 |
|
February 13, 2012
Binyamin Rose: Back to the Bunker: How a life-risking act by a Christian family during the Holocaust saved a family and built a thriving community a world away
Menachem Wecker: Business Schools Teach Real Estate Despite Troubled Housing Market
February 10, 2012
Lisa M. Krieger: Man with defibrillator demands access to his own heart's information
David G. Savage: Why activists may not be in a hurry to have High Court rule on alternative marriage
February 9, 2012
Laura McMullen: 10 Least Expensive Public Schools for Out-of-State Students
Kimberly Palmer: How to actually enjoy -- relaxing, financially -- your vacation
February 8, 2012
Warren Richey: Why momentous Prop. 8 ruling might not satisfy gay-rights groups
Menachem Wecker: Though Controversial, LL.M.'s Can Lead to Specialized Legal Jobs
The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
February 7, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Caught off-guard? President's Super Bowl interview with Matt Lauer gives those who need a reason not to vote for him, a darn good one
Suzanne Bohan: Leaping lizards! Tiny reptiles advancing robot design
February 6, 2012
Jonathan Tobin: Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the New York Times Doesn't Hear It
Jeffrey Fleishman: In newly democratic Egypt, tens of democracy activists jailed, to stand trial; their groups are 'threatening the stability of the homeland'
Julie Deardorff : Researchers say antioxidants may not be that effective and could do more harm than good
Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
February 3, 2012
Edmund Sanders : Israeli official says Iran is creating missile that could reach East Coast of US
Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
Brian Bennett: US officials see increasing threat of domestic attack from Iran
Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
January 31, 2012
January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
Caroline B. Glick: Obama: Of course I intend to prevent a nuclear holocaust . . . in a few months
Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
Jeannine Stein: An inflated ego and thinking you're 'all that' doesn't just make others sick of you, it can make you ill
Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
David Francis: Where to Invest in 2012: With stocks expected to rebound, opportunity abounds for investors
January 13, 2012
Ben Lynfield: Israeli lawmakers move to annex Jewish Judea, one museum at a time
Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
Warren Richey: Supreme Court says no to new rule on eyewitness testimony
John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
The Kosher Gourmet by Joseph Erdos: This mushroom and barley soup has an intense -- almost nutty -- flavor that mixes robust with Middle East. It has creaminess without cream
January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
|
| |
Jewish World Review
April 26, 2004
/ 5 Iyar, 5764
The meaning of Vanunu
By
Bret Stephens
It is in this climate of moral inversion and reverse causality that a man like Vanunu can emerge as a hero to right-thinkers everywhere. The rest of us should think hard about what that means before the shock is absorbed without being felt.
http://www.jewishworldreview.com |
Shortly before his release Wednesday from the Shikma prison in Ashkelon, Mordechai Vanunu said one true thing: "I won. I'll be free. The gates and the locks will be opened. They didn't succeed in breaking me or driving me mad all these years in solitary confinement."
Indeed Vanunu has won. It isn't every ex-con who, after 18 years, walks out of prison into the arms of a small army of supporters, including a Nobel Peace Laureate, an Oscar nominee and a couple of British members of parliament. It isn't every ex-con who gets respectful editorial treatment in newspapers from Sydney to London. It isn't every ex-con for whom a luxury seaside flat is arranged.
Ordinarily, this is the sort of treatment given to a serious political dissident, a Wei Jingsheng or Natan Sharansky. That Vanunu should get it as well suggests that, to his admirers, he stands in relation to Israel as Sharansky stood in relation to the USSR.
What?
WISDOM, WRITES essayist and critic Paul Berman, "consists of the ability to be shocked." That's an ability that's been greatly dulled in Israel over the past 42 months of outrage. But let's try again to be shocked, starting with a piece by Ed O'Loughlin of the Sydney Morning Herald, which I am told is a reputable paper.
The gist of his April 17 report is captured by the paper's editorial summary: "Whistleblower's crime was to offend against Israel's unifying creeds." Let's parse that.
First, "whistleblower." Last week, Gerald Steinberg noted in the Jerusalem Post that whistleblower "refers to individuals who go public with information on corrupt practices and violations of the law, enabling the constituted authorities to take over and hold the culprits accountable through due process of law." Vanunu did nothing of the sort. Instead, he "imposed his personal views on the elected officials and representatives of the Israeli government," thereby violating "due process of law and the core principles of democracy."
Steinberg's argument strikes me as unassailable. But the important point here isn't verbal accuracy. It's journalistic balance. Given there's a controversy over whether to describe Vanunu as a traitor or whistleblower, why does O'Loughlin choose whistleblower? Great care is taken by the news media to find neutral descriptors for people Israelis call terrorists and Palestinians call martyrs. In Vanunu's case, no such effort is made.
