MIDDLE EAST: Peace activists regard Israel's nuclear whistle-blower as a hero but some Israelis see him as a traitor, writes Nuala Haughey in Ashkelon
"Fáilte Don Saoirse Mordechai" read a banner hoisted aloft outside an Israeli prison yesterday by Irish peace activists who travelled here to help welcome to freedom the country's high-profile nuclear whistle blower.
Eighteen years after he was kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel for exposing its secret atomic weapons programme, Mr Mordechai Vanunu (50) will be released this morning to a hero's welcome from his international supporters, including the Northern Irish Nobel Peace Laureate, Ms Mairead Corrigan Maguire.
But the celebrations for the man who has become an icon of the anti-nuclear movement worldwide will be dampened by a raft of post-release restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities, who maintain the former nuclear technician is still a threat to state security.
Five Irish peace activists joined up to a hundred others for a good-natured pre-release vigil yesterday outside the Shikma prison in the southern Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon.
Many, including Ms Maguire, have never met the man who shot to international fame in 1986 when he gave the Sunday Times of London a description and photographs of Israel's nuclear reactor in the desert town of Dimona, where he had worked for nine years as a technician.
Based on his accounts, experts at the time estimated that Israel had the world's sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. As part of its controversial policy of "nuclear ambiguity," Israel neither confirms nor denies it has nuclear weapons.
Mr Vanunu was kidnapped by the Israeli spy agency Mossad in 1986 after a female agent named Cindy lured him from Britain to Italy for a rendezvous in a "honeytrap" operation, shortly before the Sunday Times report was published.
Captured in Rome, he was drugged and smuggled to Israel by yacht, tried behind closed doors and sentenced to 18 years for treason and espionage, 12 of which he spent in solitary confinement.
Ms Maguire, who nominated Mr Vanunu for the Nobel Peace award in 2001, has written a letter of support to him in prison and invited him to visit Ireland.
"I would love to see him win it [the Nobel peace prize] because I think his message of 'no to nuclear weapons' is very important for us today," she said outside the prison yesterday.
Mr Justin Morahan from Dublin, a member of the Peace People organisation founded by Ms Maguire, urged the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to speak out on behalf of the European Union about the post-release restrictions faced by Mr Vanunu, which carry the implicit threat of rearrest for any breaches.
Mr Vanunu is not allowed to leave Israel for a year and has been barred from contacts with foreigners without advance permission. For the next six months he will have to report planned movements to the authorities and will not be allowed to approach seaports, airports or embassies. He is not allowed to speak about the circumstances of his kidnapping and his work at the reactor, or meet journalists.
An Israeli justice ministry spokesman, in a statement, said the restrictions were imposed "in order to prevent an impending danger to state security that is liable to be caused by the publication of secrets that were not previously known." Despite the severe media restrictions imposed on the high-profile prisoner, Mr Vanunu's words were broadcast on national television this week. Mr Vanunu insisted he has no more secrets to reveal, but maintained he would like to see Israel's nuclear reactor destroyed. His supporters said they were appalled that this audiotape of a recent conversation Mr Vanunu had with Israeli secret service agents was broadcast without his knowledge or consent.
The recording marked the first time Israelis have heard the prisoner explain his actions, which are widely viewed here as those of a traitor. Mr Vanunu, one of 11 children of working-class Jewish immigrants from Morocco, is doubly unpopular with his fellow nationals for casting off his ultra-Orthodox Jewish upbringing and converting to Christianity while travelling in Australia in 1986, before he went to London.
His natural parents are still alive, but it has mainly been his two brothers who have supported him during his long incarceration.
Mr Nick and Ms Mary Eoloff, an American peace movement couple, went through an adoption process to name Mr Vanunu as their son in 1997. They had hoped that he would be able to start a new life with them in Minnesota.
Speaking at yesterday's gathering outside the prison, Ms Eoloff said her adopted son was "very down" about the conditions of his release when they visited him last Monday.
"He said that he's broken hearted," she said. "He kept looking down at the table. He was really ready for freedom and it's like they are pulling the rug from under him, saying you are not free."
Mr Vanunu's brother Meir, who did not attend yesterday's gathering, has voiced fears for his safety during the year he will be forced to stay in Israel, in a seaside apartment in the town of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv.
Despite Israel's efforts to gag Mr Vanunu, his release has placed the country's controversial nuclear programme back under the spotlight and revived demands that it disarm. Egypt says Israel's arsenal is spurring Arab and Muslim countries to develop their own bombs.
As Mr Vanunu's supporters, including the British actress Suzannah York, praised his courage and humanity yesterday, an impromptu counter-protest took place nearby when about six Israeli labourers tore up posters of the prisoner and set them on fire.
"We should string him up or dump him off in Gaza where he belongs. Israel should do what's good for us and not what's good for the world. If we were to give up our weapons there would be a second holocaust," said one of the protesters, Mr Arik Geldar.