“We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species, Man, whose continued existence is in doubt … We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. … The question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military conflict of which the issue must be disastrous to all species?”- Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein, July 1955, at the height of the Cold War.
Another core issue Annapolis did not address is the fact on the ground that Israel is the only Middle Eastern state possessing nuclear weapons. Israel has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has never opened up its nuclear facilities to international inspections.
Being an honest broker for peace would require America hold the state of Israel, to the very same standards of any other state or nation regarding their nuclear research and weapons facilities and demand an open and thorough inspection of the dinosaur that is the Dimona.
In March 2006, three months after the start of an historic year and a half long court case fighting for his freedom to speak to foreign journalists in 2004, Mordecahi Vanunu informed this civilian Internet journalist, “The Dimona is [over] 46 years old; reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and Israel has never signed the NPT but all the Arab states have…The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism. The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime for 40 years.” [page 111, Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory, Eileen Fleming]
Israel was the first and remains the only state in the Middle East to have nuclear weapons and thus, Israel bears a burden for the volatile region; for human nature is to desire whatever the other one has.
“Israel operates on an ossified nuclear world view can be seen in the fact that it still relies on the pre-independence State of Emergency regulations of 1945 to safeguard its nuclear activities, as if the world had stood still in the post World War II era. The sheer absence of the minutest nuclear transparency in Israel, breached by the “Vanunu affair” in the mid-1980s, reflects a society stuck in the past, clinging to a pre-globalization state of mind that perpetuates a “fortress Israel”, as if it is an island immune from globalization’s net of interdependencies.” http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IK30Ak04.html
The “Vanunu affair” began in 1986 when Vanunu shot two rolls of film documenting that Israel had gone nuclear. Just a few days after being baptized a Christian, Mordechai Vanunu, a secular Jew and Israeli nuclear technician was kidnapped in Rome by the Mossad, drugged, clubbed and secretly transported back to Israel. He was tried and convicted in a closed door trial of treason then spent the next 18 years of his life in prison, most of it in solitary. Vanunu was released to house arrest imprisonment under the draconian British Emergency Mandate regulations imposed on him when he moved out of his tomb sized cell without windows in Ashkelon prison to open air captivity in east Jerusalem on 21, April 2004.
In 1987, Vanunu wrote, “Why do I see the whole engine? Why do I see the precipice?…A monster…it’s there all right…I do see the monster. I’m part of the system. I signed this form. Only now I am reading the rest of it. This bolt is part of a bomb. This bolt is me.”
Between 1976 and 1985, Vanunu was employed at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, which manufactures nuclear weapons underground in the Negev desert. During Vanunu’s employ the sign outside read “TEXTILE PLANT” and all employees signed a form agreement to never speak to anyone of what they did underground in the Negev. Vanunu kept that promise during his employment, it was nearly a year after he left Israel did he speak to anyone about what he had learned was going on underground at the Dimona WMD plant.
Because he was a good worker, Vanunu was cross trained to work in many departments and only then, did he realize that he was but a cog in the machinery of weapons of destruction and he acted because, “I’ve heard the voice of my conscience and there’s nowhere to hide.” [Vanunu, 1987]
A few days ago, over 50 nations and international groups under the leadership of President George W. Bush came together in Annapolis and have publicly committed to the process of forming a steering committee to move towards the over due establishment of a viable Palestinian state which is the only hope for security and peace for Israel.
May the leaders of the world who attended and those who were shut out also be allowed to be heard, so that the voice of conscience acting in the spirit of peace in this season of reflection also address and have mercy upon all the little children caught in the crossfire of militancy inflicted upon them from all sides because of the inhumanity of particular men.
Just days before the Annapolis meeting, the International Statement for a Middle East free of all Weapons of Mass Destruction was endorsed by USA, UK and Norway peace seeking organizations and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates calling for the Middle East to be a zone free from nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
The International Statement calls on Israel, as the only Middle Eastern state possessing nuclear weapons, to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and become fully transparent by opening its clandestine nuclear facilities to international inspections and supervision by International Atomic Energy Agency.
The International Statement disputes Iran’s nuclear program, and requests that this issue be resolved through peaceful means, through negotiations and dialogue with the representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and through such measures deemed necessary by the IAEA, in accordance with the guidelines of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Iran is a current signatory.
The International Statement welcomes Iran’s declaration of the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and urges Iran’s full co-operation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The International Statement concluded by strongly condemning the Israeli government for its continued harassment, conviction and now prison sentence imposed on Mordechai Vanunu, for simply talking to foreign journalists. The International Statement calls upon the Israeli authorities to lift all restrictions on Vanunu and allow him to go free.
All the core issues can be reduced down to the issue of the need for justice; and justice requires states and nations honor their obligations as outlined under international law and the Declaration of Human Rights that was established in 1948 and upon which the statehood of Israel was contingent upon upholding.
Forty years of military occupation aided and abetted by the ‘Christian Nation’ America is at the very root of much of the distress in the Middle East. While Tony Blair was still a Prime Minister he admitted that 70% of the worlds problems with terrorism can be traced back to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
2,000 years ago Jews and Gentiles both understood that when Jesus said: “Pick up your cross and follow me.” He was issuing a POLITICAL statement, for the cross back then had no religious meaning.
But the main road to Jerusalem was lined with crucified agitators, rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo of the Roman Military Occupying Forces.
On the third day of my fifth journey to Israel Palestine, on July 16, 2007- which is also known as the 9th day of Av, the day the Jewish Temple was destroyed, I crossed paths with Vanunu on Nablus Road in East Jerusalem.
Vanunu remarked, “This is the very spot where they stoned to death the first Christian martyr for freedom of speech.”
Vanunu’s appeal against the six month jail sentence for interviews he gave in 2004 is scheduled to be heard January 8, 2008 and we had crossed paths in front of St. Stephen’s Church.
Saint Stephen was the first follower of Jesus to be stoned to death for speaking truth to power 2,000 years ago. Stephen was martyred before the term Christian was even coined. Stephen lived in the days when those who loved Jesus were called followers of The Way; the way being in actually doing what Jesus taught; nonviolence, speak truth, seek peace and do the will of God-in a nutshell -“be just, be merciful, and walk humbly with your Lord.” -Micah 6:8
May the current leaders of the world hear the voice of conscience and that all the core issues demanding justice are all on the table.
Only justice will reap security and peace in Israel Palestine.
Conscience requires the dismantling of the forty year military occupation of Palestine and justice requires equal human rights for all.
Conscience requires that Jerusalem remain open to all of Abraham’s children and the world.
Justice demands that the rights of refugees be addressed and compensation be made for their displacement, pain and suffering in being denied the inalienable right to return home.
Conscience compels all to recognize and resist the inhumane harassment at hundreds of West Bank checkpoints and delays from road blocks.
Justice demands The Wall which has been deemed illegal by the Court of Justice in the Hague must fall.
Conscience repents that over nearly one and a half million people are imprisoned in Gaza-most under the age of eighteen- and in the dead of night, little children are thrown from their beds from vibrations due to the close proximity and hours of over flights of Israeli jets above their little heads.
May the voice of conscience be raised in this season of reflection as songs of peace echo within warm comfortable USA churches as sisters and brothers in Christ sing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” that they will remember all the little children of Bethlehem in the 21st century who are born, live and die under military occupation. Just as Jesus did.
“I’ve heard the voice of my conscience and there’s nowhere to hide.”
Poem from Ashkelon Prison, 1987. www.vanunu.com
