Israeli Who Revealed Nuclear Secrets Is Freed after 18 years

Where's the inspections?

he is NOT free.

he is not permitted to leave Israel

or speak to foreigners.

After 18 years in a cell, I'm sure it feels like freedom to him!

What a heroic life!

I guess one person's hero is another person traitor.

Interesting question. Is there any hero in history who was not considered a villain (traitor may be a bit too specific for my thesis).

They've even published where he'll be living - sounds like he's being set up for assassination by some of those fanatics!

Don't forget - Israel is a democracy - it just seems like a police state!

Mr. Vanunu is very far from being a hero. Several months prior to his escapade in London in 1986 he was fired from the Dimona nuclear facility due to conflict-inducing personality. His qualifications of nuclear technician were irrelevant on the Israeli job market (besides Dimona, there is one more nuclear research center in Israel, the Nahal Soreq one, but it was not hiring anyone by that time), so he faced a threat of becoming a low-paid blue collar. He decided to become a media hero abroad, and if he were not captured by the Israeli intelligence, he would provide himself with dolce vita on expense of the fees he got from the media. He also considered cooperation with the Palestinian diaspora organizations in exchange for financial support. His lust for blondes made him a bad service, and he was seduced by the Mossad female agent and brought to Israel. By all means, he did not want to become a physical laborer, and he succeeded (there is no compulsory labor in the Israeli prisons). And now he can afford himself parasitic life on expense of the naive family having "adopted" him.
The foreign idealists fell victims to a plot masterminded by the oriental brain of Mr. Vanunu (he has Moroccan roots).
If this is a hero to be respected, then I do not know who complies with the definition of a villain/S.O.B.

Nice post steissd. I think it portrays how you really think and feel.

My favorite is the part about the "oriental brain".

ebrown
ebrown, do you think the "oriental brain" is as evil as the "Jewish conspiracy"?

BBB

To BBB: Well, Mr. Vanunu is a Jew (at least, by his ethnic origin). But his way of thinking is strongly influenced by the mentality of the area he came from. And there people find it possible to take an advantage of the liberal Westerners' naivety and kind-heartedness.
Mr. Vanunu had an objective: to avoid becoming a physical laborer and not to die of hunger as a result. And he made it. The price was paid by the Israeli defense system and the naive peaceniks that pay Mr. Vanunu's bills. Just an example: after Mr. Vanunu's release from jail, his "adoptive" family (parents and siblings of the traitor are alive, being members of just regular Israeli middle-class families) has rented for him luxurious apartments in Jaffa, the ones that majority of middle-class Israelis cannot afford themselves. So, he will have an excellent life quality all his life without working even an hour a week. When I talk about Oriental mentality it implies one thing: crave for luxury combined with abhorrence to any labor and acceptance of any methods to acquire such a way of life.
PS: Absolute majority of Israelis of Oriental origin have adopted the values of the civilized society, and they are loyal citizens, good soldiers and taxpayers (thanks God, they do not know that these values are based on the Protestant ethics, otherwise this would cause to them a problem with loyalty to their religion). Israeli Defense Secretary Lt.-Gen. (Res.) Saul Mofaz was born in Iran, and roots of the Foreign Secretary Dr. Silvan Shalom are Tunisian, for example. Those that remained adherent to the Oriental values either have established criminal families (resembling the ill-famed Cosa Nostra), or act like Mr. Vanunu.

.... and they say hatred is not taught in Israel.

It has nothing to do with hatred. In postscriptum to my post I have noticed that majority of people of Oriental origin have adapted themselves to the norms of the civilized society. Not the people of such an origin are problematic, but the specific Oriental mentality persisting in a small minority of them. Maybe such people require correctional therapy helping them to adjust themselves to the Western-type society.
This has nothing to do with their color of skin, age or sex, it refers to way of thinking and acting, and this is not an inborn feature that cannot and neednot being corrected.

Sorry steissd, but I would almost call this...racistic. I just picked one thing up. A lot of established criminal families. Why are there these criminal families? 1) Maybe it has to do something with their mentality and where they came from. 2) Maybe it has to do something with the fact the Oriental Jews form the lower class in Israeli society, where there is clear distinction between the richer Ashkenazi (European) Jewish Israeli's and the poorer Oriental / Sefardic Jewish Israeli's (also included in the last group: Israeli Arabs and "Beta Israel", Jewish Ethiopians) (got this from an article, I think it was in Ha'aretz, concerning a Yemenite Jew living in Israel - only after he "acted" Ashkenazi did he manage to get a job as a journalist). It is known all over the world that the chance of people in lower classes getting involved in crime, because of the fewer opportunities in their life, is higher. It is very shortsighted to put all of this, the way how Vanunu acted or these criminal families, on the "original" mentality of these people, and more, to claim that they will only change in so-called "good" citizens when they "Westernize".

Do it's Palestinian citizens get the vote, or are they not considered citizens?

BBB
Sometimes a smart person will know when to shut up because he has already said too much and saying anything more will only make it worse.

BBB

I'm afraid I have to back steissd on this. I can see absolutely no virtue in selling out the secrets of one's country to the news media for profit. In what sense is Vanutu described as a "hero"? He is an Israeli citizen who betrayed Israel. Maybe I'm just not "liberal" enough to understand the reasoning of some of you people.

What does it matter? Israel is exempt from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and it's not required to demonstrate whether it actually has nukes or not.