WAWA/WeAreWideAwake is my Public Service to America as a muckracker who has journeyed seven times to Israel Palestine since June 2005.
WAWA is dedicated to confronting media and governments that shield the whole
truth.
We who Are Wide
Awake are compelled by the "fierce urgency of Now" [Rev MLK, Jr.] to raise
awareness and promote the human dialogue about many of the crucial issues of our
day: the state of our Union and in protection of democracy, what life is like
under military occupation in Palestine, the Christian EXODUS from the Holy Land,
and spirituality-from a Theologically Liberated Christian Anarchist
POV.
"Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all...and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave...a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils." George Washington's Farewell Address - 1796
"My aim is to agitate & disturb people. I'm not selling bread, I'm selling yeast." Unamuno
"Imagine All the People Sharing All the World." John Lennon
"If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees." Father Philip Francis Berrigan
"You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won't back down." Tom Petty
"If I can't dance, it's not my revolution." Emma Goldman
"We have yet to begin to IMAGINE the power and potential of the Internet." Charlie Rose, 2005
Only in Solidarity do "We have it in our power to begin the world again" Tom Paine
"Never doubt that a few, thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead
"You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." John 8:32
DO SOMETHING!
Photo of George shown here and in web site banner courtesy of Debbie Hill, 2000.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that, among these, are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; and, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. -July 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence
HomeBlogJuly 2010 July 18, 2010: Open Letter to the Jewish People from Noble Laureate Mairead Maguire
July 18, 2010: Open Letter to the Jewish People from Noble Laureate Mairead Maguire
July 18, 2010: Open Letter to the Jewish People from Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and the Vanunu Saga 2005-2010!
Open Letter of Appeal to the Jewish people
Dear Friends,
I write to ask for your help in gaining the freedom of a good
man, a man of peace, and a man of conscience.
In the Jewish scriptures there is great
emphasis on justice and freedom and it is for such, for one man, that I
write to seek your help.
He will not be aware that I am writing this
Appeal, but I do so in the hope that, with your help, it will produce his freedom, and not
(and this I must risk) cause yet more punishment and cruelty to be inflicted upon him.
However, I feel when I tell you the story,
it will touch your hearts and there will be those amongst you who will be able
to help him gain his freedom.
In May, 2010, this man was returned to prison
to serve three months for allegedly breaking his prison release restrictions
and speaking to Foreign Media.
On Sunday 11 July, 2010, he had his first visit in seven weeks.
His brother, Meir, was granted a 30 minute visit.There wasa glass window between them and they spoke via the phone.He wore a prison uniform.He is held in the hardest prison
section there is in the prison.It
has the most notorious criminals in the country, well known hard murder
cases.All about a dozen are in
severe isolation conditions.He is
in a cell by himself for 24 hours a day, no window but a small wire covered
crack at the top part of one wall.He has about an hour’s walk a day in a very tiny yard.He was simply thrown in a cell by the
security agents, the door locked, and left to suffer there all alone.He has not spoken to anyone in all the
seven weeks and this visit was (apart from a short visit of his lawyer 6 weeks
ago) the first conversation he had in seven weeks.His food is limited in quality and quantity, and his reading
material two books he has with him.Of course his spirits are down as a result of being put in such harsh,
inhuman and cruel conditions.
His name is Mordechai Vanunu, and he is in
an Israeli prison cell.
Mordechai
is no stranger to prison.
In l986 Mordechai Vanunu told the world
that Israel had a Nuclear Weapons Programme and he was given 18 years
imprisonment for doing so.
He is
the Israeli Nuclear whistle blower and 24 years later continues to be punished
for trying to warn the Israelis and protect both Israel and the world from a Nuclear
weapons disaster.
Mordechai
Vanunu served the full 18 years of his sentence (eleven years in solitary ) and
upon release, instead of allowing him to leave Israel, the Israeli Government
putsevere restrictions upon him,
including forbidding him to leave Israel and not to speak to foreign
media.It was the allegedly
breaking of these restrictions and speaking to Foreign media, which resulted in
Mordechai being returned to prison for 3 months.
He has 6
weeks left to serve in these harsh prison conditions, and even upon release
from prison will still have to remain in Israel until next April, 2011 when the
restrictions will be reviewed and probably renewed yet again, as they have been
renewed each year for the past 6 years.
Some people say Vanunu will never be allowed to leave
Israel but will die there, if indeed in the meantime his spirit is not broken
by his ill treatment and he losses his sanity.
The Shabak continues to tell the Israeli
Government he is a security risk and must not be released and the Israeli
Judiciary and Government obey them and keep him imprisoned.Vanunu is no risk to Israeli
National Security.He has no
nuclear Secrets.
