The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu, and the Bomb (review)

Yoel Cohen's The Whistleblower of Dimona is a fascinating and worthy work on the intriguing story of the unacknowledged Israeli nuclear program, and the Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, who exposed it in 1986. Cohen effectively and comprehensively integrates numerous threads about the Israeli nuclear program, Israeli intelligence operations, and the disclosure by the Sunday Times of London on 5 October 1986, which provided an unprecedented glimpse inside Israel's highly secretive nuclear program.

The detailed Times exposé, for which Vanunu, an ex-technician at the Israeli nuclear plant of Dimona, provided photographs and technical details, provided firm, but not conclusive, evidence that Israel possessed nuclear weapons. While waiting for the Sunday Times to verify his story in late September 1986, Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by Israeli Intelligence where he was kidnapped and brought by boat back to Israel. Following his capture, Vanunu was tried, convicted of espionage and treason, and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. Following completion of his sentence in the spring of 2004, an unrepentant Vanunu was released from prison.

The underlying theme of Whistleblower is the desire of the Israeli government to maintain the ambiguity of its nuclear capabilities. Cohen utilizes this desire for ambiguity as the structure for the book, which is divided into five parts: Foundations of Nuclear Ambiguity, September-October 1986: Ambiguity Under Threat; Ambiguity on Trial; Grassroots Ambiguity; and Shreds of Ambiguity.

Cohen's descriptions of Vananu's journey and motivations for providing information to the Times, as well as his subsequent abduction by Israeli Intelligence, give the book the feeling of an intelligence novel, but the work's strongest section is the discussion of Vanunu's trial. As Cohen notes, "[t]he shroud of ambiguity that the Israeli authorities placed on the diplomatic and intelligence aspects of the Vanunu affair also characterized Vanunu's trial. But while denial and disinformation are part of the diplomat's craft, the independence of the Israeli judiciary and the rule of law changed the rules of the game" (p. 161).

The dynamics within the Israeli government, particularly those between the Ministry of Defense, the prosecution, the judiciary, and Vanunu's attorney capture the problematic nature of a state's desire to protect information dealing with national security and yet provide a fair trial. The outcome, as Cohen comments, of "[t]he interface between Vanunu's conscience and that of Israel could not have been resolved in a more unsatisfactory manner, with Vanunu spending eighteen years in prison" (p. 349).

For Cohen, the entire affair reflects poorly on Israel as a democratic society as well as demonstrating the limits of the policy of nuclear ambiguity: "A democracy in which citizens are informed of sensitive national security issues only from information published abroad is weak. . . . The short-term diplomatic consequences of a policy of ambiguity need to be balanced with the long-term requirement for adequate data to reach the public so that they can make intelligent and informed decisions. If such a balance had existed, Mordechai Vanunu's name would be unknown today" (p. 349).

Cohen has produced a thorough and well-written work on the story of Mordechai Vanunu that thoughtfully deals with a multitude of issues. In the end, even if one accepts that Vanunu's goal was to draw attention to, and encourage debate within Israel society on, the nuclear question, then his efforts (unfortunately) cannot be said to have met with much success.