Follow-Up

The other day, Shin Bet security forces in Israel had arrested British Journalist Peter Hounam. Hounam, you'll recall, had interviewed Mordechai Vanunu in 1986, exposing Israeli atomic secrets in the process, and then remianing close to the entire Vanunu affair, fighting for his release from Israeli prison.

I'm happy to say that Hounam has been released. There still doesn't seem to be any word as to why he was picked up in the first place (probably simply to prevent him from meeting with Vanunu), as the gag order still stands:

Peter Hounam, 60, arrived at Heathrow airport on Friday evening after spending a day in custody in Tel Aviv.

The journalist, who exposed Israel's atomic secrets in a newspaper article in 1986, was in the country to make a BBC documentary.

The source of his original story, Mordechai Vanunu, was freed from an Israeli jail on 21 April after serving an 18-year sentence for spying.

Israeli authorities eventually released Mr Hounam on Thursday and gave him a day to leave the country.

Mr Hounam, who lives in Perthshire, Scotland, said Israel should be "ashamed of itself" for arresting him and he said he was angry that he was held in solitary confinement.

Israeli authorities have banned Vanunu from speaking to any foreigners as part of his release, but the BBC has just posted a piece detailing an interview with Vanunu that will be broadcast on BBC Two this Sunday. Some excerpts (from the article; no transcript of the interview is yet available):

Mr Vanunu, 50, who is widely regarded as a traitor in Israel, spent nearly 18 years in prison for revealing details of Israel's clandestine nuclear arms programme.

Supporters welcomed his release in April, calling him a "hero of peace".

Under the terms of his release, Mr Vanunu is forbidden from leaving Israel, meeting foreigners and revealing secrets about the Dimona nuclear plant.

He was interviewed for This World by an Israeli journalist.

"What I did was to inform the world what is going on in secret. I didn't come and say, we should destroy Israel, we should destroy Dimona. I said, look what they have and make your judgement."

Vanunu goes on to say that he wants to leave Israel, move to Europe or the US, but of course he cannot. He is essentially still held captive within Israel. The brief details given in the piece regarding Vanunu's initial arrest are classic. The interview referenced was with Hounam:

Mr Vanunu was kidnapped in Italy by Israeli agents in 1986 following a Sunday Times article, based on an interview with him, which exposed Israel's atomic secrets.

He described how a female secret agent lured him from London to Rome and distracted him in the car.

"We sat in the back. She used the time for kissing me, to divert my attention by a lot of kissing," Mr Vanunu said.

In Rome, Mr Vanunu was overpowered and drugged, then shipped back to Israel to be tried in secret.

We always tout Israel as "the only democracy in the Middle East," and while to a certain extent that may be true, this business of international kidnapping, secret trials and such is not, or at the very least, should not be how democracies function. For its part, the Israeli government had this to say:

Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, Joseph Lapid, defended the restrictive terms of Mr Vanunu's release.

"We think he still knows secrets and we don't want him to sell them again," he told This World.

"We think there are things he knows that he hasn't divulged yet. He may do so - he's hell-bent to harm this country, he hates this country."

What's interesting to me is that Lapid is quoted above in his position as Deputy Prime Minister, but the other day, it was as Justice Minister he was quoted , when he warmed my heart so greatly, seeing the simple, human commonality between a Palestinian woman in Rafah, picking through the rubble of her bulldozed home, looking for her medicine, and his own grandmother, driven from her own home by the Nazis.

"It isn't human, it isn't Jewish and it causes us tremendous damage in the world," he said to the Knesset.

Exactly. More justice, Mr. Lapid.