The following video clip of Netanyahu running off at the mouth about how Israel (backed by the U.S., UK, Netherlands, Germany, Canada and others) are winning the war against the “axis of evil” and his/their “existential mission to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons” inspired me to begin writing this post s̶e̶v̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶ ̶a̶g̶o̶ in April 2024. Most unfortunately, I didn’t apparently publish it when I became bogged down with the battle against industrial wind turbine factories here in beautiful rural Wales during Bute Energy’s “consultations” aka marketing events.
Please listen to what the evil son of darkness himself says in the video below via Disclose.tv:
“Israel's Netanyahu: "It's not just our war, it's your war as well. This is the war of the sons of light against the sons of darkness."
Upon listening to his Hasbara and lies it reminded me of the much persecuted, prosecuted and tortured Israeli whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu whom I had become aware of and researched in the past.
Peter Hounam met Moroccan-born Israeli Mordechai Vanunu in Australia to hear his claims that he was a technician who knew devastating details of Israel’s extensive and top-secret nuclear weapons programme.
After a 12-day debrief he was flown back to London. The Sunday Times was particularly anxious not to have a repeat of the Hitler Diaries hoax of three years earlier so spent some weeks verifying Vanunu’s information with nuclear scientists.
Vanunu was moved around by The Sunday Times to different hotels – and it was after moving him to a hotel in central London that he fell under the influence of an attractive Mossad agent who lured him to Rome where he was arrested.
Vanunu was eventually released in 2004 when Hounam travelled to Israel to be one of the first to embrace him.
On April 21, 2004 The Sunday Times published the following retrospective article.
The Sunday Times’ Insight Team was the first to reveal Israel’s nuclear secrets to the world after the paper published leaks from Morechai Vanunu. Here is how the newspaper chronicled the story, from Vanunu’s original claims, to how he was captured.
Sunday October 5, 1986: Headline: Revealed - the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal/ Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu reveals secret weapons production
THE SECRETS of a subterranean factory engaged in the manufacture of Israeli nuclear weapons have been uncovered by The Sunday Times Insight team.
Hidden beneath the Negev desert, the factory has been producing atomic warheads for the last 20 years. Now it has almost certainly begun manufacturing thermo-nuclear weapons, with yields big enough to destroy entire cities.
Information about Israel’s capacity to manufacture the bomb come from the testimony of Mordechai Vanunu, a 31-year-old Israeli who worked as a nuclear technician for nearly 10 years in Machon 2 - a top secret, underground bunker built to provide the vital components necessary for weapons production at Dimona, the Israeli nuclear research establishment.
Vanunu’s evidence has surprised nuclear weapons experts who were approached by Insight to verify its accuracy because it shows that Israel does not just have the atom bomb - which has been long suspected - but that it has become a major nuclear power.
Vanunu’s testimony and pictures, which have been scrutinised by nuclear experts on both sides of the Atlantic, show that Israel has developed the sophisticated and highly classified techniques needed to build up a formidable nuclear arsenal. They confirm that:
Israel now ranks as the world’s sixth most powerful nuclear power, after America, the Soviet Union, Britain, France and China - with an arsenal far greater than than those other countries, such as India, Pakistan and South Africa, which have also been suspected of developing nuclear weapons.
It has possessed its secret weapons factory for more than two decades, hiding its plutonium extraction processes from spy satellites and independent inspections during the 1960s by burying it beneath an innocuous, little used building.
The plant is equipped with French plutonium extracting technology, which transformed Dimona from a civilian research establishment to a bomb production facility. Plutonium production rates amount to 40 kilograms a year, enough to build 10 bombs. In the past six years Israel has added further equipment to make components for thermo-nuclear devices.
The 26 megawatt reactor, also built by the French, has been expanded and is probably now operating at 150 megawatts to allow it to extract more plutonium. An ingenious cooling system disguises the output.
The nuclear scientists consulted by The Sunday Times are convinced by Vanunu’s evidence. They calculate that at least 100 and as many as 200 nuclear weapons of varying destructive power have been assembled - 10 times the previously estimated strength of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.
