Once more Mordechai Vanunu has been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize for drawing our attention to Israel’s nuclear capacity, a fact that Israel has tried rather unsuccessfully to conceal to the world she endangers. As Vanunu has pointed out one of his chief tormentors, Shimon Peres, is a recipient. He is just one of a number of people who have led a rather bizarre career of talking about peace while acting as belligerents. These are some of the highlights from the veteran Peres past:
Shimon Peres procurer of arms
In 1947 Shimon Peres joined the Haganah, where David Ben-Gurion named him responsible for personnel and arms purchases. In 1948 he was named head of naval services in the Defense Ministry and in 1952 he was named deputy director general of the Defense Ministry.
In 1953, at the age of 29, he became the youngest ever director -general of the Defense Ministry.In 1959 Peres was elected to the Knesset for the first time. Running with Mapai (Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael), he was made deputy defense minister.
Architect of peace?
In 1992, after Labor – headed by Yitzhak Rabin – won the elections, Peres was named foreign minister. Peres than began negotiating with Yasser Arafat and the PLO, trying to get the organization to recognize Israel. Those negotiations materialized into the Oslo Accords, which effectively created the Palestinian Authority. The Oslo Accords were finalized on August 20, 1993 and signed by Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO and Peres for Israel. In 1994, Peres – along with Rabin and Arafat – were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the peace talks that produced the Oslo Accords.
Architect of Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal
In December 1995 Shimon Peres drew world headlines for his casual remark to a group of Israeli journalists in Tel Aviv: “Give me peace and we will give up the nuclear program–this is the whole story.” Though the media heralded this announcement, it reflected nothing more than longstanding policy. For years, Israel has said that it would negotiate the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East after the establishment of lasting peace. Shimon Peres has told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Israel would be willing to negotiate the signing of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty within two years after the establishment of “regional peace.”
But Peres has never said what such a peace would include. He has preferred ambiguity in this and much else in Israel’s nuclear diplomacy. In fact, it was Peres who came up with Israel’s most often repeated nuclear declaration. At a April 1963 meeting in the White House, Peres responded to President John F. Kennedy’s questions about Israel’s nuclear program by saying: “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.” Two years later, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol elevated Peres’s words to Israel’s official nuclear line.
Mordechai Vanunu on Shimon Peres
Vanunu said in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee that he did not wish “to belong to a list of laureates that also includes [President] Shimon Peres, the man behind Israeli atomic policy.”
Vanunu added: “Peres established the reactor in Dimona and developed Israel’s nuclear weapons program… In the same way as Pakistan’s [nuclear scientist] Dr. Khan, Peres was the man behind the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Africa and other states. He was also behind the nuclear test in South Africa in 1978.”

PLO leader President Mahmoud Abbas has spoken at the United Nations in support of full Palestinian membership of the United Nations. As he received standing ovations Israel looked a little isolated as their delegates maintained their seats and silence. The speech was passionate and was warmly received in Ramallah. I received a message from a citizen of Gaza who was greatly heartened by Abbas who has done something to rebuild a rather tarnished image. Still the name of Arafat elicits a huge response in spite of detractors who criticised him with allegations of corruption.
President Abbas didn’t mince his words and spoke of a range of injustices perpetrated by “the last colonial occupying force”. It was the policy of continuing to build settlements illegally on land which would form part of a future Palestinian that was the greatest obstacle, but the apartheid wall which divided communities and families, the destruction of farmland and ancient olive trees and the violence of the Israeli Occupying Force among his deep objections. “Enough, enough, enough” was his call to the assembled delegates and to the world watching events unfold.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanahyu followed up with attacks on the UN, Abbas and everyone who he feels wants Israel to go undefended. He ended by requesting Abbas to meet him there and then since “they were both together in New York in the same room”.
Back in Jerusalem there appeared to be an air of world weariness and resignation to the US veto. What Britain is going to do we’re left guessing – except again we know what to expect. Palestine has been failed once this century, as the article points out.

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The people of Egypt took to the streets and Hosni Mubarak left in haste together with his offspring who threatened to carry on a dynasty. Maybe not royalty, but what’s the difference? The problem is, as it will be for Libya and everywhere else where people are expressing their wish for freedom and democracy, what’s next? What will the next establishment look like. The Guardian article by Nawal El Saadhawi poses that question and concludes that the new are “still the President’s men”.
Mubarak had kept close to the US leadership which, as with other “dear leaders”, had groomed the despots, giving them dollars to prop up the corrupt state to do the US (and NATO) bidding. In that respect what has changed?
The US and allies are having problems with consistency. Afghanistan still appears to be unravelling as billions spent makes little difference. The resentment caused of interfering in other nation’s affairs is regarded as the best recruiting sergeant for the “terrorist”. Arguably the more you kill and waste the more opposition you build. So bombing Libya is an answer but in Syria it is not. Appeasement is the watchword here, even though civilians, supposedly the main concern in Libya, has little currency there, and even less if any in Palestinian territories.

From this post there is evidence that young people in Israel are not immune from the feeling that their governments don’t represent them and a denial of democracy prevents them from protesting openly. But speak out they will and given the opportunity we need to listen to what they have to say.
The message is also clear that western governments don’t have the solution to the world they inhabit, where as they say Christians, Muslims and Jews have contributed to the vibrant culture they inherit. It is one that is denied by the current divisions being practiced by their oppressive government which treats Palestinians with derision and contempt.
In fact without western governments many of the regimes, including Israel would not function. Their despotic leaders have acceded to the whims and coercive measures of the US and their allies, buying their arms and other implements of oppression and trading with their massively powerful corporations. The young people of the world see through this where the older generation have been blinded by the lies and fictions fed to them by one of those corporate giants, the mass media.

If Libya can be a No Fly Zone why can’t Gaza? The international community has its knickers in the twist over Libya and the bombing of civilians by Gadhafi’s forces – hasn’t been specified how many have died by “co-lateral damage” now US and NATO are unleashing weapons. There is no such outcry about the bombing of civilians, including children, in Gaza. Why is the question we ask repeatedly?
It appears that in the latest raids on Gaza white phosphorous is still in use by the Israelis so on 21st April children will make a human chain to spell out NO FLY ZONE. I very much like the idea, although knowing the propensity for Israel to be perverse in matters of humanity it could see this as an invitation for even more bombing!
Difference between Libya and Gaza, Libya is constantly in the news – usually a one sided affair – while Gaza rearly gets a mention. The use of phosphorous was a scandal during Operation Cast Lead, but now it’s not worth mentioning. Israel has proved it can do anything it likes, whether develop the most dangerous weapons imaginable, while the US supplies money and yet more high tech weaponry. France supplied the old, dated and risk-laden nuclear technology, perhaps Britain supplies more although Israel has a well developed arms industry and exports to places like India (shame on its government for dealing with them).