Mordechai Vanunu

Ellsberg survived his confrontation with the state, but our next whistleblower suffered unimaginably for his disclosure.

The story of Mordechai Vanunu reads like a Cold War spy thriller, complete with international espionage, a honey trap, and devastating isolation.

Mordecai Vanunu was an Israeli nuclear technician working at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, commonly known as the Daimana facility, in the 1980s.

To understand his actions, you have to understand Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity.

Edo- Edward Snowden even wasn't recruited.

Or Mordechai Vanunu from our nuclear reactor, he wasn't recruited.

They volunteered.

Okay? This piece of human sources that volunteer, okay, usually we were saying, me and my colleagues were saying that they are the best spies because they can...

First, there is very obvious societal taboo talking about the issue.

Uh, 1986 was also Mordechai Vanunu, who came out with the story about, um, the first whistleblower, the first and only.

And actually, my first piece in The New York Times, uh, op-ed page was about Vanunu in 1987.

And we started to talk about, myself and Benjamin Frankel, the person who wrote with me that piece, about the uniqueness of Israel, the fact that in Israel there is this society, societal prohibition against talking about it, which already I used the word at that time, reflects a profound ambivalence about the bomb.

And, uh, nobody was behind this as a blueprint.

It was not some kind of engineering idea that, you know, Ben-Gurion relayed to others, and it was-- It came by itself in, you know, in relation to circumstances, political, societal.

You mentioned Mordechai Vanunu, which we're not going to discuss, but it was really consolidated certain kind of Israeli attitude.

And by now, Israel is a really unique case among all the nine nuclear weapon states.

Seven are killed in all.

1986, Mordechai Vanunu, who reveas-- reveals details of Israel's covert nuclear program to the British media, is kidnapped in Rome by the Israeli Mossad.

2004, the AIM-54 Phoenix, the primary missile for the F-14 Tomcat, another really cool plane, is retired from service.

Almost two years later, the Tomcat is retired.

Uh, w- there's limits to how sophisticated they can be without testing.

Uh, we have photos from the inside of their major facility, Dimona, from 19, uh, 86 by a, a technician, a whistleblower who, who lived there, Mordechai Vanunu, and some of those photos do give some indication about the sophistication of the warheads.

They, they give you pieces and they look pretty, you know, they, they look like what you would expect them to look.

They look like little, little round things with other round things around them and things like this.

Well, the comparison that some of my friends, uh, Bassem Tamimi, some others, said it would be like...

I don't know if you remember Vanunu, Mordechai Vanunu.

Yeah.

He was the whistleblower about Dimona in the '80s.