The last months in broadcasting

Things wearing out. Though Abie Nathan firmly kept to his dreams — even to the point of phantasising — things were going down the scale fast during the last part of 1993. Late June the Voice of Peace was only operating on 1540, as the FM transmitter had given up the ghost. On Wednesday 30th, a tender brought out the Harris transmitter engineer. The man did not like the sea and would only come out under good weather conditions. After a full day's work on the transmitter, assisted by the peerless Kenny Page, the TX still was not working. They partially had stripped the old FM transmitter for spare parts, but this did not help the situation. New parts were ordered and the engineer left the ship around 6:00 p.m. On Friday July 2nd, another tender came to the ship with a new fridge for the galley as well as a new washing machine. Page spent the whole day working on the FM transmitter as spare parts had also arrived at the ship. Late in the afternoon he got things running again with the transmitter performing on full power. The faith of the deejays was not strong yet, though. They didn't report about the "success" in their programmes till late that evening in case it wouldn't last. During the period the FM was not on air, not too many listeners went back to the 1540. The disfunctioning transmitter had some other consequences as advertisers became shy. The Coca Cola company, for instance, withdrew its commercial airtime. The station had brought hourly spots for Coca Cola as well Sprite for the previous couple of months in 1993.

Recurring repairments. Not only was the machinery deteriorating, the social relations, especially those between Nathan and the deejays also took their toll. Once the ship was docked in Ashdod those onboard expressed the wish to go out for some refreshments, but the captain mindlessly contacted Nathan and, as was to be expected, the latter would not allow them to leave the harbour area. This resulted in a sneering remark of one member of the party: "Abie tries to make prisoners of us all on the radio ship." However, they complied and so the next day the tanks were refilled with water and oil. Next, a quick visit to the Duty Free Store and then back to sea again. During the stay in Ashdod the transmitters were repaired and so very soon after being outside Ashdod the FM as well as AM transmitter were started again.

Not surprisingly, there were a lot of rumours going around at that time about the ship and the station. Several sources, for instance, held that substitute deejays would only be recruited from Israel in the future. It was also reported that the transmitters would be transferred to the mainland, while the studios on the ship would only be used until new ones were completed on land too. A date specifying when this migration would start, was not added. The sources in case stated, though, that a new anchorage for the ship would be just outside the port of Jaffa. A microwave link would be used to transfer the signal to the new transmitters on land. Rumours like these were, one may safely conclude, coming straight from Nathan himself, and completely built on wishful thinking on his part. After all, the financial situation was rather bad and from that going to worse. In fact, debts were mounting and competition from Israeli legal stations and the soon to be introduced local commercial stations in Israel, threatened the existence of the Voice of the Peace. The deejays on the ship were aware of the problems. At that time they had wished for a new reel-to-reel recorder as they had to edit some commercials, which couldn't be played without editing. Nathan bluntly refused to buy one, saying that he had already put his house on the market to finance the fridge and a washing machine. The expenses of 500 dollars for a second-hand recorder were, he said, far too high. But matters even seemed worse, as the deejays knew very well that the fridge and washing machine had been for free as Nathan made a barter deal.

Rumours and promises. On Friday 16th, another tender came alongside, bringing Kenny Page as well as Nathan Morley, who were both returning to the ship. Clive Roper in turn boarded for shore leave. As was to be expected Page was able to sort out the AM transmitter quite fast. With one thing repaired, however, another was bound to break down. And indeed, now it was the air-conditioning on the ship which refused to perform its vital job, resulting in an unbearable situation with high degree humidity and hot temperatures. Luckily this was also temporary. In the meantime people went and came. Some days later that same week, on the 19th, it was time for Mike Melbourne, who had a six-month contract with the station, to head home again. He was replaced by a deejay from South Africa, Paul Harper.

During the final week of July 1993 again a lot of things aboard the ship started to malfunction. The new washing machine came back to the ship but didn't work! Luckily, Radha Krishna, the ship's long-time cook, and Kenny Page got the contraption in working order with spare parts of the old washing machine. Then, the air conditioning broke down once more and so a new motor for it was brought to the ship. Guess what? It took the thing only twenty-four hours to break down again. So it went on and on and on July 29th the crew had had enough and so Page decided to leave the ship for a stiff discussion with Nathan in the office about the situation on the ship.

The final programme. For the moment, at least, things went on as they had done before. Worth mentioning is that Nathan, after the first week of August 1993, left Israel for a three-week trip to Somalia setting up a refugee camp that he had been appealing for earlier that year. The deejays made use of the occasion to handle things their way. Or, as Clive Roper confessed afterwards, they had fun while Nathan was away: "The station sounded much better without the deejays having to think whether their choice of music is acceptable to Abie, or that they are talking more than ten seconds. With Abie away there are minimal dealings with the office unless it is really essential."

A Peace Museum? When Lahat took the microphone he revealed what Nathan had known all along but had kept hidden for the outside world. Lahat promised that the ship would get an anchorage in the harbour of Tel Aviv and would be rebuilt as a Peace Museum, with a permanent exhibition with all kind of exhibits related to peace in the Middle East since the early 1970s. A major part of the exhibition would feature Nathan himself. Video recordings would also be shown about the Middle East issues over the past twenty years, such as the signing of the Israel/PLO peace agreement. After the mayor had spoken about the future plans with the ship, Nathan said he hoped that thousands of Israeli's, schoolchildren and foreign visitors would come to his Peace Museum. He then gave the address of the new foundation which would run the museum.

Wearing a white shirt. After the final close-down of the station, the Peace Ship upped anchor and sailed into Tel Aviv accompanied by a flotilla of around thirty small boat and well-wishers. Nathan stood on the ship's deck dressed in a white shirt; the first time he'd done so for many years. Nathan: "For more than twelve years I have been wearing black in protest against the unwillingness of the PLO to recognise Israel. Now both sides are talking peace, I can at least change my clothes. I'm wearing a white shirt, my best white shirt." Dutch Elsevier Magazine mentioned in the October 23rd edition that the Nobel Peace Prize for 1993 should have been awarded to no one else but Abie Nathan.