Israel’s actual nuclear policy is top secret
What you need to know:
One wonders what the endgame for Israel is. Sure, many pundits have said that with the defeat of Hamas, Israel will lay down its military hardware
Title: The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy
Author: Seymour Hersh
Price: Shs440,000
Availability: Amazon.com
Published: 1991
Philip Matogo
The Gaza war or the war in Gaza (also known as Gaza Strip) is a pistols-at-dawn clash on a small territory located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea; it is the smaller of the two Palestinian territories, the other being the West Bank, that make up the State of Palestine. The Gaza war has been fought between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip and Israel since October 7, 2023. It is the 15th war of the Gaza–Israel conflict, and has sparked an ongoing Middle Eastern crisis.
One wonders what the endgame for Israel is. Sure, many pundits have said that with the defeat of Hamas, Israel will lay down its military hardware. This way the software of diplomacy can take the wheel, so to speak. However, this might be wishful thinking. In the 1991 book titled “The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy” by Seymour Hersh, we see something more ominous. Oh yes, far more ominous. Let me explain why: The Samson Option is Israel's deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a "last resort" against a country whose military has invaded and/or destroyed much of Israel.
Yes, you read right. Israel has a deterrent. It’s a nuclear one, at that. And it points to Mutual assured destruction (MAD), a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. In other words, if you attack Israel then prepare to die.
The Samson option in Hebrew is pronounced as b’rerat Shimshon. You first read about in the Bible, I surmise. You recall the story of an Israelite, Judge Samson? He was the one with the Rambo-esque six-pack. He was so strong he could probably lift up Israel and throw it deep into the far-east. In Greek mythology, Atlas was a Titan of similar strength. He was condemned to carry the heavens (or celestial globe) on his shoulders, not the Earth, as a punishment for his role in the Titanomachy, a war against the Olympians.
Samson, on the other hand, was a victim of his own crotch. He fell for the sexually inviting Delilah. Then all hell broke loose when she discovered that the source of his surpassing strength lay in his locks.
Oh yes, that man’s tresses contained the strength of the ages. Sadly, Delilah deprived Samson of this legendary power by simply cutting off his locks. Thereupon, there was nothing Samson could do when apprehended by the Philistines and tied in chains to the pillars of the Philistine temple. However, Samson was not one to simply say “die”.
So he summoned his residual strength and pushed the pillars of the temple, bringing down the roof of the temple and killing himself with hundreds of Philistines who had captured him, yelling out loud, “Let me die with the Philistines.” Now you see, Israel is Samson and so if you push its back against the wall by leaving it no choice but to carry out a comprehensive scorched earth policy, you will get scorched. Israel’s approach to security is not that cut-and-dried, however.
It is nuanced to reflect several security imperatives. There is the Zionist ethos, for one. Zionism is a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel. It led to the establishment of Israel as a state. Second are Israel’s security concerns arising out of the historical narrative of the Holocaust.
Their every action in this vein is to ensure that Jews are never exterminated the way they were during the 1930s and 1940s. Israel’s actual nuclear policy is top secret, but Hersh does a good job in making open that secret.