I have asked some Israelis why they think Israel refuses to
allow Mordechai Vanunu to leave Israel.Various reasons are given but the most frequent answer
is they feel the Israeli Government does not trust its citizens and holding
Mordechai Vanunu, forever, if necessary sends out the signal to Israeli
Citizens to behave themselves.
It seems, if this is so, that the strategy
is working.To date only a few
courageous Jewish people have raised their voices against such cruelty and
injustice perpetrated upon Mordecai, and called for him to be allowed to leave
Israel.
But I don’t believe Mordechai
will never be allowed to leave Israeli and will die in Jerusalem.I have met Mordechai many times
since he was released from prison on 2lst April, 2004.He is a good man, a man of peace,
and a true Gandhian spirit. Instead
of punishing him, Israel should be proud of Mordechai Vanunu, and I believe that future generations of
Israelis will look back and realize that there lived amongst them a great
visionary and man of peace, not only for Israel, but for the human family.It was with great joy I nominated him
several times for the Nobel Peace Prize, as did many other prominent names
during the past 24 years.He
richly serves the NPP as he lives and acts in the true spirit of Alfred Nobel,
who left his prize for those who would work for peace and disarmament.
However, it is with the deepest sadness that
I acknowledge that in spite of world campaigns by many, including Amnesty
International (and personal letters from myself to President Obama, President Shimon Peres,) Mordechai Vanunu
continues 24 years later to be most cruelly imprisoned and punished by Israel.Most Political
and Spiritual leaders, and International Bodies, of our time are silent in the face of Israel’s abuse of Vanunu’s
basic human right to freedom of speech and liberty, which is in violation of
many International Laws.
However, I have hope that he will be free
and I place my hope in those Jewish people who read this story and are moved to
right a wrong continuing to be done to Mordechai Vanunu,and they will demand that their
Government give him his freedom, and allow him to leave Israel.
"If
you shut up the truth and bury it under the ground, it will but grow,
and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts
through it will blow up everything in its way."- Emile Zola
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
Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services
have to
dance to their tune. 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."
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."
July 10,
2010: Back to Vanunu and "Let your
conscience be your guide"-Jiminy Cricket
August 21, 2009: The "Big Get"
Don Hewitt and "60 Minutes" Didn't GetRead more...
Vanunu's Freedom of Speech
Appeal Resumes March 23, 2008: Easter Sunday
Update: A few
days prior, Vanunu learned the appeal date was to be rescheduled. On
Easter Day he learned appeal resumes May 13, 2008
After a year and a half long
FREEDOM of Speech trial in Jerusalem, on July 2, 2007, an Israeli court
sentenced the whistle blower of Israel's WMD program, Mordechai Vanunu,
to six more months in jail for violating a ban imposed on him in 2004.
Since his release from Ashkelon Prison on April 21, 2004, Israel has
denied him the right to leave the state and has forbidden him to speak
to foreigners. Two days before President Bush's first trip to Israel
Palestine and a day before Vanunu's appeal was to begin, Israel
sentenced him to community service instead.
On Feb. 5, 2008, Vanunu met
with prison officials to arrange community service and learned that to
his "surprise they say there is no community service in East Jerusalem. I
told them the agreement for community service was on this condition
that it will be only in the East Jerusalem. They say no one told them
about this… I will do community service in the East Jerusalem or the
appeal begins and may be the prison sentence."
In an email on February 19,
2008, Vanunu wrote: "The court hearing today Feb. 19, was again
postponed, because of a small snow here. We are waiting for the next
hearing date soon."
The rescheduled date of March 23, is this Easter Sunday.
Vanunu has only lived in East
Jerusalem since his release from 18 years in Ashkelon Prison on April
21, 2004.
"I
went three times to West Jerusalem by taxi because I had to go to the
Supreme Court. All three times some right wing extremist Jews shouted
and threatened me. My community is the Lutheran Church in the Old City,
the Palestinians on the streets and internationals. I have met with
hundreds, thousands- probably even five thousand people since 2004."
Everyone who talks with Vanunu
on the street, on the phone or by email understands that they are being
monitored by cogs in the industrial security-surveillance complex.
On February 13, 2008, Washington
Post Staff Writer Paul Kane wrote: "The Senate yesterday approved a
sweeping measure that would expand the government's clandestine
surveillance powers, delivering a key victory to the White House by
approving the telecom immunity provision…the Senate approved the
reauthorization of a law that would give the government greater powers
to eavesdrop in terrorism and intelligence cases without obtaining
warrants from a secret court…The most important change approved by the
Senate yesterday would make permanent a law approved last August that
expanded the government's authority to intercept -- without a court
order -- the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States
communicating with others overseas." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021300959.html?hpid=topnews
The news that America is
on the verge of becoming a police state was ignored by ABC, CBS and NBC
and they have also ignored Vanunu's historic freedom of speech trial
that began the same day Hamas was democratically elected in January
2006.
