Some advocates of Pollard’s release contend that the damage from his activities was exaggerated and his sentence was unduly harsh. Perhaps, though it ill behooves the Israeli government to make this case.
After all, Israel maintains arbitrary restrictions on Mordechai Vanunu 24 years after he was kidnapped by Mossad agents and returned to Israel for trial after exposing the details of Israel’s nuclear program.
But Vanunu’s plight suggests an obvious deal. The U.S. and Israeli governments should do a trade akin to the hoary spy swaps between Washington and Moscow. Send Pollard to Israel. In return, Israel should allow Vanunu to emigrate to wherever he wishes.
Jonathan Pollard spied for Israel for money. He claims he also did so out of loyalty to Israel. Although he was arrested attempting to enter the Israeli embassy, the Israeli government initially disclaimed any responsibility for his actions, claiming his was a rogue operation.
Mordechai Vanunu is a Sephardic Jew whose family immigrated to Israel from Morocco. He went to work at Israel’s undeclared Dimona nuclear plant. He gradually grew disillusioned with Israel’s secret nuclear program, thought to have produced 150 to 200 atomic bombs, and surreptitiously photographed plant operations.
He immigrated to Australia, converted to Christianity, and traveled to Great Britain after meeting a journalist for the Sunday Times who was interested in his story. Vanunu’s account made the paper’s front page, but a Mossad agent convinced him to join her in Rome, from which he was kidnapped, drugged, and returned to Israel.
Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison. He spent the first 11 and a half in solitary confinement. Although formally released in 2004, he remains in a form of prison: barred from leaving the country, approaching foreign embassies, talking to journalists, owning a cell phone, or even using a computer. Ironically, these rules are part of the 1945 British Mandate State of Emergency Regulations — imposed by the British colonial overlords.
Since then Vanunu has been periodically threatened, arrested, convicted, placed under house arrest, sentenced to community service, and imprisoned for violating the terms of his parole. In October the Israeli Supreme Court denied his appeal to be released from these restrictions and allowed to leave the country.
Vanunu has become an international cause célèbre, regularly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, termed a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International, and recently awarded the Carl von Ossietzky Medal, named after the renowned German pacifist murdered by the Nazis. Nevertheless, Israel, the Mideast’s regional superpower, claims to be afraid of him.
The justification for maintaining his informal imprisonment is that he might share more nuclear secrets. However, he gave away the big story in 1986 and any other information likely is badly outdated.
Knowledgeable Israelis dismiss the claim that Vanunu remains a security risk. For instance, retired brigadier-general Uzi Eilam, who ran the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission between 1976 and 1986, said “I don’t think he has significant things to reveal now.” Eilam urged Vanunu’s release.
The better explanation for the continuing restrictions is spite. Despite Israel’s vaunted reputation for security, Vanunu shot two rolls of photos of the Dimona plant. Despite Israel’s calculated public subterfuge, Vanunu demonstrated that everything Israel’s leaders had said about their nuclear capabilities was a lie.
Ironically, it is hard to discern any international harm done Israel by Vanunu’s revelations. After all, Israel was widely believed to have nuclear weapons. Eilam even argued that Vanunu “served the regime because his revelations helped Tel Aviv intimidate others.”
A swap would allow both America and Israel to turn their backs on the past. There’s another benefit. Pollard wants to go to Israel. Vanunu wants to go to America.
The latter explained: “I would like to move to the United States. I have adopted parents in Minnesota. I have many, many friends in the United States, who used to write to me and send me letters and cards for many years during 18 years. I read a lot of your history of United States and am very appreciative of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. freedom.”
Washington should offer to swap Jonathan Pollard for Mordechai Vanunu. Indeed, who better symbolizes President Barack Obama’s desire for a nuclear-free world? Vanunu has suffered enough for a crime which did Israeli security no harm. It is time for Israel to return his freedom.
