br>"For doing interviews like we are doing right here in the court, in
<br>front of the Prosecutor."
<br>
<br>The first day was taken up with the introduction of evidence: snippets
<br>from recordings of more than twenty interviews with all the usual
<br>suspects: interviews by the likes of Amy Goodman, David Frost, lesser
<br>lights from the Australian media, and the kind of radio stations and
<br>websites that Bill O'Reilly et al love to bash: KPFA, KPFP, WBAI, etc.
<br>Each one contained his complaints and concerns about 1) what he had
<br>learned about Israel's role in the small nation nuclear proliferation
<br>issue and 2) the infringement and circumscribing of his rights since
<br>leaving prison.
<br>
<br>At one point an amusedly incredulous Vanunu nudged me in the ribs and
<br>whispered, "Can you believe this. They are doing my testifying for me?"
<br>
<br>A little later his lead lawyer, Avigdor Feldman, objected when the
<br>prosecution tried to introduce recordings of his phone conversations
<br>and transcripts of chat room discussion. The broadcast and website
<br>interviews were one thing being public in nature, but phone
<br>conversations and chat room chatter, being private, is another. The
<br>judge said he'd think about that.
<br>
<br>And after that, the proceedings turned a bit sinister when it was
<br>revealed that the several interrogations of Vanunu by the police had
<br>been secretly videotaped. Some were played in court.
<br>
<br>When the session ended, Vanunu said, "We don't know what will be the
<br>outcome, verdict and maybe a sentence." But, once again he reiterated
<br>what he darn well thinks it ought to be. Acquittal, of course. "This
<br>is about freedom of speech," he said. "We have not committed any
<br>crimes. So I think really it is Israel's democracy system that is on
<br>trial. Either there is freedom of speech for Vanunu or there is no
<br>freedom of speech for him. Because what I did since leaving the prison
<br>is just expressing my views; and that is my right to do."
<br>
<br>Trial as currently scheduled takes up again on February 9 and 12.. <b on></b><!-- 11000 -->
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