ill a criminal be selected for the Nobel Peace Prize
again?
Every year, as the date approaches, names of candidates for
the Nobel Peace Prize begin to appear from around the world.
The fact that this is the most prestigious prize in the
world reduces the odds of anyone who does not have a very
good reason to receive the prize--only candidates who have
devoted all of their time and energy to furthering peace,
who have brought peace to a place of conflict somewhere in
the world or who have rotted in jail for many long years in
the name of the struggle for peace have a chance of
qualifying. Candidates nominated by previous Nobel winners
are given special consideration in the selection
procedure.
Among this year's nominees appeared a name well-known to
Israelis: Mordechai Vanunu, who was sentenced to 18 years'
imprisonment for revealing secret intelligence on the
nuclear reactor in Dimona, where he worked as an engineer.
Vanunu has already served 15 years of his prison sentence,
including 12 years in solitary confinement, which has been
described by Amnesty International as "cruel, inhumane and
degrading."
He has now been nominated by Corigan McGuire, who won the
Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution toward achieving
peace in Northern Ireland. He believes Vanunu deserves the
prize for uncovering Israel's nuclear secrets, for his
continuing conviction that his was the right course of
action and for maintaining contact with activists from the
anti-nuclear weapons movement despite all he has undergone.
Vanunu has already won the Denmark Peace Prize and many
other prestigious awards.
The Nobel nomination is a source of embarrassment for the
Foreign Ministry. The last thing Israel needs in this time
of crisis is to be brought into such an awkward situation in
which the most prestigious award in the world is bestowed on
someone rotting in an Israeli prison.
After Arafat succeeded in changing his status from
international terrorist to Nobel Peace Prize recipient, all
bets are off as to whether Vanunu's nomination could provide
a boost, giving Israel three Nobel Peace Prize recipients:
Rabin, Peres and Vanunu. But then a public debate would
erupt over the question of which of the three is the most
worthy winner.
