LIBERTY,
Vanunu, Dylan And Doors
By
Eileen Fleming
08 January,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Come
writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.-
Bob
Dylan
On January 7, 2008, I received
the following good news email from Mordecahi Vanunu:
Hi There,
The news:
The court
hearing today postponed. Israel Gov' by their prosecutor agree to change
the 6 months prison sentence to community service. Next the prosecutor
will discuss with us which community service I will do. So all this
trial and sentence for the last 3 years come to nothing.
Wishing you
to see me free very soon,
vmjc
Ever since
Vanunu was convicted in July 2007 and sentenced to six more months in
jail for the interviews he gave foreign media in 2004, this civilian
journalist has suffered a guilty conscience because I have been streaming
2005 and 2006 video of Vanunu on my site and YOUTUBE. I figured if Israel
would send Vanunu back to jail for interviews nobody is reading anymore,
what would they do to him for videos that are currently freely streaming
on the World Wide Web?
This civilian
journalist also owes her very career to Vanunu, so I am in his debt
for he inspired me to realize my childhood dream of growing up to be
Brenda Starr, the red headed ace investigative journalist of the Sunday
comics. Because of a chance crossing of paths with Vanunu in June 2005
that lead him to share with me about his childhood and journey into
Christianity, I was also inspired to imagine an adult hope; of becoming
the 21st century Dorothy Day, a radical Christian who birthed The Catholic
Worker newspaper that gave voice to the poor and oppressed in the 20th
century.
Because I
had been reporting on Vanunu's historic year and a half long freedom
of speech trial in Jerusalem I was asked to speak in California on October
13, 2007-Vanunu's 53rd birthday- at the NO More Wars for Israel Conference,
which had been dedicated to him. I went with the hope and desire to
raise some funds for Vanunu's Defense before his January 8, 2008 appeal.
And another
door opened to me when I heard another speaker there say,
"It
was God that kept us afloat."
That speaker
was Phil Tourney, a USS LIBERTY Veteran who has now become a brother,
a friend and comrade in the good fight for justice for the USS LIBERTY.
Liberty also
means freedom from captivity.
When Phil
spoke those seven words, I immediately knew in my heart/gut, I had to
do something. In less than three months, I have heard those same words
affirmed by every USS LIBERTY survivor and supporter, I have thus far
spoken with; and I have only just begun.
Although
Vanunu's and the LIBERTY Vet's situations are very different, they are
also very connected in my heart/gut. In both instances governments that
claim to be democracies told truth tellers to SHUT UP and both governments
have lied and covered up........
I made a
phone call on January 5, 2008, to LIBERTY CENTRAL/Rich Schmucker. I
thought I was just doing another USS LIBERTY article, but another door
opened up to me.
Rich wasn't
on the USS LIBERTY, the spy ship that Israel attacked and tried to destroy
during the Six Day War, but he has been a supporter and accumulator
of records galore about that day in infamy when the USA Government failed
to support the troops, Congress went limp and the MSM went MIA.
Rich told
me, "From 1963 until 1969, I was a CT, a Communications Technician
stationed at the Naval base in Wahiawa, Hawaii. CT's are apart of the
intelligence community and our work was classified. I never heard a
word about what happened on June 8, 1967 in the Mediterranean until
I was in a library in Auburn, Nebraska in 1979 and came across Jim Ennis's
book, ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY.
"I checked
it out and after reading it, I became so dang angry because I hadn't
heard anything about it while in the Navy, or in the newspapers or on
TV, so I began doing research. Through the years I have obtained over
two hundred pounds of documents and I have stuff the crew never even
knew about. What I read opened more doors and I was led to contact Russians,
Egyptians, Israelis and others and my phone bill was higher than a kite.
"I got
the USA documents using the Freedom of Information Act and most of the
time I got what I asked for, but sometimes, I was completely ignored.