On February 22, 2006 it was
revealed in court that Israel had asked Microsoft to hand over all the
details of Vanunu's Hotmail account before a court order had been
obtained.
Vanunu: "Microsoft obeyed the orders and gave them all
the details…three months before I was arrested and my computers were
confiscated…it is strange to ask Microsoft to give this information
before obtaining the court order to listen to my private conversations.
It means they wanted to go through my emails in secret, or maybe, with
the help of the secret services, the Shaback, Mossad…Sfard [Vanunu's
attorney] proved that the police had misled the judges who gave the
orders to arrest me: to search my room, to go through my email, to
confiscate my computers and that they misled Microsoft to believe they
are helping in a case of espionage. The State came to the court with two
special secret Government orders; Hisaion [documents or information
that are deemed confidential by the government and kept from the court,
the defendant, and lawyers.] This allows the prosecution to keep
documents related to my court hearing secret. One was from the Minister
for Interior Security and one from the Minister of Defense."
Vanunu's secretly taped police
interrogations, his 2004 Christmas Eve arrest for "attempting to leave
the country" when he attempted to celebrate mass at the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem, the confiscation of his private property by
thirty IDF that stormed into his room at St. George's Cathedral in 2004,
according to Vanunu have all "been done…under the false and misleading
statements to the courts of 'suspicion of espionage', and yet they are
not charging me with spy crimes… and the fact is that I have not
committed any crimes."
"But the real problem that Vanunu represents...at
a critically important moment in the history of the Middle East that
Israel is a nuclear power and that its warheads stand ready to be fired
from the Negev desert. [Vanunu] will also remind the world that the
Americans, despite battering their way into Iraq to destroy Saddam
Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, continue to give
their political, moral and economic support to a country that has
secretly amassed a treasure trove of weapons of mass destruction.
"How
can President Bush remain silent on Israel's nuclear power when he has
not only illegally invaded an Arab state for allegedly harbouring
nuclear weapons and condemned Iran for the same ambitions, but also
praised--along with Tony Blair's government--Colonel Gaddafi of Libya
for abandoning his nuclear pretensions? If the Arab states are being
"defanged"--always supposing they had any real fangs in the first
place--why should Israel not be "de-nuclearised"? Why can't the United
States apply the same standards to Israel as it does to the Arabs? Or
why, for that matter, can't Israel apply the same standards to itself
that it demands of its Arab enemies?" http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=5222
BACKGROUND:
In 1986, Vanunu was a low tech
worker in Israel's underground WMD facility in the Negev, but the sign
out front back them still proclaimed it was a Textile Plant. All
employees signed a secrecy agreement to never speak about what they did
in the Dimona, and all jobs were compartmentalized.
Because
Vanunu was a good worker, he was cross trained in many areas and woke up
to the fact that he was but a cog in the making of weapons of mass
destruction. Without talking to family or friends, he decided totally on
his own document the facts underground in the Dimona nuclear weapons
plant by photographing the evidence.
Vanunu easily obtained
the keys to the restricted areas after they had been carelessly left in
the shower room by a supervisor. Vanunu shot two rolls of film in the
underground WMD facility but did not develop them until ten months later
while in Sydney, Australia and just days after being baptized a
Christian.
The photos were published in the London Sunday Times just as
Vanunu was being kidnapped, clubbed, drugged and bound by the Mossad in
Rome and then flung onto an Israeli ship heading home.
Instead of Israel being
grateful for the alert to their inadequate security in the nuclear
reactor facility, Israel tried Vanunu for treason in a closed door trial
and locked him up for 18 years, most all of it in solitary. Vanunu has
not set foot into the Dimona in 22 years and International Inspectors
never have.
On April 21, 2004, Vanunu was released
from Ashkelon Prison, but still not free. He has lived under the
draconian 1945 British Mandate State of Emergency Regulations, which
forbids him from leaving Israel and speaking to media and foreigners.
After WW II, Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister
Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations which denies
Vanunu the inalienable rights of freedom of speech and movement as
"unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi
Germany."[ N.S. Ateek, Justice and
Only Justice p.34]
I met Vanunu for the first time
in June 2005, and was curious about his childhood and how and why he-a
secular Jew existentialist became a Christian. He filled me in on all of
that and much more:
"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.
"The
Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and
Muslims of terrorism. 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 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.
"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 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.
