Open Letter to Israeli Supreme Court Justices RE: Ongoing Injustices against Mordechai Vanunu

by Eileen Fleming

Today, the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected Mordechai Vanunu’s petition to cancel the injunction forbidding him from leaving Israel. I responded via the postal service and the World Wide Web:

TO: Justices Eliezer Rivlin, Elyakim Rubinstein and Hanan Metzer

The Supreme Court

Jerusalem, Israel

October 6, 2011

Dear Justices Eliezer Rivlin, Elyakim Rubinstein and Hanan Metzer,

Before this letter reaches you, this information will have been published first and disseminated from my website wearewideawake.org .

I write you because Israel continues to claim “that Vanunu is still considered a real danger to the security of Israel, as he holds state secrets that have not been published, which he said in the past he would reveal as soon as the opportunity presented itself.” [1]

I write you because in your decision that continues to deny the “petitioner” Mordechai Vanunu his right to leave Israel you wrote: “The court cannot be blindfolded and ignore what is happening in front of its eyes. The petitioner chose a unique path…in fighting against Israel’s policies”. [Ibid]

The prosecution charged that Vanunu should not be allowed the right to leave Israel for he posed “a real danger to the security of Israel” and the Judges stressed Vanunu had contacts with unspecified “foreign elements.” [Ibid]

I write you to inform you that I was not a reporter when I met Vanunu in 2005, but I became one when we began a series of interviews that culminated in the enclosed book, BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010

I want you to know that Vanunu “fired” me as a friend and supporter on Face Book as well as in real life within three days of its publication but as an act of conscience I have –and will-continue to report on the ongoing saga of Vanunu until he is free to leave Israel.

I want you to know that ever since Vanunu quit talking to me, I have garnered all my information about him from his You Tube Channel vanunuvmjc for Vanunu has become his own Media:

Vanunu Mordechai Freedom of Speech,about all world Media, May 23-2010.

Israel’s State Prosecutor continues to claim concern that Israel’s state security would be undermined if the draconian restrictions imposed upon Vanunu were lifted, but in 2004 it was already reported:

“At the time of his release Vanunu was banned from talking to the media, mixing with foreigners and leaving the country for at least one year. Later the government relented and allowed him to speak to foreigners and the media, but not about his work at the Dimona nuclear plant. Israel claims he still holds some of its nuclear secrets. Vanunu, however, said that he had ‘no more secrets’ to reveal.” [2]

Also in 2004, Yossi Melman wrote for Haaretz:

“This is the secret that hasn’t yet been told in the affair: the story of the security fiasco that made it possible for Vanunu to do what he did, and the story of the subsequent attempts at cover-up, whitewashing and protection of senior figures in the defense establishment, who were bent on divesting themselves of responsibility for the failure. The 18-year prison term to which Vanunu was sentenced is almost exactly the same period as that in which Yehiel Horev has served as chief of internal security in the defense establishment [who has been] involved in the affair as deputy chief of security at the Defense Ministry, and also after Vanunu’s abduction and arrest, as a member of an investigative commission.

“Shortly after taking office as chief of security at the Defense Ministry, Horev began to take punitive measures to hobble Vanunu. He is responsible for the harsh conditions in which Vanunu was held, which included years in solitary confinement, and the sharp limitations on the number of visitors he could have…[and has fought] a rearguard battle to prevent Vanunu from leaving Israel and to place him under supervision and restrictions that will be tantamount to house arrest. Horev has always been considered the strictest of all the security chiefs in Israel, especially in regard to the protection of institutions such as the Dimona facility and the Biological Institute. He is apprehensive that if Vanunu goes abroad, he will continue to be a nuisance by stimulating the public debate over Israel’s nuclear policy and the nuclear weapons he says Israel possesses…all the hyperactivity being displayed by Horev and those who support his approach is intended only to divert attention from what has not yet been revealed: the security blunders and their cover-ups.”

Vanunu told me, “All the secrets I had were published in 1989 in an important book, by [Nuclear Physicist] Frank Barnaby, “The Invisible Bomb: Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East.”

Barnaby testified, “I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel’s secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically.

“Israel’s political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israel’s nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy. The knowledge that Vanunu had about Israel’s nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today. He left Dimona in October 1985.” [3 ]

In 2006, Yossi Melman wrote:

“Vanunu was one of the very few prisoners in Israeli history whose sentence was not reduced for good behavior, nor was he given a single day’s furlough. For many years, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement, which nearly drove him insane. Two years ago, he was released and asked to leave Israel. That’s when the vengeful machinery of the defense establishment – Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, the Shin Bet, and Yehiel Horev, head of security for the defense establishment – went into action. They imposed a series of limitations on Vanunu, restricting his freedom of movement and his right to social contacts. The worst of these restrictions is the ban on him leaving Israel…Morally and legally, and from a democratic perspective, it is intolerable that someone who has been punished should be punished over and over again for the same sin for which he served such a heavy sentence…the man’s ongoing harassment…is entirely motivated by the defense establishment’s hunger for vengeance over the way he outwitted it.” [4]

The restrictions that have subjected Vanunu to 24/7 surveillance [his movements, phone calls and emails] ever since 21 April 2004 come from the Emergency Defense Regulations, which 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.”

Israel also kidnapped Vanunu in 1986, but Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states: “No one shall he subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention”, including abduction of a person by agents of one state to another state.

In 1987, Vanunu was convicted of “Aggravated Espionage, High Treason and Assisting the Enemy.”

In May 2011, he petitioned the court to honor its own law and revoke his citizenship:

Vanunu Mordechai asking ,CANCEL,Revoking my Citizenship-MAY 5-2011.

The establishment of Israel’s statehood was contingent upon upholding the UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS and as a Member State; America is responsible to hold ALL other Member States accountable:

Article 13.2: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14.1: Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

Article 19: 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.

I have petitioned my government on this topic many times via email, fax and phone calls, but neither President Obama or Secretary of State Clinton have responded in support of human rights; and thus this document also serves as a public petition demanding justice in the spirit of an old widowed crone who lived in a certain town with a judge who cared nothing about justice, people or God.

But that old widowed crone persisted to publicly plea as she knocked on the Judges chamber door, “Grant me justice” -but we do not know justice for what was she asking for.

The judge ignored her until she became such a PIA [pain in the ass] he finally muttered to himself, “Even though I don’t fear God or care a hoot about this old crone, she has become such a PIA, I will give into her, just to get her to leave me alone!” [Paraphrased from a story Jesus told in Luke 18 1-5]

The longer Israel denies Vanunu the right to leave the state and fade into the world, the larger his legend will grow; but a free Vanunu will reap Israel good PR and this reporters mission to tell the story of Vanunu until he is free will also be accomplished.

Most persistently yours,

Eileen Fleming, Citizen of CONSCIENCE for House of Representatives 2012 Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org Staff Member of Salem-news.com A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com

Producer “30 Minutes with Vanunu” Part 1 “30 Minutes with Vanunu” Part 2 and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”

Author of “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory” and BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010

ENCLOSED:

1. High Court rejects Vanunu’s petition
2. Vanunu’s freedom
3. BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu’s FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010
4. Let him go already

Eileen Fleming

Eileen Fleming founded WeAreWideAwake.org. She produced videos “30 Minutes with Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”.  She has authored many books including; A USS Liberty Remembrance of 50 years USA Government Cover-Up of Israel’s 8 June 1967 Attack on USA Spy-Ship, Wabi Sabi Body ETERNAL SPIRIT, and Heroes, Muses and the Saga of Mordechai Vanunu. Click here to see her latest books. Visit Eileen’s YouTube Channel