by Paul P. Parker After serving 18 years in prison for blowing the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear weapons program, Mordechai Vanunu is now on trial again for violating extrajudicial restrictions Israel has placed on him.

Vanunu, 51, an Orthodox Jew of Morrocan origin who converted to Christianity, is an ordinary man living his faith and paying the price for it.... While at the Atomic Research Reactor, Vanunu worked 23 meters underground in a secret nuclear weapons plant processing plutonium for atomic warheads. In college, Vanunu reflected on questions of ultimate meaning and organized pro-democracy demonstrations for Palestinian justice arguing if Jews had right of return, so did Palestinians.

The collision of his two worlds was inevitable. His supervisors at the nuclear weapons plant pressured him to stop all pro-Palestinian activities, and threatened to fire him. But Vanunu believed nonviolent demonstrations strengthened a democracy, and he continued. He had begun to feel a pull toward Christianity, but he was tentative. He decided he had to leave both Israel and the nuclear weapons plant, but he also felt a democratic responsibility to Israel and a humanitarian responsibility to the world to expose Israel's secret nuclear weapons. For Vanunu, to know is to be responsible.

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