The scientists include Theodore Taylor, one of the world’s most experienced nuclear weapons experts. He was taught by Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, and worked on America’s first bomb designs. He later went on to head the Pentagon’s atomic weapons test programme.
Dr Taylor studied the photographs taken by Vanunu inside Dimona and a transcript of his evidence near Washington DC last week. He said: ‘There should no longer be any doubt that Israel is, and for at least a decade has been, a fully-fledged nuclear weapons state. The Israeli nuclear weapons programme is considerably more advanced than indicated by any previous report or conjectures of which I am aware. ‘
He added that Vanunu’s testimony was entirely consistent with an Israeli capacity to produce 10 nuclear weapons a year that are significantly smaller, lighter and more efficient than the first types of weapons developed by Russia, America, Britain, France or China.
Another scientist who authenticated the evidence uncovered by Insight is Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear physicist who worked at Aldermaston, the British nuclear weapons research establishment in Berkshire and who recently retired as the director of the Swedish Institute for Peace Research, which monitors nuclear proliferation.
‘As a nuclear physicist,’ says Barnaby ‘it was clear to me that details he gave me were scientifically accurate and clearly showed that he had not only worked on these processes but knew the details of the techniques. Also the flow rates through the plant, which he quotes exactly confirm the quantities of plutonium that were being made. ‘
Vanunu says that, despite tight security, he was able to smuggle a camera into Machon 2 and take more than 60 photographs. Insight debriefed him for four weeks and invited Barnaby to interview Vanunu in an attempt to find scientific flaws in his story. ‘His testimony is totally convincing,’ concluded Barnaby.
The assessments of Taylor and Barnaby have been confirmed by other top nuclear scientists who were shown the pictures and detailed evidence. Because they work in sensitive positions in Britain’s atomic energy industry and nuclear weapons manufacturing they have asked to remain anonymous.
Israel has refused to comment on the evidence. But it has confirmed that Vanunu did work for the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in Dimona. He was made redundant last November with 180 other Dimona workers during a cost-cutting drive by the establishment. Security men had grown concerned about Vanunu’s developing political contacts with West Bank Arab students during a part-time philosophy degree course he was taking at Beersheba University.
Israel is a small nation surrounded by hostile Arab states, most of whom have sworn at various times to try to destroy Israel and sweep its people into the sea. Although Israeli conventional forces have been able to hold off Arab attacks, it has always been suspected that the Israelis would want weapons of last resort to protect themselves. Israel would have no difficulty in dropping its nuclear bombs on any of its Arab neighbours.
It has been suggested, though never proved, that when Israel was in danger of losing the Yom Kippur War in 1973 after the initial Egyptian attack, the then prime minister, Golda Meir, ordered nuclear devices to be moved to airbases.
Last Thursday, a senior US government source at the time, now retired, confirmed the incident to The Sunday Times.
Sunday October 12, 1986: Headline: Insight: Disappeared - the man who revealed Israel nuclear-bomb secrets / Disappearance of former atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu
CONCERN is growing for the safety of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli who revealed the secrets of his country’s nuclear arsenal to The Sunday Times and then disappeared.
Vanunu, a 31-year-old technician who worked for 10 years at Israel’s nuclear research establishment at Dimona in the Negev desert, has not been seen since he checked out of a London hotel on September 30, five days before his story was published. He had been staying there during the Insight investigation.
Police, alerted to Vanunu’s disappearance by The Sunday Times, say that they are concerned for his safety because of the political implications of his revelations. However, they stress that he is not wanted for questioning. ‘Vanunu has not committed any offence in this country. All we want to know is that he is all right,’ said detective inspector David Wood.
Vanunu’s disappearance has also worried friends and relatives. Their greatest fear is that Vanunu has been kidnapped by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.
When Vanunu disappeared he had little money. A contract for the book rights to his story had been agreed with The Sunday Times. But he never signed it. He has not been paid for his story. But he left behind his testimony and his photographs and negatives.
