Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli scientist who exposed the secret of Israel’s nukes, was recently convicted, according to this Reuters report, of “giving a slew of interviews to international media outlets over the past three years, defying a government order on him to limit contacts with foreigners.”

It’s worth remembering the mantra we always hear from American supporters of Israel: the Jewish state, they say, is the only democracy in the region: why, they’re just like us, a free country. But are they? When giving an interview to a blogger is a “crime,” one has to wonder about the meaning of such a comparative analysis.

After spending 18 years in jail, with over 11 of those years spent in solitary confinement, this prisoner of Zion was released but forbidden to speak to the media, and denied permission to leave Israel. Just like those Soviet Jews of days gone by, who were kept inside the USSR against their will. Israel, a refuge for Jews, has become a prison for this particular one — but where is the international outcry? After all, Vanunu hasn’t revealed anything that we all didn’t know anyway: that Israel does indeed posssess nuclear weapons, and his recent interviews have merely been reiterations of his 1986 chat with the Times of London.

The treatment of Vanunu is outrageous, and no civilized person can condone it, regardless of their opinion of the Israeli government or its policies. The U.S. government, watching this spectacle of deliberate cruelty in silence, further blackens an already dark reputation in the region.