The ticking time bomb in the Negev Desert is still ticking, marking danger for the people of Israel and all neighboring countries. The calls for international inspection of the Dimona nuclear facility are growing louder, particularly from Israel's near neighbors. Even Dimona workers are now drawing attention to unsafe working conditions that are causing cancers and other illnesses.

If an Iraqi nuclear technician in the last decade had come forward to reveal previously unknown information about a secret Iraqi nuclear arsenal, that person would be hailed as a courageous hero. Mordechai Vanunu's act was courageous and heroic. We call on Israel to do the right thing and free him now.

If you can believe the word of the state of Israel, that is the day that Mordechai Vanunu will be released from prison for the crime of telling the world the truth about his government's secret nuclear weapons program.

The release date was first told to Mordechai's brother Asher, a Jerusalem school administrator, by officials at Ashkelon Prison, and was recently confirmed to representatives of the British Campaign to Free Vanunu by the Israeli Embassy in London. The date is just five months short of his full 18-year sentence.

But Mordechai should not have to spend another day in prison for his brave act of whistleblowing.

Israel once claimed that the transcript of Vanunu's closed door trial was so sensitive it could never be made public. But several years ago, bending to public pressure, it released most of the trial record and permitted the Knesset's first open debate on nuclear secrecy. And now, although Israel still officially denies that it has a nuclear arsenal, government censors are allowing increased coverage of the once taboo topic in Israel's mainstream media.

Pressure from his supporters in America and around the world has pried open the lock on Mordechai's isolation cell and the lock on the policy of secrecy by which his government and our own have protected Israel's illicit production of weapons of mass destruction.