Mordechai Vanunu - Negev Nuclear Research Center

Negev Nuclear Research Center

In 1976, Vanunu applied for a job at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, an Israeli facility used to develop and manufacture nuclear weapons located in the Negev Desert south of Dimona. Most worldwide intelligence agencies estimate that Israel developed nuclear weapons as early as the 1960s, but the country has intentionally maintained a "policy of deliberate ambiguity", neither acknowledging nor denying that it possesses nuclear weapons. Vanunu was responding to an advertisement for trainee technicians to work at the facility. After a lengthy interview with the facility's security officer, he was accepted for training, and was put through an intensive course in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and English. He did sufficiently well to be accepted, and was employed as a nuclear plant technician and shift manager in February 1977.

In 1979, he became a part-time geography and philosophy student at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba. At that time he became critical of many policies of the Israeli government, forming a group called "Campus" with five Arab and four Jewish students. Vanunu was also affiliated with a group called "Movement for the Advancement of Peace". He opposed the 1982 Lebanon War, and campaigned for equal rights for Israeli-Arabs. In his security file at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, it was noted that he had displayed "left-wing and pro-Arab beliefs". Vanunu graduated from Ben-Gurion University in 1985 with a BA in philosophy and geography.

In early 1985, Vanunu lost his job following a mass layoff of workers due to government cutbacks, but his labor union won him his job back. After he resumed working at the facility, Vanunu secretly smuggled in a camera and covertly took 57 photographs. He continued to work at the facility before being fired after he participated in a pro-Arab rally and called for the creation of a Palestinian state.