Back Behind Bars The Unbreakable Mordechai Vanunu
By Rannie Amiri
“I said to the Shabak, the Mossad, ‘you didn’t succeed to break me, you didn’t succeed to make me crazy.'”
Mordechai Vanunu, former Israeli nuclear technician, upon being released from Ashkelon’s Shikma prison on April 21st, 2004, where he served 18 years.
They were words of courage and defiance, uttered by a man who embodied both. Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in jail, a full 11 of them in solitary confinement, for revealing Israel’s yet undeclared nuclear capability to the world. He had emerged from Shikma with arms outstretched, repeatedly flashing the victory sign or was it peace? and refused to answer questions posed to him in Hebrew from the awaiting media. “I am proud and happy to do what I did,” he unabashedly stated.
And what he has done since will now land him back behind bars.
An Israeli court has just sentenced Vanunu to six months in jail for violating the terms of his parole, which prohibit him from having any contact with foreigners or visiting the West Bank. As in all matters, he was fearless in doing both.
It thus behooves us to retell this man’s remarkable story, lest we forget what a person of conscience can achieve.