So here's an open-and-shut case of bias in the first word of O'Loughlin's article. Next: "Vanunu's crime was to offend grievously against Israel's unifying creeds - Zionism, Jewish identity and total loyalty to the government on questions of national security." That is, Vanunu became "involved with left-wing and pro-Palestinian causes"; converted to Anglicanism; and leaked information on the Dimona reactor to the Sunday Times. "The fact that he was due to obtain $US100,000 from a related book deal and serialization deal make him doubly odious."
This passage marks O'Loughlin's departure from the realm of bias to flat-out mendacity. Vanunu's crime, in fact, was to violate the terms of his security clearance at Dimona. Terms he signed. This is nothing strange: Every government on earth swears certain people to secrecy and imposes high penalties, including lengthy jail sentences, for any breach. The Jerusalem Post has obtained a copy of Vanunu's clearance, and we reproduce and translate it alongside.
But nowhere is this detail mentioned in O'Loughlin's report. Instead, Vanunu is described as a man who suffered mainly for rejecting the political, religious, and military shibboleths of the Jewish state. Vanunu didn't break Israel's law, you see. He rejected its anti-Palestinian, anti-Christian, militaristic culture, and in Israel what you get for that is long years in solitary.
Credulous Australian readers may be forgiven for believing this, but O'Loughlin cannot be forgiven for reporting it. Pro-Palestinian views forbidden? Please: This newspaper has a Palestinian columnist in Daoud Kuttab and Haaretz regularly publishes the work of avowed anti-Zionists such as Meron Benvenisti and Haim Hanegbi. As for religion, Israelis freely dabble in everything from Buddhism to Baptism. As for militarism, Israel has one of the most active peace movements anywhere.
It goes on. O'Loughlin writes that Vanunu was convicted of treason and espionage "even though he made no attempt to provide his secrets to foreign or hostile powers." How broadcasting those secrets publicly — and so to every foreign or hostile power — differs from this in consequence if not intent to Israel is not explained.
O'Loughlin also writes that Vanunu's years in solitary confinement were "ostensibly on security grounds." Note ostensibly. What O'Loughlin omits is that in his prison writings Vanunu rendered precise sketches of the Dimona plant and, knowing he was being censored, wrote, "Don't worry, I'll fill you in when I am freed."
SO MUCH is contained in O'Loughlin's article. It would have been less egregious if he had bothered to explain the Israeli position or even quote an Israeli spokesperson. But no such effort is made. The floor is Vanunu's alone.
The same goes for much of the rest of the news media. Vanunu, The Guardian editorialized this week, "may be a traitor to the Israeli state... but in exposing a secret which needed to be told he has shown a higher duty to wider humanity." The Financial Times says the remaining restrictions on Vanunu's freedom "border on the sadistic."
A couple of points here. If an Israeli traitor is a hero to "wider humanity" and therefore in a category with Oleg Penkovsky and Claus von Stauffenberg, then Israel has no right to exist. As for sadism, it seems curious that any truly sadistic state would have bothered to release Vanunu at all, instead of arranging an accident in prison or executing him outright. That Vanunu can emerge from prison as he did, despite being detested universally by Israelis, the security establishment most of all, testifies to the scrupulousness of the Israeli justice system, not its cruelty.
The larger point made about Vanunu is that the West cannot demand the wider Middle East to be disarmed of weapons of mass destruction without demanding as much from Israel. But the underlying assumption is that a nuclear-armed Israel is neither more nor less a threat to the peace of the world than, say, a nuclear-armed Syria. Do serious people actually believe this? Well, yes. They also believe that if Israel disarmed unilaterally, Israel's enemies would have no reason to seek WMD.
Even this argument is disingenuous: It isn't so much that Vanunu's admirers want Israel to disarm so that others may follow; it's that they want only Israel to disarm. Thus Vanunu, who in 1981 protested the destruction of the Osirak reactor, now says he wants to see Dimona destroyed just as Osirak was. And The Guardian, which claims in its Vanunu leader to advocate a nuclear-free Middle East, editorialized in September 2003 that "Iran does have one deeply persuasive reason for acquiring nuclear arms: national security." "Iran's fears are real," went the title. Apparently, however, Israel's fears are not real.
ZEH HAFUCH, say Israelis: It's upside down. In the imagination of much of the West today, Palestinian terrorism is a response to Israeli militarism; Yasser Arafat is a democrat and Ariel Sharon is a strongman; and the Arab and Muslim worlds only seek WMD to defend against aggressive Israel.
It is in this climate of moral inversion and reverse causality that a man like Vanunu can emerge as a hero to right-thinkers everywhere. The rest of us should think hard about what that means before the shock is absorbed without being felt.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Bret Stephens is Editor-in-Chief of the Jerusalem Post.
Let him know what you think by clicking here.
© 2004, Jerusalem Post
|
