- Dr. Hesham Tillawi - One of the Israeli professors said
a few months ago that 'we have the nuclear capability of hitting every
major European city,' is that true to your knowledge?
-
- Mordechai Vanunu - Yes, it is true. They can bombard
any city all over the world, and not only those in Europe but also those
in the United States, and by this threat what they are doing is to send
a secret message to any leader and to any government that they have the
ability to use them aggressively and to blackmail them, to blackmail Europe
and the United States, every where, in every state around the world. It
was Europe and the United States who helped them get this power, and now
that Israel has it, she is coming back and saying to them 'We will not
obey any orders that you give us. No international law, no international
agreement, no UN resolutions,' and all because of these atomic weapons
that they have....
-
- Mordechai Vanunu On Israel's Nuclear Blackmail
-
- An Interview with Hesham Tillawi
- 12-19-9
-
- Below is the transcript of an eye-opening interview that
took place between peace activist Mordechai Vanunu and talk show host Hesham
Tillawi on the television program Current Issues.
-
- TILLAWI - 'Well, I do believe that we have
Mordechai Vanunu with usMordechai, are you with us?
-
- VANUNU - Yes.
-
- TILLAWI - Good Morning, I know that it is
4 o'clock in the morning there in Jerusalem. Folks, Mordechai Vanunu has
spent 18 years in an Israeli jail for telling Israeli nuclear secrets.
He was lured to Rome by Israeli agents and kidnapped and then sent back
to Israel where he spent 18 yrs in prison and 11 of those years in solitary
confinement. That is true, Mordechai?
-
- VANUNU - Yes, that is right.
-
- TILLAWI - Now, Mordechai, I have a question
for you. What was it that you really felt that you must tell the world
about, what was it about the Israeli nuclear program that you felt to yourself,
`you know I cannot continue like this, I cannot remain silent on this,
I have got to tell the world about it.' What was it?
-
- VANUNU - Well, the most important point is
that it was the same situation that we have right now, namely that these
people continue to lie and to cheat the world as well as their own citizens
by denying the truth, by declaring that they do not have atomic weapons
while at the same time I was working there helping to produce them. At
that time there were more than 200 atomic weapons, in 1986, and it was
at that time that they started to produce the most horrible of all weapons,
the hydrogen bomball of this in secret, 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.'
-
- TILLAWI - Mordechai, there are a lot of nations
that have nuclear weapons. What is it about Israel having them that makes
you so nervous?
-
- VANUNU - Because Israel wants to use them,
to cause genocide and holocaust on other innocent citizens. It has always
been a part of Israel's secret policy. And also by having them, Israel
will use them as a threat to avoid making peace with the Arab world as
well as imposing her policies on those peoples. As long as she has them,
she will continue on in her policies of not making peace, of occupation
and of neglecting the Palestinian suffering caused by the refugee camps
that have existed for more than 50 years.
-
- TILLAWI - One of the Israeli professors said
a few months ago that 'we have the nuclear capability of hitting every
major European city,' is that true to your knowledge?
- VANUNU Yes, it is true. They can bombard any city all
over the world, and not only those in Europe but also those in the United
States, and by this threat what they are doing is to send a secret message
to any leader and to any government that they have the ability to use them
aggressively and to blackmail them, to blackmail Europe and the United
States, every where, in every state around the world. It was Europe and
the United States who helped them get this power, and now that Israel has
it, she is coming back and saying to them 'We will not obey any orders
that you give us. No international law, no international agreement, no
UN resolutions,' and all because of these atomic weapons that they have.
...
-
- TILLAWI - What made Mordechai Vanunu betray
his country and then change his religion?
-
- VANUNU - Yes, this is a very good question and
very important. You are right, it is not usual to have a person come to
these hard conclusions. As far as my conversion, it started at the very
early age of 15 or 16. I was raised in the Jewish religion and in a Jewish
family. Israel and Judaism were considered as one nation, one big family,
one tribe. I began criticizing and rejecting Judaism over the point of
view that these Jews are teaching injustice through their Judaism. In the
same way that Jesus Christ also criticized Judaism 2,000 years ago, I was
unwilling to accept what they teach, and later converted to the opposite
of Judaism.
