When Vanunu emerged from his windowless tomb sized cell after 18 years on April 21, 2004, he boldly affirmed:
"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."
I once wrote an Op-ed and called Vanunu a prophet. When he read the piece, he emailed me and in bold letters wrote: "DON'T CALL ME THAT!"
In the spirit of freedom of speech, I do and prophets do NOT predict the future-as much as they point out impending doom and provoke us to at least think about God.
Vanunu pointed the way to Israel's clandestine weapons of mass destruction program underground in the Negev desert in 1986. In 2009, the Dimona remains un-inspected by IAEA inspectors. Vanunu is considered a traitor by many Israelis, but prophets are never recognized or respected by their own. The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah spent much of his life under house arrest in Jerusalem, for being a truth teller. We know more about the personal life and struggles of Jeremiah than any other Hebrew prophet. Jeremiah, translates as "The Lord throws"-as in hurling. He had few friends and is considered primarily a prophet of doom.
Jeremiah was intensely introspective, self-critical, timid by nature but honest and open about his feelings. Jeremiah never married and began prophesying in Judah from 604-586, a time of storm and stress when the doom of entire nations-including Judah itself-was being sealed. Jeremiah had been the king's friend and confident, but the prophet soon entered a dreary round of persecution and imprisonment, alternating with only brief periods of freedom, and lived under virtual house arrest for speaking his conscience.
"I cannot keep silent…Disaster follows disaster; the land lies in ruins…My people are fools; they do not know me."-Jeremiah 4:19.
People of conscience have been making phone calls, sending Faxes, emails and letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with hope that they will hear Vanunu's plea and some of us are praying God hear his prayer:
WHAT I WANT IS FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM….FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM I NEED NOW.- Vanunu Mordechai J C
1. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/barnaby.pdf
2. http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/onvan.htm
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