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The Samson Option is a term used to describe the most controversial of the strategies alleged to underlie Israel's development of a nuclear weapons arsenal. This is a "last resort" deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons should the state of Israel be substantially damaged or destroyed. Such retaliation might involve targeting Arab or other nations considered enemies, including in response to massive conventional attacks. Israel officially maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity as to whether it has nuclear weapons, but it is estimated it has as many as 400 atomic and hydrogen nuclear weapons.

According to American journalist Seymour Hersh in his best selling book The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Israeli leaders like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres and Moshe Dayan created the term in the mid-1960s to describe one of their nuclear strategies. They named it after the Biblical figure Samson, who is said to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated. They contrasted it with ancient siege of Masada where 936 Jewish Sicarii greatly outnumbered by Roman legions committed mass suicide rather than be defeated and enslaved by the Romans.

Additionally, some writers misidentify Israel’s whole nuclear weapons program as the "Samson Option". And in recent years the phrase has been applied to various situations where non-nuclear actors, such as Saddam Hussein, Yassir Arafat and Hezbollah threaten massive retaliation, and even to United States President George W. Bush's foreign policy.

Doctrine

Israel’s deterrence doctrine is shaped by its small size, concentrated population, strategic vulnerability, and the abundance of opponents and enemies within the Arab-Israeli conflict and beyond. They seek either to push it back to much smaller borders or replace it with another state, using both diplomatic and military means. The threat of massive nuclear retaliation is seen as a credible deterrence able to prevent weapons of mass destruction attacks against Israel. Some consider such retaliation a variation on the mutually assured destruction strategy. However, unlike that strategy, it could be applied against non-nuclear Arab nations and against nations which had not attacked it.

According to historian Avner Cohen, at least limited use of nuclear weapons might be triggered by successful Arab penetration of populated areas, destruction of the Israeli Air Force, massive air strikes or chemical/biological strikes on Israeli cities, and Arab use of nuclear weapons. Seymour Hersh writes that during the Cold War two major uses of the weapons were to convince the United States to support Israel with conventional weapons and to discourage the former Soviet Union from arming and aiding Arab nations. Israel went on nuclear alert during the 1973 Yom Kippur War to accomplish both goals. Hersh states that before Israel launched its own satellites it engaged in espionage against the United States to obtain nuclear targeting information on Soviet targets.

Israel did not use the nuclear option after Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles during the 1991 First Gulf War, but it did go on full-scale nuclear alert and mobile nuclear missile launchers were deployed. During the build up to the United States 2003 invasion of Iraq, and after discussions with President George W. Bush, then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned of possible massive retaliation should Iraq attack Israel. It is believed Bush gave Sharon the green-light to attack Baghdad, including with nuclear weapons, but only if attacks came before the American military invasion.

Israel's nuclear doctrine has become increasingly preemptive in recent years against any possible attack with conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or even a potential conventional attack on Israel's weapons of mass destruction. Preemption is seen as a means of protecting Israeli settlements, of redrawing the map of the Middle East to increase Israel’s security and of ensuring an Israeli nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. Louis René Beres, who contributed to Project Daniel, urges Israel to pursue a doctrine that mirrors the preemptive nuclear policies of the United States, as revealed in the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.

Samson Option controversies

The Israeli Samson Option is controversial because Israeli leaders have stated or implied that if Israel was destroyed it would retaliate with nuclear weapons against the cities of Arab and other enemy nations which did not directly attack it. Speculation from prominent Israeli supporters, Jewish and Christian, on how Israel might wreak revenge continue to fuel this controversy.

See also

• No first use
• Nuclear weapons and Israel
• Israel and weapons of mass destruction
• Project Daniel
• Deterrence theory

References

1. U.S. Air Force: Israel has 400 nukes, building naval force
2. Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Random House, 1991; 129, 136-137.
3. Examples include: Chris Hedges Bush’s Nuclear Apocalypse, Monday, October 9, 2006; George Perkovich, “The Samson Option: The story behind one of the world's worst-kept secrets: the Jewish state's atomic arsenal”, a review of Michael Karpin’s book “The Bomb in the Basement” in the Washington Post, February 19, 2006, BW03; Press Release: Syndicated Radio Talk Show Host Paul McGuire Has Called President Bush To More Actively Support The Nation Of Israel, And Work For Peace In The Middle East, July 2, 2006.
4. Examples include: Herb Keinon, Selling the 'Samson option' (used regarding Yassir Arafat’s conventional arms options); Tom Holsinger, "Staying Alive - Saddam's Samson Option," http://www.strategypage.com/strategypolitics/articles/20020620.asp June 20, 2002; Michael Young, The Samson Option, Is Hezbollah on the verge of destroying Lebanon? Slate Magazine, Monday, August 7, 2006; Stephen Lendman, George Bush's Samson Option, March 12, 2007.
5. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, Columbia University Press, 1998); 273-274.
6. Hersh, 17, 40, 66, 174-75, 177, 216, 220, 223-230, 286, 291-296.
7. Hersh, 318.
8. Ross Dunn, "Sharon eyes 'Samson option' against Iraq," http://www.news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1223502002, November 3, 2002.
9. Warner D. Farr, LTC, US Army, "The Third Temple's Holy of Holies: Israel's Nuclear Weapons"; Louis Rene Beres, Israel's Bomb in the Basement: Reconsidering a Vital Element of Israeli Nuclear Deterrence, 2003.
10. Hersh, 288-289; Warner D. Farr article.
11. Louis Rene Beres, Israel’s Uncertain Strategic Future Parameters, Spring 2007, pp. 37-54.

External links

• In war, Israel retains the Samson option
• Samson Option: Israel's Plan to Prevent Mass Destruction Attacks
• Israel's Nuclear Strategy
• Israel’s Strategic Doctrine at GlobalSecurity.Org

• Foreign relations of Israel
• Israeli nuclear development
• Arab-Israeli conflict
• Nuclear warfare