-
- The Jewish tribe teaches that there is only one Chosen
people of God. They teach of their superiority, taking literally
word-by-word the writings in the old bible. And I decided therefore that
after 2,000 years these ideas were nonsense. There are 6 billion people
around the world, and all of them are equal, all are part of the human
race. There is no such thing as a super race. We should all respect and
love each other, and that was the beginning of my rejecting Judaism and
my accepting of Christianity, of following the teachings of Jesus Christ
and of accepting humanity. I am not a religious man, I am not going to
become a priest. I did all of this for my humanity and for my beliefs.
-
- So, I chose my own way and began criticizing the Jewish
faith. Those who teach Judaism run the lives of those under them, telling
them what they must do every hour of every day, issuing many orders about
everything, from waking up in the morning to going to sleep, but at the
same time they do not teach them to respect other human beings, to accept
non-Jews and to believe that non-Jews are like them. They teach that only
the Jews are the chosen people. So, this is Judaism, a collection of primitive
traditions thousands of years old that have not changed.
-
- The world has changed in the last 2,000 years and the
Jewish people need to accept and understand this change, and especially
if they want a democratic country. You cannot have a state and run it as
they did 2,000 years ago. They came to Palestine in the name of the Bible
and in the name of their god and took this land that was promised to them
thousands of years ago. In the name of this god, they took the land, expelled
the people and gave them hard, cruel, barbaric lives for the last 60 years.
This way of thinking, this faith cannot exist within this new age, and
it was this that also led me to expose Israel's nuclear secrets.
-
- TILLAWI - Mordechai, you have been living
amongst the Palestinians for a while now. What do you think, are they the
terrorists that we have all been hearing about?
-
- VANUNU - I have been living amongst the Palestinians
now for 15 months, but I have been following the Palestinian situation
now since the 1980's. Now I am here living among them, watching them, meeting
with them, eating with them, enjoying life with them and seeing how the
Israelis have succeeded in portraying them all over the world as terrorists.
But this is not true. They are very peaceful people and lovers of peace.
...
-
- TILLAWI - So, why are we after Iran then
to open its doors to inspections, but no one is asking Israel to do the
same? Why is that?VANUNU This is a very strange situation that has been
developed and accepted by the Western states since the 1960's. It goes
back about 40 years. My view is that Europe and America are and have been
under a long-term agenda of blackmail by the Israelis. In the first case,
the Israelis constantly bring up the Holocaust and what happened to the
Jews during WWII, blaming the West for it and then using this as the justification
for possessing nuclear weapons as a way of preventing this from ever happening
again. ...(9) Mordechai Vanunu says Nazi Holocaust used as "propaganda"
to blackmail the WestThe World Today (ABC Radio, Australia)Wednesday, 29
September , 2004Reporter: Jonathan <Lucrafthttp://www.abc.>Lucrafthttp://www.abc. net.au/worldtoda
y/content/ 2004/s1209662. <htmhttp://globalfire.>htmhttp://globalfire. tv/nj/04en/
holoindustry/ holopropaganda. htm
-
- MORDECHAI VANUNU - Maybe the real fear is
that my free spirit, my free belief to express my views in politics, in
everything, not only nuclear secrets, I have many interesting views and
I'm telling them without fear and expressing that to anyone in all the
world, in all the media, and that is not good for Israel.They don't like
it, and also, the Israel Government and state have teached all the world,
especially the west, Europe, United States, Australia, Canada, they teach
them to fear and now to be under blackmail by Israel propaganda of Holocaust
and all this propaganda.
-
- >http://currentissue s.tv/VanunuTranscript.html
-
- _______
-
- This following is a transcript of a 2004 interview with
Mordechai Vanunu from The World Today. The program is broadcast around
Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio.
