"Waiting, waiting, waiting," still echoes
up and down corridors of a prison in Ashkelon,
Israel.
"Waiting,
waiting, waiting," is still the mantra
that sustains a man confined to a solitary
cell for eleven and a half years, and
enduring seven further.
"Waiting, waiting, waiting" is the holy
whisper, the breath, the wellspring of
hopeful murmurs from a man in sensory
deprivation; enduring various degree and
combination of psychological tortures
most often induced under twenty four hours
of electric light exposure.
"Waiting,
waiting, waiting" are the words Israeli
nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu recently
spoke to me over the phone from East Jerusalem
where he lives in sanctuary under the
protection of the Anglican Church and
under the detention and further restrictions
imposed upon him by the state of Israel,
since the conclusion of his prison term
last April.
Mr. Vanunu asserts his rights as a free
man when he speaks to me and the rest
of the free world. And in doing so he
affords us a glimpse into his current
life as controlled by the Israeli justice
system especially as it applies to dissidence,
free speech and non violent struggle to
be free. Mordechai Vanunu is not entitled
to his free speech because, according
to the state of Israel, he is a present
security risk of nineteen year old memories
collected while working as a technician
in a nuclear plant. He has been banned
from speaking to foreigners because expressing
his free speech is considered probably
dangerous.
It
would appear, Mordechai is being further
punished for what he did in the past and
for that which might exist in some future.
Only a theoretical physicist could give
measure to this furture crime in some
exspansion of concurrent time. And what
a ludicrous conundrum that is most serious
and one that gives pause to look further
into the grave nature of prejudice cast
against Vanunu during his stay in prison
and now continued in some form of misdirected
nationalist vengeance against a man who
continues to declare himself whistleblower
and man of conscience.
Almost
a year ago, he walked out the gates of
Askelon Prison, and declared himself free
and proud of what he had done.
Almost
every aspect of the Vanunu case and how
he has been treated and is currently treated,
causes blight on the principles and definitions
of personal freedom. In a civilized society
, Mordechai Vanunu , would not have been
drugged or kidnapped in order to stand
trial for telling the truth when his government
was lying. And it follows that in a civilized
society, Mordechai Vanunu would be now
free to leave the country that punished
him. But by Israel's present standards,
a fifty year old brain with nineteen year
old memories of life as a technician before
during and after endlessly cruel electric
light treatments, is subject to consideration
as some kind of national security threat.
In
the civilized free world, upon release,
he would have been either allowed to leave
or be deported as an undesireable. While
restricted from making contact with the
world, the world continues to make contact
with him and wishes to honor him, even
as he endures ongoing hatred and physical
threat fuelled by tabloid medias.
From
the free world:
Yoko
Ono presented him with a Peace Award,
in absentia, Setember 16 2004
And he was recently elected
Rector of Glasgow University in Scotland.
He
was once again nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize,
which has become an annual nomination since
1989.
Mordechai Vanunu continues to call for
complete nuclear inspections, accountabilities
and disarmament, especially and including
Israel. He has rather purposefully given
interviews for expressly the purpose of
explaining his motivation(s) as a whistleblower
and his rights as a free man in order
to tell everyone about these motivations
and to continue to express that he has
no more secrets. Considering the hatred
perpetuated against him while he was still
in prison, it would seem a pre-requisite
for the man to speak out for himself and
make the world at large familiar and more
clear about his intentions as a man of
conscience.
He
is not sorry and he insists that he has
neither new secrets nor regrets about
the old secrets. On behalf of world peace,
he expressly wishes for all countries
to lay down their nuclear weapons. And
he wishes to begin rehabilitation and
a new life outside of Israel as soon as
possible, where he can continue to speak
out for a world peace through nuclear
disarmament.
The
question should also follow, does Israel
have any more secrets? And why are there
secrets at all? Is there a �secret� Israeli
government that is keeping secrets and
agendas from its citizens and allies?
Why do devious governments always hold
to the belief that the general public
most be "protected" from the truth? and
for our own "good"? A truly Democratic
government is accountable to all citizens
via honorable and ethical obligation.
There are checks and balances to oversee
the practice of how representatives fulfill
their duties to state and citizen.
Vanunu's
freespeech and opinion about Israel, is
not a secret and he has been very specific
and direct in expressing this opinion
that Jews do not need a specific state
separate from the rest of the world in
which to be respected as free men and
women. Vanunu feels that Jews are entitiled
to live anywhere and everywhere that free
men and women live.