Last week, two friends of Vanunu flew to London to search for him. The Rev John McKnight, vicar of the Anglican church Vanunu attended in Australia, arrived from Sydney on Thursday. He became a close friend of Vanunu when the Israeli converted from Judaism.
McKnight and his congregation were so concerned by reports of Vanunu’s disappearance that they raised the money for the vicar’s flight. McKnight thinks that Vanunu is frightened. ‘If he wants to contact me, I’m here,’ he said. ‘He can contact me by telephoning my parish in Australia and reversing the charges. ‘
The Sunday Times first heard of Vanunu through Oscar Guerrero, a Colombian journalist living in Australia. Guerrero turned out to be unreliable. He exaggerated Vanunu’s story until it sounded barely credible. But when Insight met the Israeli technician, he corrected Guerrero’s story and instead gave a detailed account of his work at Dimona which convinced scientists.
Vanunu came to England on September 12. He had already talked to a Sunday Times reporter in Australia but was flown to London for further debriefing by nuclear experts. Vanunu was concerned for his security. He knew that if his story was published, Israel would brand him a traitor - and, if he returned, would face up to 15 years in prison.
He stayed in a number of locations with members of the Insight team. The story required painstaking research and checks over a number of weeks and Vanunu grew tired of waiting. He decided he wanted to see more of London on his own.
Then on September 28, a story appeared in the Sunday Mirror that worried Vanunu, Guerrero had come to London and went to the Sunday Mirror with copies of Vanunu’s pictures and his own garbled version of Dimona’s secrets. The Sunday Mirror disbelieved Guerrero’s fragile tale and exposed him, but printed a picture of him with Vanunu.
Vanunu, shocked, felt the article threatened his security and believed that The Sunday Times might not use his story because our checks were taking so long. He insisted that he wanted a two-day break alone.
After checking out of his London hotel on September 30. Vanunu phoned Insight but would not reveal his location. He was informed that publication was now set for Sunday, October 5, and he agreed to return to London on Thursday, October 2. Nobody has heard from him since.
Sunday November 16, 1986: Headline: Insight: Israel PM ordered hunt for Vanunu / Missing nuclear technician
A FEMALE working for Israeli intelligence was used to trap Mordechai Vanunu, the man who leaked his country’s nuclear weapons’ secrets to The Sunday Times, according to highly-placed sources in Israel.
The Sunday Times has also established from other senior sources in Israel that it was Shimon Peres, then Israel’s prime minister and now its foreign secretary, who gave the order to the head of Mossad, the Israeli secret service, in September that Vanunu should be captured and returned to Israel.
Our sources indicate that Peres did not detail the methods to be employed by Mossad, but he did make a key proviso: ‘Don’t do anything to embarrass Mrs Thatcher’s government. ’ Peres is known to value Mrs Thatcher’s pro-Israeli stance.
The Sunday Times Insight team has reconstructed Vanunu’s last days of freedom in London. The full story appears on page 25. Insight has discovered evidence to suggest that the female agent used to lure Vanunu into a trap could have been a mysterious woman who used the name ‘Cindy’. She was blonde, plump, heavily made-up, in her mid-20s and 5 foot 8 inches tall.
Vanunu met her in London the day after The Sunday Times informed the Israeli embassy in London that it proposed to publish his revelations. Six days later, on September 30, Vanunu disappeared. Last Sunday the Israeli government admitted that he was in jail in Israel.
Vanunu himself was convinced he had picked Cindy up, not the other way round. He ignored warnings that she might not be what she claimed, which was an American cosmetic trainee on a European tour.
They dined out and visited art galleries and cinemas together, and they were due to meet again on the night before the nuclear technician vanished. Since then she has never been traced, despite police and Sunday Times enquiries. The assumption is that she lured Vanunu offshore, where he was seized by Mossad agents.
Peres was prime minister until October 14, when he handed over the office to Yitzhak Shamir under the coalition government’s ‘rotation’ agreement. Shamir finally admitted last week that Vanunu was in Israeli custody, but claimed that the nuclear technician left Britain ‘of his own volition’ and that his departure involved ‘no violation of British laws’. Cindy’s role could have been crucial in Mossad’s efforts to lure Vanunu out of the country of his own volition.
