Nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu, soon to be released from jail, said Israel does not have the right to exist. “There is no need for a Jewish state. There should be a Palestinian state. Whoever wants to be Jewish can live anywhere,” the Moroccan-born convicted traitor said in a jailhouse interview released to the media Monday. Vanunu is to go free Wednesday after serving an 18-year sentence for leaking details about his work at the Dimona nuclear reactor to Britain’s Sunday Times. He has vowed to continue campaigning to expose Israel’s assumed nuclear arsenal. “Just as the Iraqi reactor was destroyed, I want the Israeli reactor destroyed,” he said in the interview, referring to Israel’s airstrike on the Osirak reactor in 1981. “I am defending the Arab world.” Vanunu, who converted to Christianity, called Islam and Judaism backward religions.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.