by Jerry Levin
Hebron, West Bank, Palestine
February 11, 2006
If all the interested spectators
who sat in on the second day of Mordechai Vanunu's trial in a Jerusalem magistrate
court had been seated around a table, it would have been a very small one. As
a matter of fact, a few minutes after the session adjourned for the day, all
four were seated around a small table with Vanunu and his three person defense
team in an East Jerusalem restaurant. The team is headed by internationally
known Israeli human rights advocate, Avigdor Feldman.
"Ranking all the significant trials of your career," Feldman was asked,
"where would you rank this one?"
"It is one of most significant," he replied, "because it involves
important issues about the Israeli government producing weapons of mass destruction
and Vanunu's right to let the people know about that. So it is a very important
issue."
In 1986, a conscience stricken Vanunu, shared with a British newspaper what
he had learned about Israel's secret nuclear weapons building program while
an employee at its Dimona production facility. Afterwards apparently lured to
Italy by an Israeli femme fatale, he was kidnapped to Israel and put on trial
behind closed doors for disclosing those secrets. After conviction he spent
the next eighteen years in solitary confinement (See From The Inside Looking
Out Report--44 December 21, 2004: Mordechai).
"When Mordechai called you to defend him again, did you have a feeling
of déjà vu?"
"Last time he couldn't call me," Feldman reminds with a chuckle, echoed
by Vanunu, "he was held in secret. So his brother had to call me."
For those used to dramatizations of high profile cases involving crucial principles
of justice and freedom, Feldman's style is not what one might expect. It is
low key, soft spoken, and devoid of the super heated passion so characteristic
of motion picture or TV court room drama.
There are two reasons for this. 1) The case is being argued before a judge;
and judges ordinarily don't react pleasantly to even well intentioned histrionics,
whereas juries notoriously do; and 2) "because," explained Feldman,
"we are arguing mostly about technicalities."
The "technicalities" are about how the police went about collecting
its evidence on which the prosecution has based its case. Essentially he is
accused of criminal violations of restrictions imposed by the government on
him after his release from prison in April 2004. Significantly those restrictions
have been affirmed not once but twice by the Israeli Supreme Court.
Specifically he is charged with 1) maintaining contacts or exchanging information
with foreign citizens especially journalists, and 2) coming within 500 meters
of places from which it is possible to leave Israel, including the West Bank.
The charges detail 21 interviews with "foreign journalists" and "chat
room" conversations and with trying to go to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve
2004. (See From The Inside Looking Out Report--45 December 27, 2005: Mordechai's
Not So Excellent Christmas Eve Adventure.)
"The problem for the prosecutors," said Mordechai, "is, even
if the journalists are foreigners, how can the prosecutors prove they are foreigners.
They must do this."
"Yes," said his long time friend and indefatigable supporter, Israeli
journalist Gideon Spiro. "They must prove that the people who talked to
him are not Israeli citizens. So Avigdor argued 'O.K. if there are no mistakes
in the Interior Ministry's citizenship records there is proof. But if there
are mistakes, then no proof.'"
Then Spiro explained how a government functionary working with citizenship registrations,
when required, was obliged to produce a list on which "twenty seven Amy
Goodmans can be found who are Israeli citizens. So how can they prove that the
Amy Goodman Mordechai was talking to was a foreigner?"
"Beyond a reasonable doubt," echoed Feldman. "All those interviews
that were published on the internet and in the newspapers," he added, "the
police didn't interrogate the journalists who made these interviews. So even
if something is published either in the newspapers or the internet, it does
not mean that it really took place. So we are making it very difficult for them
to prove."
Then there is the question of Mordechai's chat room dialogues that were copied
from his computers after they were seized by the police and then transcribed.
Feldman has argued that chat room conversations are private like phone conversation
which police in Israel cannot monitor and transcribe even after the fact unless
they have prior permission of the court. The prosecution naturally thinks there
is a difference.
Finally there is the question of Mordechai's alleged attempt to leave Israel.
"As a matter of fact," said Spiro, "Avigdor brought out, that
Mordechai was arrested at a police checkpoint 200 meters before the military
checkpoint. So, when he was stopped, he was not leaving Jerusalem yet. He was
still in it. So, if you ask me, he was arrested without any reason, because
although he intended to go to Bethlehem he was not yet in."
"Yes," said Mordechai, "and it also happens that, according to
the legal description, leaving Israel for the occupied territories is not like
leaving the country."
"No, said Feldman, "in the strict legal sense by going to Bethlehem
he would not be leaving the country."
Based on the technicalities advocate Feldman is asking Judge Yoel Zur to dismiss
the charges. He is expected to rule by February 22nd. Feldman is hopeful. "The
judge already has reduced the charges from a maximum three years in prison to
six months."
"Supposing, despite your case, Mordechai is convicted; will he go to jail?"
"I think he would get parole."
"With a conviction," would the fundamental issue of freedom of speech,
movement and association be a dead issue?"
"No, it could come again. The limitations approved by the Supreme Court
are temporary; for one year. So we could raise it again. And the court did say
in its last decision that the limitations can't go on forever."
As the post trial gathering broke up, Mordechai was asked, "Do you ever
feel that where the progress you and others are trying to make in the world
is like the Greek myth of Sisyphus? One step forward and two steps back?"
"No, in this century I feel it is two steps forward and one back."
"You really believe that?"
"I believe it is much better situation now than it was one hundred years
ago."
"Since the principles of freedom issues are so important to you, will it
disappoint if you win your case on these technicalities?"
"No," said Mordechai with his second chuckle of the day, "I want
to be free anyway."