I signed a secrecy agreement when I entered the Navy and I think one
of the reasons our government has ignored me was because they didn't
want to give me any credibility. The only negativity I met with was
when I received a package from Paris, France. Two hours after opening
it up, I landed in the hospital because it had some kind of poison in
it. Apparently somebody in France didn't like me because I was asking
questions about the USS LIBERTY. I have gotten a couple of phone threats,
but it's the one's who won't talk to you, you have to worry about. "
Rich's comment
caused me to reflect upon the link I have to my website that affirms
that the USA Government, Israel [and France!] are consistently in the
Top 20 out of 70+ countries that hit on WAWA every day. Nobody from
any of those governments ever email me, but I have been and remain grateful
they are interested in this little sister of Christ, for Big Brother
is out of control and it is empire that I am challenging on the web.
Rich continued,
"It's not the Jewish people or the Jewish religion I have a problem
with. It's the governments of America and Israel that colluded in the
cover-up that I have a problem with…This is off topic, but I want
to tell you that one day I was just sitting there looking at a picture
of the Star of David and I realized it had six little triangles, six
sides in the center and six points and I wondered if it was the Mark
of The Beast; you know 666 from the Book of Revelation."
I had never
heard of such a thing but I do know that some modern day Biblical scholars
contend that the number 666 was code for the Roman Emperor Nero. The
ancients used numerical codes of the alphabet and writers were thus
able to name without actually naming those contemporary figures that
were politically dangerous to openly criticize.
Some current
day Christian fundamentalists believe that 666 is a code for the letters
of a name or title of the Antichrist. A particular cult of modern day
USA fundamentalist Christians who are pro-war, pro-torture, pro-military
occupation and lust for Armageddon best exemplify what centuries of
theologians understood to be what the term anti-Christ is really all
about.
The term "antichrist" never appears in John's Revelation or
Daniel, two disparate works of literature written three centuries apart
and under very different circumstances, yet some modern day Christian
fundamentalists have woven them together and have left behind what the
author who coined the term 'antichrist' actually penned. The writer
of 1 John and 2 John-the only sources in the Bible where the term appears
wrote:"...as you have heard that the antichrist is coming; even
now many have come..."- I John 2:18
To be anti anything is to be against something. To be anti-Christ is
to be against what Jesus was all about; and Jesus was all about forgiving,
blessing and loving one's enemies and remaining nonviolent even while
being nailed to a cross.
Nuclear weapons
and military occupation are in direct conflict with what Jesus taught
and lived.
Jesus also
taught liberation from the bondage of the corrupt teachers of The Law,
who made their bread off of the poor. The Temple priests made their
living by convincing the people that God would only accept them after
they paid for ritual baths and sacrificing livestock, that only the
Temple priests could perform.
Jesus was a dissident, a subversive, social justice radical revolutionary
Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who challenged the job security
of the Temple priests by teaching the people that they didn't need to
pay the priests a dime to be OK with God, for God already loved them,
just as they were; sinners, diseased, outcasts, refugees, prisoners
all living under Roman Military Occupation.
What got
Jesus crucified was disturbing the status quo of the Roman Occupying
Forces because he taught the people that in God's eyes everyone is equally
valuable and Caesar only had power because God allowed it.
2,000 years
ago the cross had NO religious symbolism. When Jesus said: "Pick
up your cross and follow me," everyone then understood he was issuing
a political statement. The Roman Empire crucified thousands of agitators,
rebels, dissidents and any others who disturbed the status quo, and
the road to Jerusalem was lined with the Roman Occupying Forces method
of the death penalty.
Jesus did
not speak Hebrew, he spoke Aramaic. The word Nero, written in Aramaic
was valued at 666 in the Hebrew numbering system. The Roman Empire oppressed
Jews and Christians and both communities used codes, symbols and numerology
understood by their members, but not the empire.
I asked Rich
had he ever considered that the anti-Christ might actually be nuclear
weapons. Had he ever considered that the anti-Christ is not a man at
all but is the evil that comes from a heart that seeks power, control
and empire. I asked Rich had he ever wondered about how governments
promote nuclear weapons as instruments of peace, but nukes only reap
destruction and instability for they fill others with the desire to
obtain them.
