December 23, 2001
The Telegraph (UK)

Israel Reveals Secrets of How It Gained Bomb

by Inigo Gilmore

A TELEVISION documentary in which Shimon Peres, Israel's foreign minister, discloses for the first time details about Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons is to be broadcast in the Arab world. It is intended, at a time of rising tensions, as a warning.

In the documentary, Mr Peres goes further than any other Israeli official in confirming that the Jewish state has a nuclear capability. He and former French government officials give details about co-operation between Israel and France in launching Israel's nuclear programme.

The film, made by a leading Israeli documentary team, is a sign that the government may be finally relaxing its rule of absolute silence on its nuclear programme. Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at the Dimona nuclear facility, is serving an 18-year jail sentence for revealing in 1986 that Israel had a nuclear programme and more than 100 warheads.

The documentary, The Bomb in the Basement: Israel's Nuclear Option, was shown in Israel last month and is being sold to leading Arabic television stations including Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite channel. . . .

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[But the real problem that Vanunu represents is that he will remind the world at a critically important moment in the history of the Middle East that Israel is a nuclear power and that its warheads stand ready to be fired from the Negev desert. He will also remind the world that the Americans, despite battering their way into Iraq to destroy Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, continue to give their political, moral and economic support to a country that has secretly amassed a treasure trove of weapons of mass destruction.--Robert Fisk, "The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Ordeal of Mordechai Vanunu," Independent, March 26, 2004]

Sharmila Devi, "Vanunu calls for Israel to destory nuclear reactor," Financial Times, April 19, 2004

Stephen Zunes, "The Release of Mordechai Vanunu and US Role in Israel's Nuclear Arsenal," Antiwar.com, April 24, 2004

"Court denies nuke spy Vanunu's petition to renounce cititzenship," Antiwar.com, June 6, 2012