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
HomeBlogOctober 2010 October 9, 2010: John Lennon's 70th and the Vanunu Connection
October 9, 2010: John Lennon's 70th and the Vanunu Connection
October 9, 2013: John Lennon's 73rd, Vanunu's 59th and on with REVOLUTION
John Lennon could have celebrated his 73rd birthday this October 9th.
Israel's Nuclear Whistle Blower, Mordechai Vanunu will turn 59 on the 13th.
Every year since I first met Vanunu, in 2005, I have never wished him a "happy birthday" but his FINAL birthday denied the RIGHT to leave the "only democracy in the Middle East" with decades more in full freedom and good health.
During my first [soon to be eight] trip to Israel Palestine, Vanunu told me:
"I
began my studies at Tel Aviv University when I was twenty-one. I
studied physics until the army called me up for thirty days’ reserve
service. When I returned to school, I couldn’t catch up. I worked in a
bakery at night and attended class all day. This was the first time I
met Palestinians as human beings. I began attending political
demonstrations inside the university. It was all about equal human
rights and respecting all others. By the time I was twenty-three, I
began working at the Dimona. It was suppose to be a textile plant, but
I was hired for the control room. At the time, I had no idea what it
was in control of.
"I
really didn’t even want the job; I tried to get them not to hire me. On
the application, they asked if I knew any Palestinians. As I had an
acquaintance, I said yes, hoping it would disqualify me from
employment. They accepted me anyway. I watched them as closely as they
watched me. I began studying philosophy and geography, and read
literature."
I asked Vanunu, "Did you know the Beatles and Bob Dylan" because I am nine months older than he and both had been major influences on our generation.
Vanunu replied, "Sure,
but I prefer classical. And I began wondering more about life and
politics. I decided to become a hermit and vegetarian. I lived alone,
but never was lonely. It wasn’t ever fun, but I enjoy the quiet. I was
never sad, but never happy, either. After a year, I got bored with the
routine job at the Dimona and wanted to leave. I went to Beersheba
University and studied economics for a year. I became involved in
university politics and in student unions. I was all about protecting
Palestinian students’ rights. I sided with Palestinians more and more,
and was invited to help establish a group of Palestinian and Jewish
students for peace and justice. This was also the time I found out that
it was dangerous for me to speak the truth. I was being watched, but I
continued to express myself anyway. After six months, I got called in
by security at the Dimona, and they asked me, 'Can you imagine why you
are here?'
"I
answered, 'My university activity?' They then questioned me about all
my contacts and told me to stop, because I was in danger. I told them I
would try, but I knew I would continue on, because it was the right
cause and I would not hide my thoughts.
"After
five months, they called me in again and demanded that I stop my
activities. A few months later, the chief security man took me to the
Tel Aviv Secret Room, where the Israeli army security officer grilled
me. They told me I could get fifteen years in prison if I didn’t stop
my university activities. I left the meeting and walked to a
Palestinian bookstore, knowing they were watching me. That night, I
wrote in my diary, ‘1/85. I should have finished this job at Dimona
before now. Time to quit.'"
In 2005, I was writing my first historical fiction, but I became a reporter AFTER and BECAUSE Vanunu told me:
“Did
you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building
atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit
the Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but
a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, ‘The nuclear reactor is only
for peace.’
“Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote
letters demanding that Ben Guirion open up the Dimona for inspection.
“The French were responsible for the actual building of the Dimona. The
Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust, and
tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French,
when I was there, almost twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona
descended seven floors underground.
“In 1955, Perez and Guirion met with
the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought
against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of
1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor
plant deal continued on.
“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.
"In 1986, they started to produce the most horrible of all
weapons; thermonuclear, in lying and in cheating the world and all of its
citizens. So I said to myself it is impossible to keep these secrets.
"I must
report about them and to try and stop it."
Ever since Vanunu emerged from 18 years behind bars to 24/7 surveillance, Israel has
inflicted upon him the same restrictions that were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews
after World War II.
Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later
became Israel's Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense
Regulations as
"unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi
Germany."
On 18 September 2004, in London, Yoko
Ono awarded Vanunu a peace prize founded in memory of and in the
spirit of John Lennon's "Give Me Some Truth" released in 1971.
"I'm sick and
tired of hearing things from uptight short sided narrow minded hypocrites all I
want is the truth, just give me some truth. I’ve had enough of reading things
by neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians all I want is the truth, just give
me some truth."-John Lennon
The award was
instituted in 2002, when Israeli Zvi Goldstein and Palestinian Khalil Rabah
each won for artistic contributions to peace in their homeland.
In 2004, Ono also awarded $50,000 to New Yorker magazine correspondent and
author Seymour Hersh, whom she described as "a staunch seeker of truth" for his
investigative journalism.
In 2004, Ono was quoted by Reuters that Hirsh and Vanunu were honored as "people who have spoken out for the benefit of the human race by overcoming
extreme personal difficulties and, in doing so, have allowed the truth to
prevail. Hopefully [Vanunu] can come and receive the award himself. He did
complete his sentence, it's not as though he's a criminal. The point is that
it's another statement, a statement that the whole world can share and think
about. People power is stronger than the power of institutions."
In Ray Coleman's biography of John Lennon, he quotes the artist circa 1969:
"I'd like to be like Christ, [he described himself as a Christian communist] in
a pure sense, not in the way Russia or Italy think of Christianity or
communism. Every body's uptight and they're always building these walls around
themselves. All you can do is try to break down the walls and show them that
there's nothing there but people. I only know that peace can exist, and the
first thing is for the world to disarm…I think I'll win because I believe in
what Jesus said." Read more...
Within minutes of emerging from his
tomb sized cell on 21 April 21 2004, Vanunu announced:
"I am not harming
Israel. I am not interested in Israel. I want to tell you something very
important. I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian, because I was
baptized into Christianity. If I was a Jew I wouldn't have all this suffering
here in isolation for 18 years. Only because I was a Christian man."
In 2005, Vanunu elaborated, "My Christian conversion was also considered as
treason and led to me receiving more time in jail than any murderer has ever
served. The Israelis have this very beautiful article about freedom and liberty
but they want to destroy anyone who criticizes them for revealing the truth to
the world. The world must look and see what kind of democracy Israel is when
one speaks out the truth."
When Vanunu was 9 his family moved from Marrakesh to settle in one of the over 400 ethnically cleansed Palestinian villages that have been 'wiped off the map' as America mourned the loss of President Kennedy.
In the summer of
’66, a backlash in America against the Beatles began because John Lennon made a comment to a
friend who was a reporter that the Beatles were more popular with my generation than
Jesus was.
I agreed with him, for my friends and I knew every lyric to every Beatles song,
but nobody ever quoted Jesus.
Lennon made me think about my own hypocrisy, and
on a Saturday afternoon in July, immediately after the ritual of weekly
confession while I knelt at the altar and mindlessly repeated the same old
prayers as the week prior, in the middle of the three Our Fathers and ten Hail
Mary's, it hit me like a light!
Those words that I uttered never changed
anything, and I got up and walked out, convinced I was doomed for hell, for I
had failed at Confession!
I never doubted there was a God, but as Lennon said and I still believe:
"That
what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and
Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the
translations have gone wrong.
"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick
and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
"You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever
you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's
all down to you, mate.
"All we are saying is give peace a chance.
"All you need
is love.
"Imagine all the people living life in peace....and the world
will be as one.
"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."
HOLD these
truths to be self-evident: That all [people] are created equal; that
they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable
rights...that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among
[people] 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.-The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
"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