"My human rights have been denied me because I
am a Christian. When I was on trial, I was treated just like a
Palestinian: no human rights at all, and cruel and unusual punishment,
all because I told the truth. The government spread slander about me,
that I was a homosexual, that I hated Jews, that I wanted fame and
money. What I did was sacrifice my life for the truth. In prison, I
really began to feel like Jesus and Paul. When Jesus threw the money
changers out of the temple, it was like me in Dimona, exposing the
Israelis' dirty secrets. I felt like Paul, being thrown in prison for
speaking the truth.
"The only real way to worship is in
loving one's enemies. It was not easy to love my tormentors; it was only
because I felt so much like Jesus crucified on the cross, and as if I
was crucified in prison, that I could do it. It was not ever easy. I
have forgiven but not forgotten anything, and I never will. In Israel, a
life sentence is twenty-five years. Even murderers go free after
seventeen. They imposed the same restrictions on me that Palestinians
receive: no human rights at all; no phone; no visitors, except family,
and only through an iron grill; no vacation; no holidays; and no gifts.
Even murderers get out for vacations! I was locked up for eighteen years
and still cannot go on vacation; I cannot leave, and that is all I am
asking for, just to leave here. For eighteen years in prison, they even
attempted to control my thoughts on paper. I would write exactly what I
wanted and they would censor words like kidnapped and atomic bomb. They
would show me how they chopped up my letters, but I continued to write
exactly what I wanted. They held my body, but never my spirit or
mind...Israel is only a democracy if you are a Jew."
The legend of Vanunu continues
to grow:
Vanunu was again arrested on a Christmas Eve. He
was having dinner at the American Colony with a German tourist. In an
email on Dec. 26, 2007 Vanunu wrote:"...they were very harsh to the
young German girl, they were questioning here like by the KGB...she was
in a separate room. She was still there after I left at 24:00...So do
what ever you can, you are in a free country."
Also unafraid of
speaking with Vanunu as he told me during a Feb. 12, 2008 phone call are
the, "Ten to twenty foreigners I meet every day in the streets, in the
restaurants, in churches; some times they are short meetings, sometimes
long meetings."
I had called Vanunu to ask him what he thought
about the two suicide/homicide bombers who blew up six miles from the
underground Dimona nuclear plant on Feb. 5th. Reuters had originally
reported that a source said the "Army of Palestine" wing of Fatah's
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades from Gaza carried out the attack in Dimona
along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Within hours it was then reported that it was two Hamas from Hebron.
Israeli authorities denied the nuclear plant was the target and not one
journalist questioned it.
Vanunu said, "We don't know if they
were Hamas or Fatah, but they got as far as they could get to the
Dimona. The Dimona is very heavily guarded, and only another state could
blow it up, not terrorists."
Vanunu hasn't set foot in the
Dimona in twenty-two years, [International Inspectors never have] yet
Israel continues to insist they cannot let him speak with foreigners or
leave Israel, because Israeli authorities claim he still has a secret he
has not yet told.
Vanunu has maintained 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."
Article 12 of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which
Israel ratified and is obliged to uphold, stipulates: "everyone [has]
the right to liberty of movement and freedom to choose his residence"
and that "everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his
own".
"Israel is bound by international law not to impose
arbitrary restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu, including on his right to
travel within the country or abroad, his right to peaceful association
with others and his right to express his opinions" - Amnesty
International Press Release of April 19, 2004 and July 2, 2007.
Vanunu
concluded our February phone call, "For 18 years in prison I
felt like a man at a train station, waiting for my train. I lived in a
six by nine foot space without a window for 18 years. Every day I would
get up, get dressed, put on my shoes, look at the same four walls and
wait for that train that never came…Now I live in a nine by nine space
with four walls, I have a window to the Mount of Olives and the street.
But, I live like a tourist without even a TV in a cheap hotel and all I
want to do is leave Jerusalem. I am no longer waiting for a train. Now I
am at the airport terminal waiting for my plane."
"30
Minutes with Vanunu" WAWA's exclusive
uncensored interview from March 24, 2006 that did NOT
go through Israeli Military censors
Mail to: Postal Credit Union 8499
Tamarack Road Woodbury, MN 55125
Drop him an email and donate through his Pay Pal @ www.vanunu.com
Visitors since 07.22.05
Visitors: 32246890
"HOPE has two children.The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
"He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust." - Aquinas
Everyone has the right to freedom of
opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions
without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
" In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."-Mother Teresa
“You cannot talk like sane men around a peace table while the atomic bomb itself is ticking beneath it. Do not treat the atomic bomb as a weapon of offense; do not treat it as an instrument of the police. Treat the bomb for what it is: the visible insanity of a civilization that has ceased...to obey the laws of life.”- Lewis Mumford, 1946
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership....a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures." - William Fulbright
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” - Rev. MLK
Establishment of Israel
"On the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations." - May 14, 1948. The Declaration of the Establishment of Israel