-
-
- Reporter - Jonathan Lucraft
-
- The World Today - Wednesday, 29 September , 2004
-
-
- ELEANOR HALL - Mordechai Vanunu made headlines
around the world when he blew the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear weapons
program in the mid-1980s. The Israeli nuclear technician was arrested soon
after in a Mossad operation, was tried in secret, convicted of treason
and spent 18 years in prison, 11 of them in solitary confinement. In April
this year he was released from prison, but his freedom has remained restricted,
with Israeli authorities forbidding him from speaking to foreigners. Despite
this, Mr Vanunu this morning gave his first interview to an Australian
media outlet, speaking to the community radio station, Radio Adelaide's
Jonathan Lucraft.
-
- MORDECHAI VANUNU - The restrictions are not
working and unreasonable and not according to the human rights and the
democratic system and they will finish them in six months at least
the restriction not to speak to foreigners and not to travel really inter-state.
-
- JONATHAN LUCRAFT - Are you taking a chance
by talking to us?
-
- VANUNU - I'm not taking a chance, I'm making
a very good calculation and according to the human rights and freedom of
speech that everyone as a human being should have and I'm exercising it
and I believe the Israel Government and Israel organisations are realising
that what they decided is not good. They will not do anything wrong with
my speaking to you either.
-
- LUCRAFT - When the restrictions are lifted,
what will you do then?
-
- VANUNU - If they will let me go I would leave
Israel immediately, I would like to see the world, to exercise my freedom.
If they will not let me go, let me speak, then I will speak much more to
the media and to the people around the world and here.
-
- LUCRAFT - Now, 18 years in a Mossad prison,
11 of those years in solitary confinement. How did you fight the effect
of those years on your mind?
-
- VANUNU - The effect was very hard and strong,
but I was firm and strong from the beginning to protect my freedom, my
free will, my humanity, that was my struggle from the beginning.
-
- The power organisation of Israel gives what they can
to fight me, to cause me some harm, damages in health, mind, and they succeed
little bit, but I survived and I am now free, but it was very hard, a very
difficult time and I wish no one would suffer what I suffered, and then
when I speak to you and try to be human being like everyone.
-
- LUCRAFT - Do you feel though that those years
in solitary confinement had an effect on you?
-
- VANUNU - I think no. The only effect is maybe
some part of my health has been damaged. We see in the future how my health
will react and how my health will survive in the next future.
-
- LUCRAFT - Now, you converted from Judaism
to Christianity. Did this help, or did it make it harder for your captors?MORDECHAI
VANUNU: My conversion to Christianity was in Sydney, Australia, in 1986,
it was before this case. So when I find myself in prison I decided my Christianity
is going to be my way to freedom, my boundary, my defence against Israel's
power organisation, brainwash or psychologic warfare. So in some way, in
many ways it helped me very much.
-
- LUCRAFT - Do you believe that you're a traitor
to Israel?
-
- VANUNU - Five million Jews are regarding
me as a traitor, but six billion people around the world think me as a
hero and a good man who bring the message to all the human beings that
we should survive and prevent the use of nuclear weapons and to prevent
the nuclear preparations and to prevent nuclear war in the future.
-
- LUCRAFT - Now, any knowledge that you had
of the Israeli nuclear weapons program is now, it's nearly 20 years old
and it's well out of date. Why do you think the Israeli Government is still,
apparently, frightened of you?
-
- MORDECHAI VANUNU - Maybe the real fear is
that my free spirit, my free belief to express my views in politics, in
everything, not only nuclear secrets, I have many interesting views and
I'm telling them without fear and expressing that to anyone in all the
world, in all the media, and that is not good for Israel.
-
- They don't like it, and also, the Israel Government and
state have teached all the world, especially the west, Europe, United States,
Australia, Canada, they teach them to fear and now to be under blackmail
by Israel propaganda of Holocaust and all this propaganda.Now come a man
and speaking from inside about their crimes, their mistakes, their stupid
policy of nuclear weapons and all the world's watching all this, and that
is their real concern.
-
- ELEANOR HALL - Mordechai Vanunu speaking
to Radio Adelaide's Jonathan Lucraft.
-
- http://www.abc. net.au/worldtoda y/content/ 2004/s1209662.
htm Mordechai Vanunu speaks
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