Tim Renton, a Foreign Office minister, told the Commons on Friday there was no evidence of Israeli misdeeds in the UK. But the Israeli government has yet to give a full account of exactly how Vanunu ended up in an Israeli jail. Yesterday Shamir told Israeli radio: ‘I hope there won’t be any more bother with this matter. ‘
Others in his cabinet, however, think that so much international pressure is building up that Israel will not be able to stay silent.
Vanunu’s prison is almost certainly the small, top-security jail at Ashkelon, south of Tel Aviv. Prisoners there wear no indentification numbers and are not supposed to be known by name, even to their warders.
The Sunday Times has received a description of the cell in which he is being kept, although its exact location is still a state secret. He was, moved last Sunday to a cell, four metres long and 2 1/4 metres wide, with white plastered stone walls.
The only light comes from a small, barred, but openable window in the steel door. The cell contains a bed, two tables, a chair, a cupboard with book shelves, eating utensils and a device for heating water. Behind a stone partition there is a shower and toilet. Outside exercise is allowed between 11am and 1pm.
He has seen his lawyer, Amnon Zichroni, several times most recently last Tuesday. Zichroni has supplied him with books mainly on philosophy or literature in English. The lawyer said: ‘He asked me to bring a New Testament; also a book about the Israeli Knesset. ‘
Since he was first allowed newspapers last Tuesday Vanunu has been disturbed by the intensity of the ‘lynch campaign’ conducted in parts of the Israeli press. Zichroni has now appealed to editors to stop. ‘He has been examined by a doctor and is in good health and mentally stable.’
Sunday November 23, 1986: Headline: Vanunu faces treason charge for bomb leak
MORDECHAI VANUNU, the man who helped The Sunday Times to reveal the secrets of Israel’s nuclear armoury, is expected to face the most serious charges possible under Israeli law this week. According to Ministry of Justice sources, he will be accused of both aggravated espionage and treason.
In principle, treason is punishable by death in Israel, though the sentence has rarely been imposed. The only case in which it was carried out was that of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi war criminal. The normal alternative is life imprisonment, usually 20 years.
Because of the sensitivity of the case, both the prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, and the foreign minister, Shimon Peres, will be consulted before the charges are brought. But the unexpected hardening of the government line is a significant setback for Vanunu. As late as last week, justice officials were indicating that the indictment would probably be limited to aggravated espionage, carrying a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Vanunu has been intensively questioned since his still-unexplained return from Britain to Israel last month. But his lawyer, Amnon Zichroni, says that there is no basis for reports that he has been tortured or ill-treated. At the request of the state prosecuting team, the interrogators have mainly focused on the technician’s non-newspaper contacts.
They want to know the names and background of anyone he spoke to about his work during the nine years he was employed at the top-secret Dimona nuclear research centre, also the identity of anyone to whom he might have passed information after he left the plant in October last year.
The fear, according to security sources, is twofold: that he might have given compromising material to Arab or Palestinian sources, and that he might have been in touch with Soviet agents.
It is known that Vanunu had strong Arab sympathies, took part in pro-Palestinian rallies, and was in contact with the Israeli Communist party.
When questioned by The Sunday Times, Vanunu denied passing information to any foreign power. He described one occasion after he left Israel when he passed through Moscow airport en route for Thailand. In his baggage he had two rolls of film which showed some of the most secret areas of Dimona. But he was no more than a transit passenger in Moscow and his films were not developed until he reached Australia later.
Sunday December 28, 1986: Headline: Vanunu left Heathrow under his own name
MORDECHAI VANUNU, the Israeli technician who leaked his country’s nuclear bomb secrets to The Sunday Times, bought a return ticket to Rome in his own name and boarded a British Airways flight at Heathrow five days before the Insight team revealed his story.
Despite repeated warnings to stay in safe accommodation and to refrain from using documentation which could identify him, Vanunu insisted on ‘disappearing for a few days’ with a woman known only as Cindy who he had met in London.
