‘Which country in the Middle East?’

You see the darndest things on European TV.

Killing time before going to Afghanistan, I hit the tube in time for a BBC show that started with four questions: “Which country in the Middle East 1) has undeclared nuclear weapons, 2) has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities, 3) has no outside inspections, 4) jailed its nuclear whistle-blower for 18 years?”

(The British Broadcasting Corp., despite government support, remains wonderfully independent of incumbent policy and politicians. Example: the current spat over BBC’s claim of intelligence skewing by Blair & Co. in the run-up to Iraq. Downing Street demands an apology; the BBC stands firm. No wonder the BBC is regarded in places like Afghanistan as the single most trustworthy source of news.)

Back to the four questions. Did you answer pre-war Iraq? Or maybe “Axis of Evil” member Iran? Or perhaps our ambivalent ally-of-convenience Saudi Arabia? Guess again.

The common answer to these four questions is Israel. An extraordinary program followed. Called “Israel’s Secret Weapon,” it deserves broadcast in America. Fifth question: Which American television station has the guts to show it?

Because the answer to 5 is likely to be “None,” I devote this column to a synopsis. Readers in search of the real deal should click on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/2841377.stm. A link toward the bottom of this site takes you to the complete transcript. Here are its essentials.

In 1986 an Israeli named Mordechai Vanunu blew the whistle on that country’s nuclear weapons program. Long suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction, Israel had never acknowledged or denied the charge – and still does not. Rather it adheres to what’s called, with U.S. connivance, “nuclear ambiguity.” Translation: Israel has WMD, in abundance, but doesn’t say so; the United States, which knows the answer, doesn’t ask.

(According to the BBC, the last U.S. president who asked for nuclear inspections in Israel was JFK. Lyndon Johnson’s attentions shifted to Vietnam. And “nuclear ambiguity” was codified during the tenure of – you got it – Tricky Dick Nixon.)

Until 1986, Mordechai Vanunu’s story was typical of his generation, reminiscent of what other Israelis told me when I worked there, proudly and admiringly, 34 years ago. Vanunu had immigrated as a child to newly independent Israel. He’d served in the Israeli army, studied philosophy, and found work at what was called a textile factory in the Negev Desert town of Dimona. Then Vanunu’s story changes from typical to what Israel calls treasonous.

In fact, the Dimona facility made – and still makes – plutonium for nuclear bombs. Maybe Vanunu’s philosophy study got in the way, rendered him incapable of living blatant lies. He quit, converted to Christianity, and moved to Australia. He did more: Before leaving Dimona, he took notes and photographs. And word of his evidence reached London’s Sunday Times.

Vanunu was flown to England, hidden in a country house, transported in a car luggage compartment to the newspaper’s offices, and interviewed for a feature article which appeared on Oct. 5, 1986. Why the cloak? Because of Israel’s dagger. Its espionage services may be, pound for pound, the best in the world.

They were too good for Vanunu. He was lonely; the American girl he met in London was willing. This technique is called in the trade a “honey trap.” She lured him to Rome where Vanunu was (BBC’s words) “overpowered, assaulted, drugged, kidnapped, and smuggled back to Israel by boat, unconscious.”

Kidnapping is a crime in Italy. But no one would have known about it save for Vanunu’s presence of mind and a ballpoint pen. He wrote what had happened on the palm of his hand, held it up, and got himself photographed.

The kidnapping was ordered by then Prime Minister Shimon Peres. It remains an official Israeli state secret. Nowadays Peres seems a comparative dove, but his response to questions from BBC correspondent Olenka Frenkiel reflects the hawkish defensiveness with which Israel takes this whole matter. “My dear lady, I can’t go into all the processes. I am unwilling. I don’t see any reason to do so.”

Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years. He spent the first 11 years in a 6-by-9- foot cell with no windows. Mordechai Vanunu served more time in solitary confinement than any other prisoner in the current Western world. Says his lawyer, “Vanunu was treated this way out of revenge … to deter others and because actually he was the person who broke the taboo of the secrecy in Israeli society, a very strong and influencing taboo in a very closed society more like a tribe.”

As both a convicted traitor and an apostate from Judaism, Vanunu was rejected by most of his natal family. A Minnesota couple, Nick and Mary Eoloff, legally adopted him. Repeated parole appeals have failed. The 18-year sentence comes due in 2004, and officials at Ashkelon Prison have told Vanunu’s brother, a Jerusalem school administrator, that he’ll be released next April 22. Mordechai Vanunu wants to come to America.

Maybe, but don’t bet on it. The BBC identifies Yehiyel Horev, a hitherto faceless Ministry of Defense official, as Vanunu’s nemesis. According to one Israeli journalist, “Horev is a grave danger to Israeli democracy. He operates with no law, no real scrutiny and no monitoring by the Israeli parliament.” Horev is said to have blocked the paroles, to still fear further whistle blowing. Will Vanunu ever get out of jail? Out of Israel?

The main whistle has already been blown. Even two decades ago, reports the BBC on the basis of Vanunu’s revelations, “Israel had developed between 100 and 200 atomic bombs and had gone on to develop neutron bombs and thermonuclear weapons.” And now, says correspondent Frenkiel, “proliferation experts report Israel has the world’s sixth largest nuclear arsenal with small tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear landmines as well as medium-range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land or sea.”

The program goes further. We learn that the Dimona nuclear plant, now four decades old and deteriorating, has caused cancer in employees who keep mum for fear of “Vanunu-ization.” We learn of an Israeli plane that crashed in 1992, heading for The Israeli Institute of Biological Research at Nes Ziona and carrying a key component for sarin nerve gas. And we see February 2001 footage of convulsive Palestinians who’d been gassed in Gaza by a substance the Israelis refuse to identify.

The tribal taboo on open discussion was recently broken again, this time in Israel’s Knesset (parliament) by an Arab MP named Issam Makhoul. Some excerpts: “Vanunu is not the problem. The problem is the Israeli government’s policy. A policy that’s turned a small territory into a poisonous nuclear waste bin … which could make us all disappear into a nuclear cloud. The entire world knows that Israelis have a vast nuclear, biological and chemical warehouse. … Why are the Americans looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? I can tell them where there are weapons of mass destruction … including nuclear weapons. Let them send their inspectors to me … and I will lead them by the hand and show them.”

Strong stuff, so let’s be fair. Yes, Israel has the right to make provisions for its defense. And, yes, Vanunu must have signed some security vow which he then violated. So in those regards, yes, he’s guilty of treason. And, yes, in most Middle Eastern countries he’d have been tortured and executed rather than tried and imprisoned. I remain a believer in Shimon Peres and wish, for all our sakes, he were still prime minister.

Even so, the last words go to an Israeli peace activist on the BBC documentary: “Imagine for one moment that Mordechai Vanunu was not an Israeli, that the whole story had happened with a Korean or an Iranian or a Pakistani technician, he would have had the Nobel Peace Prize. He would have been the second Sakharov.”

In fact, Vanunu has been nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize. Want to pen-pal a possible laureate? The address: Dr. Mordechai Vanunu, Ashkelon Prison, Ashkelon, Israel.

Dr. Whitney Azoy, a cultural anthropologist and former U.S. diplomat in Kabul, has worked for 30 years with Afghanistan and the Muslim world. The second edition of Dr. Azoy’s study, “Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan,” is available from Waveland Press.