Israel, Vanunu and the Bomb (BBC 2007 FULL 1 HOUR DOCUMENTRY)

Seemed a really poignant time to Re-upload this….
If you know nothing about this episode in history, this is a great, surprisingly honest, documentary to start with.


Vanunu and the Bomb

“This is the first man to tell the world nuclear weapons have arrived in the most troubled region on the Earth, the Middle East. In doing so he’s exposed the West’s opposition to nuclear proliferation as little more than a sham. 
Vanunu is banned from talking to foreign media, based on eyewitness testimony, this film is his story.”
—Sean Pertwee’s opening narration
February 1977 Nuclear Technician Mordechai Vanunu is assigned to work at the top secret Dimona facility.
 In 1986 he reveals to journalists Oscar Guerrero and Peter Hounam the presence of an underground plutonium plant there. 
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion had commissioned construction of the plant in 1958. Vanunu had made the discovery after 7-years at the plant and had photos to prove his story. Hounam takes Vanunu to The Sunday Times in London, where Nuclear Physicist Frank Barnaby confirms the data, but Mossad is tailing them.
Guerrero arrives in London and tries to sell the story to rival paper The Sunday Mirror. France, Britain and the U.S. had been complicit in the construction under a secret agreement between U.S. President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. 
The lonely Vanunu befriends intern Wendy Robbins but she insists that they remain just friends. The discredited story in the Mirror causes the Times to delay their publication. 
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez forbids Mossad from kidnapping Vanunu on British soil so they spring a honey trap to lure him to Rome.
In Italy Vanunu is abducted and shipped back to Israel but the Times decides to publish in the hopes of protecting his life. 
The Western powers that had professed a stance of non-nuclear proliferation while collaborating in the construction of Dimona were exposed as hypocrites and yet the press in those countries remained curiously silent on the subject. The Israelis confirm that they have Vanunu in detention but refuses to explain how. Convicted of treason Vanunu was sentenced to 18-years in prison.