John Lennon's 70th and the Vanunu Connection

I asked Vanunu, "Did you listen to music? Did you know the Beatles and Bob Dylan?"

Vanunu and Lennon

(CLERMONT, Fla.) - "I'm sick and tired of hearing things from uptight short sided narrow minded hypocrites all I want is the truth, just give me some truth. I’ve had enough of reading things by neurotic psychotic pigheaded politicians all I want is the truth, just give me some truth."-John Lennon

John Lennon would have celebrated his 70th birthday on 9 October 2010.

During my first of seven trips to Israel Palestine, in June 2005, Mordechai Vanunu, the man who blew the whistle on Isreal's nuclear weapons program in the mid-80's told me:

"I began my studies at Tel Aviv University when I was twenty-one. I studied physics until the army called me up for thirty days’ reserve service. When I returned to school, I couldn’t catch up. I worked in a bakery at night and attended class all day. This was the first time I met Palestinians as human beings. I began attending political demonstrations inside the university. It was all about equal human rights and respecting all others. By the time I was twenty-three, I began working at the Dimona. It was suppose to be a textile plant, but I was hired for the control room. At the time, I had no idea what it was in control of.

"I really didn’t even want the job; I tried to get them not to hire me. On the application, they asked if I knew any Palestinians. As I had an acquaintance, I said yes, hoping it would disqualify me from employment. They accepted me anyway. I watched them as closely as they watched me. I began studying philosophy and geography, and read literature."

I asked Vanunu, "Did you listen to music? Did you know the Beatles and Bob Dylan?"

"Sure, but I prefer classical. And I began wondering more about life and politics. I decided to become a hermit and vegetarian. I lived alone, but never was lonely. It wasn’t ever fun, but I enjoy the quiet. I was never sad, but never happy, either. After a year, I got bored with the routine job at the Dimona and wanted to leave. I went to Beersheba University and studied economics for a year. I became involved in university politics and in student unions. I was all about protecting Palestinian students’ rights. I sided with Palestinians more and more, and was invited to help establish a group of Palestinian and Jewish students for peace and justice. This was also the time I found out that it was dangerous for me to speak the truth. I was being watched, but I continued to express myself anyway. After six months, I got called in by security at the Dimona, and they asked me, 'Can you imagine why you are here?'

"I answered, 'My university activity?' They then questioned me about all my contacts and told me to stop, because I was in danger. I told them I would try, but I knew I would continue on, because it was the right cause and I would not hide my thoughts.

"After five months, they called me in again and demanded that I stop my activities. A few months later, the chief security man took me to the Tel Aviv Secret Room, where the Israeli army security officer grilled me. They told me I could get fifteen years in prison if I didn’t stop my university activities. I left the meeting and walked to a Palestinian bookstore, knowing they were watching me. That night, I wrote in my diary, ‘1/85. I should have finished this job at Dimona before now. Time to quit.'"

In 2005, Mordechai Vanunu also told me about the last time he set foot inside of Israel’s clandestine weapons of mass destruction facility, "At that time there were more than 200 atomic weapons, in 1986, and they started to produce the most horrible of all weapons; thermonuclear, in lying and in cheating the world and all of its citizens. So I said to myself it is impossible to keep these secrets. I must report about them and to try and stop it."

On 4 October 2010, it was officially announced that Mordechai Vanunu was awarded the Carl-von-Ossietzky-Medal and the international community has risen up to demand that he be in Berlin by 12 December 2010, to receive it at 11AM at the Award Ceremony.

On 5 October 2010, Vanunu wrote:

"On this day in 1986, I fulfilled my mission that I took on myself to inform all the world- not governments nor spies organization- but every human being who can read about Israel’s nuclear weapon arsenal as it was published by the Sunday Times, which put Mordechai Vanunu’s story on its front page under the headline:

"Revealed — the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. For this I was sentenced to 18 years prison in Israel, 12 of them in isolation, and after the release 6 more years without freedom of speech and freedom of movements in Israel."

At 9:00 a.m. on 11th October 2010, Vanunu is scheduled to return to the Israeli Supreme Court seeking the rescinding of the draconian restrictions that have deprived him of his inalienable elementary civil and human rights ever since he emerged from 18 years in a windowless tomb sized cell for telling THE TRUTH!

The Jewish state has inflicted upon Vanunu the same restrictions that were implemented by Britain against Palestinians and Jews after World War II.

Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister Of Justice, described the Emergency Defense Regulations as "unparalleled in any civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany."

On 18 September 2004, in London, Yoko Ono awarded Mordechai Vanunu a peace prize founded in memory of and in the spirit of John Lennon's "Give Me Some Truth" released in 1971. The award was instituted in 2002, when Israeli Zvi Goldstein and Palestinian Khalil Rabah each won for artistic contributions to peace in their homeland.

In 2004, Yoko Ono also awarded $50,000 to New Yorker magazine correspondent and author Seymour Hersh, whom she described as "a staunch seeker of truth" for his investigative journalism.

In 2004, Ono was quoted by Reuters that Hirsh and Vanunu were honored as "people who have spoken out for the benefit of the human race by overcoming extreme personal difficulties and, in doing so, have allowed the truth to prevail. Hopefully [Vanunu] can come and receive the award himself. He did complete his sentence, it's not as though he's a criminal. The point is that it's another statement, a statement that the whole world can share and think about. People power is stronger than the power of institutions."

In Ray Coleman's biography of John Lennon, he quotes the artist circa 1969, "I'd like to be like Christ, [he described himself as a Christian communist] in a pure sense, not in the way Russia or Italy think of Christianity or communism. Every body's uptight and they're always building these walls around themselves. All you can do is try to break down the walls and show them that there's nothing there but people. I only know that peace can exist, and the first thing is for the world to disarm…I think I'll win because I believe in what Jesus said."

Within minutes of emerging from his tomb sized cell on 21 April 21 2004, Vanunu announced, "I am not harming Israel. I am not interested in Israel. I want to tell you something very important. I suffered here 18 years because I am a Christian, because I was baptized into Christianity. If I was a Jew I wouldn't have all this suffering here in isolation for 18 years. Only because I was a Christian man."

In the summer of ’66, it was reported in the U.S. that John Lennon had made a comment to a friend and reporter that the Beatles were more popular with my generation than Jesus was.

I agreed with him, for my friends and I knew every lyric to every Beatles song, but nobody ever quoted Jesus. Lennon made me think about my own hypocrisy, and on a Saturday afternoon in July, immediately after the ritual of weekly confession while I knelt at the altar and mindlessly repeated the same old prayers as the week prior, in the middle of the three Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary's, it hit me like a light! Those words that I uttered never changed anything, and I got up and walked out, convinced I was doomed for hell, for I had failed at Confession!

I never doubted there was a God, but as Lennon said and I still believe, "That what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong…Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Lennon said and sang, "You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate...All we are saying is give peace a chance...All you need is love...Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one...Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

In 2005, Vanunu told me, "My Christian conversion was also considered as treason and led to me receiving more time in jail than any murderer has ever served. The Israelis have this very beautiful article about freedom and liberty but they want to destroy anyone who criticizes them for revealing the truth to the world. The world must look and see what kind of democracy Israel is when one speaks out the truth."