22 lines
No EOL
2.3 KiB
Markdown
22 lines
No EOL
2.3 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
category: "Nuclear Scientists & Programs"
|
|
tags:
|
|
- Person
|
|
- Nuclear
|
|
- Israel
|
|
summary: "Yigal Allon was a 1948 war hero and a close adviser to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol."
|
|
born: 1918-10-10
|
|
died: 1980-02-29
|
|
location: "Kfar Tavor, British Mandate Palestine"
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
Yigal Allon was a 1948 war hero and a close adviser to Prime Minister [[Levi Eshkol]]. He was an advocate of [[West Bank]] resettlement. Allon, along with [[Yitzhak Rabin]] and [[Ariel Sharon]], believed that [[Israel]]'s essential advantage over the Arabs was the quality and training of its military personnel, and viewed nuclear weapons as nothing more than a great equalizer.[^1]
|
|
|
|
In early December 1967, Allon was given a private look at Israel's early work on its first nuclear missile field, under construction at Hirbat Zachariah. This experience moved him to tears, as he saw it as a new kind of military security for the nation. The concealed shelters at the site were built by [[Tahal]], the government-owned water planning corporation, and the launch barrels were imported marked as lengths of pipeline. He couldn't resist boasting about what he had seen, stunning his cabinet colleagues by warning [[Egypt]] in a public speech that Israel would reply in kind to any Egyptian attack on a population center using advanced weapons. His cryptic assertions were privately attacked by other government officials as a breach of security and publicly criticized in the press for creating panic.[^1]
|
|
|
|
Allon was among those in the kitchen cabinet who assembled for an all-night session in [[Golda Meir]]'s office in [[Tel Aviv]] on Monday, October 8, 1973, during the [[Yom Kippur War]]. The Israeli leadership resolved to implement three critical decisions: rally its collapsing forces for a major counterattack; arm and target its nuclear arsenal in the event of total collapse and subsequent need for the [[Samson Option]]; and inform [[Washington, D.C.]] of its unprecedented nuclear action to demand an emergency airlift of replacement arms and ammunition.[^2]
|
|
|
|
### Footnotes
|
|
|
|
[^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 9, 13.
|
|
[^2]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy*. Random House, 1991. Chapter 17. |