Rich hadn't
thought of such a thing and neither had Vanunu when I raised the very
same question to him in June 2005.
But Vanunu
did reply, "The only way to peace is peace; the only way is nonviolence.
The only answer to Israeli nuclear weapons, their aggression, occupation
and oppression, and the wall and refugee camps is to answer them with
truth and a peaceful voice. When I became the spy for the world, I did
it all for the people of the world. If governments do not report the
truth, and if the media does not report the truth, then all we can do
is follow our consciences. Daniel Ellsberg did, the woman from Enron
did, and I did. The United States needs to wake up and see the truth
that Israel is not a democracy, unless you are a Jew. Israel is the
only country in the Middle East where America can right now find nuclear
weapons.
"America
can also find where basic human rights have been denied Christians:
right here in Israel.The time has come for the United States to see
the truth of Zionism. It began as a secular nationalist movement, not
a religious one. Then some Christians believed that when Israel became
a nation, it was the beginning of the second coming. They are deluded
if they believe peace will come through atomic weapons. Atomic weapons
are holocaust weapons. Christians should be the first people against
them.
"The
Christians in America should be helping the Christians here. America
needs to wake up to this fallacy that Jesus will come back by nuclear
war. America needs to wake up to the fact that the Palestinian Christians
here have no human rights. Aren't Christians supposed to be concerned
about other Christians? Aren't Christians supposed to be concerned about
all the poor and oppressed?"
I totally agreed with Vanunu and answered him back, "It is non-negotiable:
all of that stuff Jesus said about doing for the least and the oppressed.
It is non-negotiable for Christians; we must forgive our enemies, and
we must love those who hate us. Whatever we do or do not do, we do it
unto God. Every time I went through a checkpoint, saw The Apartheid
Wall, or heard a story of oppression, I wondered how God can stand this
situation. I can't. I also think you were crucified for telling the
truth."
Vanunu agreed,
"My human rights have been denied me because I am a Christian.
When I was on trial, I was treated just like a Palestinian: no human
rights at all, and cruel and unusual punishment, all because I told
the truth. The government spread slander about me, that I was a homosexual,
that I hated Jews, that I wanted fame and money. What I did was sacrifice
my life for the truth. In prison, I really began to feel like Jesus
and Paul. When Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple, it
was like me in Dimona, exposing the Israelis' dirty secrets. I felt
like Paul, being thrown in prison for speaking the truth.
"The
only real way to worship is in loving one's enemies. It was not easy
to love my tormentors; it was only because I felt so much like Jesus
crucified on the cross, and as if I was crucified in prison, that I
could do it. It was not ever easy. I have forgiven but not forgotten
anything, and I never will. In Israel, a life sentence is twenty-five
years. Even murderers go free after seventeen. They imposed the same
restrictions on me that Palestinians receive: no human rights at all;
no phone; no visitors, except family, and only through an iron grill;
no vacation; no holidays; and no gifts. Even murderers get out for vacations!
I was locked up for eighteen years and still cannot go on vacation;
I cannot leave, and that is all I am asking for, just to leave here.
For eighteen years in prison, they even attempted to control my thoughts
on paper. I would write exactly what I wanted and they would censor
words like kidnapped and atomic bomb. They would show me how they chopped
up my letters, but I continued to write exactly what I wanted. They
held my body, but never my spirit or mind.
......After
I said good bye to Rich I immediately I flipped my Bible open to the
Book of Revelation as I prayed for a revelation of my own. What jumped
out at me was:
"The
beast was given a mouth to utter proud words…to blaspheme God
and to slander his name and his dwelling place…He who has an ear,
let him hear…If anyone kills…he will be killed." Rev.13:
5-10
"I saw
a new heaven and a new earth…I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven…and I heard a loud voice saying, "There
will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order
of things has passed away." Rev. 21: 1-4
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'
January 7,
2008 © Copyright Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author KEEP HOPE ALIVE and Memoirs of a Nice Irish American Girl's'
Life in Occupied Territory, Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu."
Permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media
if this credit is attached and the title remains unchanged.
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