Israeli prisoner
still a non-person in U.S. media
By NORMAN
SOLOMON
Creators
Syndicate
For Benjamin Netanyahu, October
ended on an upbeat note. The Israeli prime minister got a warm
reception in Washington -- and the American news media hailed the
renewal of the Middle East "peace process."
For Mordechai Vanunu, October
ended on a more downbeat note. The Israeli whistleblower finished his
twelfth year in captivity -- and the American news media continued to
treat him as a non-person.
On Sept. 30, 1986, Israel's
government kidnapped Vanunu in Rome and put him on a cargo ship. Back
in Israel, at a secret trial, he faced charges of espionage and
treason. A military court sentenced him to 18 years in
prison.
What was Vanunu's crime? He
gave detailed information to journalists at the Sunday Times of
London -- about Israel's arsenal of nuclear bombs.
After growing up in a Jewish
family that emigrated to Israel from Morocco when he was a boy,
Mordechai Vanunu became an employee at the Dimona nuclear plant in
1976. Nearly a decade later -- shortly before his employment ended at
the remote nuclear facility -- he took photos inside Dimona, which
has always been closed to international inspection.
Using severance pay to travel
abroad in 1986, Vanunu contacted the famous Insight investigative
unit of Britain's Sunday Times. "During his extensive
debriefing by our Insight team," the newspaper reported, "he offered
to give the paper his photographs and all his information for nothing
provided we did not publish his name, insisting his sole interest was
in stopping nuclear proliferation in the Middle East."
The Sunday Times
persuaded Vanunu to allow his name to be used. The paper agreed to
pay Vanunu for serialization or a book based on his information. But
money did not seem to motivate him.
"My impression of the man was
of someone who had a genuine desire to tell the world of something
that was going on which he felt was genuinely wrong for Israel to
do," said Peter Hounam, the main reporter on the story for the
Sunday Times. "He felt it was wrong that the Israeli public
and parliament were not given any information about what was
happening in Dimona."
On Oct. 5, 1986, the Sunday
Times broke the story under the front-page headline "REVEALED:
THE SECRETS OF ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR ARSENAL." But by then, Vanunu was a
prisoner of the Israeli government. After a dozen years, he still
is.
Can you imagine what would have
happened if another country in the Middle East -- say, Iraq or Iran
-- kidnapped one of its citizens from Western Europe to retaliate for
spilling the beans about its nuclear weaponry? That person would have
become an instant media hero in the United States.
But if you mention Mordechai
Vanunu's name to an American, you're likely to get a blank look. On
this side of the Atlantic, he's a media phantom.
This year, the Nexis database
confirms, U.S. media coverage of Vanunu has remained paltry: just a
few scattered newspaper articles and scant dispatches from The
Associated Press, plus a fleeting story on CNN and another one on
National Public Radio. So far in 1998, The New York Times --
"the newspaper of record" - - hasn't mentioned Vanunu at
all.
That's quite a contrast to the
situation in Britain, where coverage of Vanunu's case has been
extensive and sustained. So far this year, mainstream British outlets
have done at least 45 "major stories" about Vanunu, according to
Nexis. Sixteen of them appeared in the Sunday
Times.
Top politicians and journalists
in Washington wag their fingers at India and Pakistan for joining the
world's nuclear club without an invitation. But there is no such
scolding of Israel, which receives U.S. aid at a rate of $1 billion
every few months -- while maintaining a stockpile of about 200
nuclear warheads.
A dramatic photo of Mordechai
Vanunu was taken nearly a dozen years ago. Although Israeli
authorities had claimed that he returned to his country voluntarily,
Vanunu wrote a contrary message on his palm, which he pressed to the
window of a police van in Jerusalem.
The prisoner's palm told the
story: "Vanunu was hijacked in Rome, Italy, 30/9/86, 21:00 hours..."
That's how the world learned that he'd been kidnapped. From then on,
when he was transported to court, the van windows were painted
black.
Twelve years later, the windows
between Mordechai Vanunu and the American people are still very
dark.
