7.1 KiB
| tags | category | summary | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Nuclear Concept | The Samson Option is the Israeli doctrine of using a nuclear arsenal as a last resort against destruction, as described by Seymour Hersh, with roots in the May 1967 Shimshon plan. |
The Samson Option is a concept deeply ingrained in Israel's national security doctrine, referring to the idea that Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal that it would use as a last resort to prevent its destruction, even if it means causing massive destruction to its enemies. The name derives from the biblical figure Samson, who, captured by the Philistines, pulled down the pillars of Dagon's Temple, killing himself and his enemies. For Israel's nuclear advocates, the Samson Option became another way of saying "Never again," echoing the sentiment of survivors of the Holocaust.1
Seymour Hersh book, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, published in 1991, details how Israel secretly became a nuclear power and how this secret was largely ignored or sanctioned by top political and military officials of the United States since the Dwight D. Eisenhower years. The book also explores the origins and implications of this doctrine.2
Origins and Development
The concept of the Samson Option was a central argument for Israel's nuclear advocates, who believed that only nuclear weapons could provide the absolute and final deterrent to the Arab threat. They argued that a nuclear arsenal would convince Arab nations, bolstered by rapidly growing Soviet economic and military aid, that they must renounce all plans for military conquest of Israel and agree to a peace settlement. This was seen as a way to ensure that there would be "no more Masadas" in Israel's history, referencing the ancient Jewish stronghold where defenders chose mass suicide over defeat.1
Key figures like Ernst David Bergmann, David Ben-Gurion, and Shimon Peres were early proponents of developing Israel's nuclear capabilities, with the public pursuit of peaceful nuclear energy serving as a cover for their weapons ambitions. They sought private financing from wealthy American and European Jews to maintain the secrecy of the program.3
France's Force de Frappe, whose intellectual spokesman was the retired general Pierre Gallois, became the model for Israel's strategic planning and for its decision not to count on the American nuclear umbrella.4
Political and Military Debates
The pursuit of the Samson Option was not without internal opposition within Israel. Many senior members of the ruling Mapai Party viewed an Israeli bomb as suicidal, too expensive, and too reminiscent of the horrors of World War II. Levi Eshkol, as finance minister and later prime minister, was a perennial critic of the nuclear program, arguing that the immense cost diverted funds from essential conventional military needs and social programs. He questioned the necessity of such an investment when no neighboring Arab nation possessed nuclear weapons.1
Old-fashioned military men like Yigal Allon and Yitzhak Rabin initially believed that Israel's advantage lay in the quality of its conventional military personnel, viewing nuclear weapons as a great equalizer that would make a nuclear-armed Egypt far more dangerous. However, Moshe Dayan became a strong proponent of the bomb, convinced that Israel could not depend on America to deter a Soviet attack and that a credible Israeli nuclear threat was necessary to influence superpower actions in the Middle East.1
Shimshon plan of May 1967
Avner Cohen describes the assembly by Israel in May 1967 of two or three rudimentary nuclear explosives and a plan, Operation Shimshon, to detonate them in the Egyptian desert as a last resort, on the basis of interviews with the late Yitzhak Ya'akov, whose testimony the Wilson Center released in June 2017 as revealing "for the first time the existence of a crash effort to assemble Israel's first nuclear device."56 A Control Group paper dated by the editors of the Foreign Relations of the United States to June 17, 1967 stated that before the crisis the Israelis "had probably not made a decision to develop nuclear weapons, but probably had decided to keep that option open."7
Implementation and Implications
By early 1968, Moshe Dayan unilaterally pushed Dimona into full-scale production, leading to the manufacture of four or five warheads a year. This decision was made without a formal cabinet resolution, but was widely applauded by the top layer of national security officials. The first assembly line bomb was reportedly welded with the phrase: "NEVER AGAIN."1
The Samson Option implies a strategy of deliberate ambiguity regarding Israel's nuclear capabilities. This "bomb in the basement" approach aimed to deter potential adversaries without explicitly confirming possession, thereby avoiding international condemnation and a regional nuclear arms race. However, this ambiguity also led to constant international pressure and scrutiny, particularly from the United States, which sought to prevent nuclear proliferation.1
During the desperate early days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, faced with the imminent collapse of Israeli forces, the leadership resolved to arm and target its nuclear arsenal as a last resort, implementing the Samson Option. This drastic step was also intended to force the United States to begin an immediate and massive resupply of the Israeli military. The initial target list included Egyptian and Syrian military headquarters. While no weapons were targeted on the Soviet Union, it was understood that the Soviets would quickly learn of the nuclear arming.8
Footnotes
-
Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 10. ↩︎
-
Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Author's Note. ↩︎
-
Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 2. ↩︎
-
Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 3. ↩︎
-
Cohen, Avner. "Israel's Secret Plan to Nuke the Egyptian Desert." Politico Magazine, June 5, 2017, republished by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. https://nonproliferation.org/israels-secret-plan-to-nuke-the-egyptian-desert/. Sole source for the passages so cited; Cohen relays the testimony of Ya'akov. ↩︎
-
Wilson Center, "Wilson Center Archive Sheds New Light on 1967 Six-Day War," June 5, 2017. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/wilson-center-archive-sheds-new-light-1967-six-day-war ↩︎
-
Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968, vol. XIX, Document 305, Paper Submitted by the Control Group, undated (dated June 17, 1967 by the editors), with annex. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v19/d305 ↩︎
-
Hersh, Seymour M. The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. Random House, 1991. Chapter 17. ↩︎