By Dan Williams
Ashkelon, Israel - "Die, atomic spy!"
"They should have put you up a chimney like the Jews at Auschwitz!"
Hundreds of Israelis went ballistic on Wednesday as Mordechai Vanunu emerged from prison voicing no regrets for exposing the Jewish state's nuclear secrets.
'Die, atomic spy!' The heckling mounted against cheers by Vanunu fans who had flocked in from all over the world, reaching a crescendo as the 49-year-old former technician flashed them a V-for-victory sign.
And though the hubbub in Ashkelon died down after Vanunu was whisked away in a car, supporters fear it could foreshadow a very real threat to him as a free man on Israel's streets.
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"To judge by the mood here and the country in general, I'd say his life is at risk," said Issam Mahoul, an Israeli Arab lawmaker who last year survived a bomb attack suspected to be plotted by an ultra-nationalist Jew now in police custody.
"If vigilantes get to Vanunu, the government will be to blame," said Mahoul, among the supporters at the prison gate.
Vanunu is barred indefinitely from leaving Israel out of concern he intends to spill more secrets about his past work at the Dimona atomic reactor after a 1986 British newspaper interview that exposed the country as a nuclear power.
'They should have put you up a chimney like the Jews at Auschwitz!'
He says he has nothing to add, but will go on campaigning against Israel's policy of "nuclear ambiguity".
Wary of sparking an arms race, Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear capability.
"My message to all the world is open the Dimona reactor for inspections," he told reporters at Shikma Prison.
Such sentiments stoke resentment in Israel, where polls show most citizens see the country's assumed nuclear arsenal as a vital means of warding off numerically superior regional foes.
"If he just wanted to go off and live quietly, that would be one thing," said an anti-Vanunu protester draped in an Israeli flag, who gave his name as Victor.
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