Nuclear whistleblower stirs Israeli emotions

The mere mention of nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu's name is enough to make some Israelis go ballistic.

Embraced by peace activists overseas as a hero, the former Israeli nuclear technician, set to complete an 18-year prison term for treason tomorrow, has no such following at home.

"He is a traitor. He should continue to rot in jail," said 51-year-old nursery school teacher Irit Peled. The tone on the street and in Israeli Internet chatrooms is much the same.

Vanunu gave Britain's Sunday Times newspaper secret details about Israel's main nuclear reactor in the southern town of Dimona in 1986, leading independent experts to conclude the Jewish state had more than 100 atomic warheads.

The revelation parted the veil on Israel's official policy of nuclear ambiguity and its cryptic pledge that it would not be the first to introduce atomic weapons to the Middle East.

Israel's Mossad spy agency sent a blonde agent named "Cindy" to lure Vanunu from London to Rome. Bundled back to Israel without a hint of public outcry over his abduction, Vanunu flashed a message penned on his palm to photographers, saying he had been "hijacked".

Israeli newspapers yesterday published new photos of a grey-haired Vanunu, now 49, and a transcript of a videotaped meeting he had recently with agents of the Shin Bet domestic security service, who questioned him on his plans after release.

His comments, disparaging to Israel and strategically leaked in an apparent attempt to rally public opinion around government restrictions on his contacts with the outside world, should do little to persuade Israelis to forgive and forget.

"Five or six billion people (see me)... as a positive figure - except for five million Jews in Israel," Vanunu said, according to the transcript.

Nuclear deterrence has always been a matter of national consensus in a country where no lesser a dove than former prime minister Shimon Peres pioneered an atomic programme with French help in the 1950s, when he was a young defence official.

There is still no Israeli anti-nuclear movement to speak of. "Without a nuclear deterrent, we would have been wiped out long ago," said Shlomo Rosenberg, a 42-year-old car electrician. "If it was up to me, I wouldn't let Vanunu out of the bathroom."

In the tape - airing on Israel's annual memorial day for the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust - Vanunu questioned the legitimacy of the Jewish state and called Judaism a "retarded religion", according to the transcript.

He also bristled at the government's refusal to issue him a passport on security grounds.

"We shall see about that," Vanunu told the agents. Israel's civil rights association has filed a court appeal on his behalf asking that he be allowed to live abroad.

"I have been locked away for 20 years, everything has changed... Science has advanced. Technology has advanced in huge steps, so what I saw seems very outdated to me," Vanunu was quoted as saying.

As for the nuclear reactor, which Israel has never opened to international inspection, he said: "Just as they destroyed Iraq's reactor (in a 1981 Israeli air attack), I want them to destroy Israel's reactor. I am defending the Arab world."

Readers' comments on the websites of newspapers that carried the transcript were replete with adjectives such as "deranged", "evil" and "crazy".

Nonetheless, Chaim Diamant, a computer technician, said the time had come to close the book on Vanunu, a convert to Christianity who was legally adopted several years ago by an American couple who believed in his cause.

"I would let him leave. It's hard to believe that after 18 years he can still cause any harm. With all the problems we have now, his story will probably be relegated to the inside pages of newspapers," he said.