He
is not popular for these thoughts , but
neither is he alone. Do unpopular views
have a respectful place in the type of
democracy currently practiced in Israel?
"Waiting,
waiting, waiting" continues to be Mordechai's
devoted practice along with the practice
of the religion of his free choice: Christianity.
With
reference to Christianity, and salvation
throughout the length of his prison term,
there seems evidence of a trend to punish
him for his conversion as well as for
whistleblowing. Why else would it be necessary
for a large group of armed men to charge
into the sanctuary of St George�s Cathedral
in order to take Mr Vanunu into custody
for further questioning? Bishop
Riah Abu El-Assal and his Anglican
community were frightened and outraged
by such behavior!
"In
the 100 years of the Cathedral's history
such an event has never taken place,"
said the Bishop.
Mr
Vanunu was co-operative as usual, even
stoic as they dragged him off to police
headquarters.
The
visiting Christian pilgrims at St George's
Cathedral House were both terrified and
horrified.
A
Purgatory where free is not
so free seems specifically created for
Vanunu. After completion of his prison
term, such reasoning and conditions about
his personal freedom defies common sense,
common justice and common trust in any
legal system especially one based upon
democracy. And there is also the deeper
darker hint of prejudice, perhaps even
racism. Mordechai Vanunu is not only a
Christian convert, but a Moroccan Jew
and even before his conversion to Christianity,
his family experienced Israel in a way
very different from the Ashkenazi colonist
experience.
Mordechai
Vanunu's Moroccan ethnicity is genetically
linked closest to the original peoples
of Canaan, including the Palestinian people
and indigenous inhabitants of Canaan,
more so than to any European "settlers"
of Israel. In an enlightening and positive
work called, "Sharing the Land of Canaan",
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, who has an area
of expertise in zoology and genetics,
and who is also by ethnic background a
concerned Christian Palestinian, writes
about "genetics versus zionist mythology"
in a well developed but succint work concerned
with the future of the land he calls Canaan.
He reports an interesting conflict of
data pertaining to suggestions of ancestral
populations with common gene pools that
actually reveals North African, Arabian,
and Kurdish Jews and other Near Eastern
Jews ( Sephardic and Mizrachi) as being
closer genetically to Palestinians and
other Arabian populations than to the
Ashkenazi Jews, who came to "settle".
Prior
to the publication of this book , he wrote
Letter to the Society of Histocompatability
and Immunity on the Use and Abuse of Genetics.
His letter condemns the use of genetics
and racism as an excuse for dispossession
and ethnic cleansing of any original and
existing peoples.
Mordechai
Vanunu lives peacefully among the Palestinians
of East Jerusalem and feels warmth and
closeness in this society and perhaps
also feels a bit safer from Jewish right
wing extremists, who openly cavort in
their threats against him and presently
now have made serious threats against
the Israeli government. The trend in Israel,
as it appears almost daily in Haaretz
and Jerusalem Post, is to tolerate violence
from religious extremists who support
exclusive religious agendas that seem
excuse violence. This is particularly
clear in the treatment of Vanunu. While
theories of hatred and revenge hold him
in detention with restrictions; radical
extremists run free to damage Israel physically
and psychically.
The
Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon
has hired extra protection around his wife's
grave site because of hideous threats from
extremists. This necessity bespeaks a spiritual
illness in this kind of criminal behavior
and offense. The mentality that would desecrate
a Jewish gravestone in Israel, is the same
that descerates Jewish gravestones around
the world . Vanunu is not wrong in his premise.
Jews do not need a state in which to learn
proper behavior towards other Jews or non
Jews. Civilized people can learn to live
in respect of one another, by simply doing
so.
As
a librarian I often like to tell and retell
ethnic legends and stories. I have always
been fascinated by stories about golems. I believe that the present
leadership in Israel, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon specifically, has created two HUGE
golems. Both golems have been created from
the blood and the water of the land and
are related by blood to the one Patriach.
Both golems are now "out of control" . One
golem is thousands of displaced refugees
created by ethnic cleansings and massive
punishments. The other golem is displaced
settlers created by ethnic preferences.
Jews and non Jews can be made to feel safe
and safer all around the world. We can not
build a wall around our differences and
hope to keep out the deviants. Someone is
always wanting to either escape or crash.
