Mordechai Vanunu is a political prisoner in Israel. He went to prison in 1986 for revealing to the world the existence and extent of Israel’s nuclear program. After spending almost two decades in high security lockup, Vanunu is slated to be released next month. He is already talking about the details of his alleged abduction by Mossad while in Europe — and Israeli authorities are not pleased.
I must admit I really have mixed feelings about this. The thing is, a lot of things have changed since 1986 — it doesn’t seem like knowledge of Israel’s Weapons of Mass Destruction are anything to worry about these days. But at the same time Vanunu breached their national security when he “spilled the beans” about the atomic weapons, and it sounds like he is a continual thorn in the governments side. Hard to prove that the Israeli government is fully justified though. He does paint them in a pretty bleak picture, even if he has a lot of reasons to vilify them.