Insight has established from flight records that Vanunu booked the return ticket on BA flight 504 to Rome on Tuesday, September 30 although it is not yet known if he was travelling with anyone else. That morning he booked out of his hotel having collected a telephone message left at reception from the woman called Cindy. The message said: ‘I am waiting where we arranged to meet. ‘
At 11am Vanunu telephoned the Insight team. He refused to give his location but promised he would make contact again the next day and return later in the week.
His plane left Heathrow at 2.10pm and landed at Rome at 6.38pm. Within two hours of clearing customs there, Vanunu was picked up by Mossad, the Israeli secret service.
The Italian government has ordered a full police inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Vanunu’s kidnapping.
The incident is politically embarrassing in Italy. Two parliamentary deputies have protested at ‘the apparent impunities with which foreign intelligence forces act on Italian soil’.
The seizing of Vanunu could also make nonsense of a joint anti-terrorist agreement on the exchange of intelligence information, signed by Italy and Israel in November.
Vanunu’s trial was scheduled to start in Jerusalem this morning but will propable be adjourned because the defence case is still incomplete. Vanunu was kidnapped on the orders of Shimon Peres, then the prime minister, and taken back to Israel.
The trial is being held in camera, and the only other people present will be Vanunu’s lawyer, the celebrated civil-rights defender Amnon Zichroni, and the state prosecutor Ouzi Hason.
Tight security was planned for his journey to court from the civil prison at Ashkelon, 50 miles away. The military and civil police officers guarding him planned to handcuff Vanunu and tape his mouth to prevent him passing or shouting messages to journalists as he did last Sunday when he revealed he had been kidnapped in Rome.
Although the trial is expected to last several weeks, both sides want more time to prepare their case.
Vanunu is charged with two offences under Israeli law. The first, assisting the enemy in its war (against Israel), is regarded as treason against the state and is punishable by death or life imprisonment - 25 years.
However, the death penalty has not been used since 1962 when Adolf Eichmann was tried and executed for his crimes against the Jewish race during the second world war. A second, lesser charge which also carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment is passing secrets to the enemy with the intention of harming the security of Israel.
It is theoretically possible for the sentences to run consecutively, however Zichroni said last week that such a harsh sentence is unlikely.
Photo of Vanunu's hand pressed against the window of an Israeli vehicle
with clues about his kidnapping from the BBC documentary below.
I highly recommend watching the BBC’s very good 2004 documentary about Mordechai Vanunu, Israel’s Secret Weapon by clicking on the screenshot from the film posted below.
Common Dreams published in April 2014 an excellent opinion piece written by David Polden and Felice Cohen-Joppa as follows.
Ten years ago, on April 21, 2004, several hundred of us from around the world waited with great anticipation outside the gates of Israel's Ashkelon Prison, holding up signs saying "Thank you, Mordechai Vanunu: Peace Hero, Nuclear Whistle-blower". After many years of campaigning for his freedom, the day had finally arrived: Mordechai Vanunu would walk out of the prison where he had spent each day of his 18 year sentence (12 of those years in solitary confinement) for blowing the whistle on Israel's then secret nuclear arsenal. We were there to welcome him to freedom.
Our excitement had been somewhat dimmed a couple of days earlier, when Israel announced a list of oppressive and unjust restrictions on the soon-to-be-released whistle-blower. These restrictions continue to this day, having been renewed each April: Mordechai Vanunu remains under restrictions which require him to report and gain approval for any change in residence, to avoid diplomatic missions, to not speak to foreign nationals and which prevent him from leaving Israel, a thing Mordechai has wished to do ever since his release from prison.
Since his release he has been repeatedly harassed and taken in by police for questioning. He has served a further three months in prison for talking to foreigners, which he continues to do in spite of the restrictions.
In December 2013, an appeal to Israel's High Court of Justice against this indefinite punishment for "crimes" for which he has served his full sentence proceeded much as previous appeals had. The government, in secret testimony, persuaded the court that "the evidentiary material suggests that there is still additional privileged information that [could be jeopardized] by the petitioner."
