Jeroen
<<If it was later proven to be mass hysteria, I'm sure it would have been mentioned in the documentary.>>
It should have been. If the documentary was trying to be objective, that is.
I have no reason to believe that the BBC would be trying to be any less than objective. In fact, both Israel and the US were given the chance to give their views on the matter. The documentary included an interview with Shimon Peres, but he wasn't particularly talkative. The US government didn't want to talk about it. Excerpt from the documentary's transcript:
"In Washington, which gives Israel more than three billion dollars a year, the talk is only of Iraq. For weeks we've tried to get an interview about Israel's weapons of mass destruction, but no one in this Bush administration wants to talk about Israel. So we've asked for an interview about the military balance of power in the Middle East. And now they've agreed. This morning we've finally been told that we're going to have an interviewee. He's an expert in all matters Israeli. He's an Under Secretary of Defense, and his name is Douglas Feith."
"The Pentagon has demanded a list of questions in advance. So, it's "The balance of power", "Israel's nuclear ambiguity", "Allegations of a double standard" and "Mordechai Vanunu"."
"Yet again the shutters have come down on this story. Our interview with Under Secretary for Defense Douglas Feith was scheduled for four o'clock somewhere in this vast complex of the Pentagon behind me. Yet at the last minute we've heard the interview is cancelled. Questions about Israel, it appears, are strictly off-limits."
"We'd received this e-mail from the Pentagon. Ladies: We showed Mr Feith the list of topics for the BBC interview. He is not willing to answer any of the questions you listed… …Respectfully request you resubmit your questions as soon as possible this morning. Questions directed towards the current Iraqi situation."
Full transcript at http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/programmes/correspondent/transcripts/17_03_2003.txt.
Jeroen wrote
<<Can you provide a link to an article that shows that The Netherlands is keeping Israeli illegals imprisoned and that shows how we treat them? That would be rather strange, given that we usually don't put illegals in prison, but either make them legal residents or put them on a plane back to their country of origin.>>
Sorry, again no link. I can testify only to what *I* saw. No solitary confinement, small window exists, but the room is too small for so many people, there not enough beds for everybody and toilet is open.
In The Netherlands, each prisoner has his/her own cell, they don't share cells. From your description, it looks like what you saw was a holding cell at a police station; it was definitely not a prison cell.
Jeroen
<<But even if there are Israeli illegals in a Dutch prison, they'll be treated far better than Vanunu. You are invited to come over here to visit them in prison and see for yourself how we treat our prisoners.>>
Ilana AFAIK their crime is lesser.
Irrelevant. Even if they had committed treason they would get treated a lot better than Israel treated Vanunu.
Jeroen "Free Vanunu" van Baardwijk
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