However Vanunu has repeatedly insisted that he has no more secrets to tell, including in his first public statement to the throng of international reporters gathered to cover the moment that he emerged from prison on April 21, 2004. He shared all that he knew with UK Sunday Times journalists back in 1986 (information that is now more than 28 years old) - giving the world its first photographic proof of Israel's clandestine production of nuclear weapons at the remote Dimona factory where he had worked as a technician until 1985.
He strongly believed that in a democratic country, people have the right to know what their government is doing, and, after examining his conscience, felt it was his responsibility to share the information he had. On the eve of publication, Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by a Mossad agent, where he was kidnapped, drugged and bound and put on a freighter to Israel. A secret court convicted him of espionage and treason.
We believe that Mordechai Vanunu is a hero for his courageous act of whistleblowing, not a traitor or a spy. And we think it's likely that Israel would view a potential Iranian nuclear whistle-blower in the same light. In any case, it is time for Israel to stop this endless persecution of Vanunu. He is currently living in East Jerusalem, but very much wishes to leave Israel and start a new life.
As we continue to work for a nuclear-free future, we invite people around the world to join us as we call on Israel to do the right thing, morally and legally, and finally lift Vanunu's restrictions without further delay, ten years after the original court-imposed sentence for his "crime" has expired. Mordechai Vanunu must at last be given his freedom.
Signed:
(Israel) Yehuda Atai, Ronnie Barkan, Rayna Moss, Gideon Spiro, Meir Vanunu
(UK) Yasmin Alam, Pat Arrowsmith, Geoffrey Austin, Ben Birnberg, Margaret and Jacob Ecclestone, Paul Eisen, Jay Ginn, June Hautot, Ben Inman, Bruce Kent, Bruce Mackenzie, Carmel Martin, Jenny Morgan, Adeline O'Keeffe, David Polden, Ernest Rodker, Sabby Sagall, David Smethurst, Ben Soffa, James Thackera, Barry White
(US) Barbara Beesley, Felice Cohen-Joppa, Nick and Mary Eoloff, Ken Hannaford-Ricardi, Art Laffin, Daniel McGowen, Mary H. Miller, Ronald H. Miller, Kim Redigan, Grace Ritter, Scott Schaeffer-Duffy, Jeanie Shaterian
(Ireland) Kevin Cassidy, Barbara Fabish, Mairead Maguire
(Norway) Fredrik Heffermehl
(Japan) Shinji and Ryoko Noma
(Australia) Phillip Mudge, Rev. David Smith
It is interesting to note the following comments from
regarding sexual predator and Epstein’s partner in crime, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell who was well known to be a Mossad asset.
“Robert [Maxwell] (born Ján Ludvík Hoch) made his money as a media proprietor (most notably Pergamon Press, originally Butterworth and controlled by Western intelligence, and later the Daily Mirror). As a spy he was involved in the transfer of Promis surveillance software and the arrest of nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu.” – per Moneycircus
On December 29, 2023 George Galloway published the following brief 2:27min video statement with the description, “Israel is now almost openly admitting it’s in possession of illegally acquired and illegally held nuclear weapons. With zero inspections by anyone.”
Mordechi Vanunu is still not free whilst Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant both of whom have ICC arrest warrants on their crooked heads walk freely to peddle their Hasbara and lies whilst the US, UK, Netherlands, Canada and other captured countries continue to supply political support, funding, arms and bunker bombs to Israel used against Palestinians and others in the Middle East.
The governments and our alleged representatives in the form of MPs, many of whom have gladly accepted financial assistance with their campaign expenses and/or offers of paid trips to Israel courtesy of the Labour or Conservative Friends of Israel and other lobby groups are aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes.
The indiscriminate bombing, murder of innocent Palestinians and others along with their tattered cover of propaganda and lies, including using the antisemitism card to silence the truth, must come to an end.
Meanwhile, Mordechai Vanunu continues to be under Israeli restrictions.
