14 thoughts on “Israel’s Nukes, Once Defensive, Now Guarantee Conflict – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. RE: “The nonsense about Iran posing an existential threat to Israel or Tehran being Munich and the year being 1938 is faux Jewish historical analysis.” ~ R.S.

    MY COMMENT: It is much more like likely that it is 1939 and Iran is Poland.

    RE: “Will Israel become a latter day Samson and take the Middle East down with it in a fit of stubborn pique?” ~ R.S.

    MY COMMENT: And perhaps Europe as well!

    FROM WIKIPEDIA [Samson Option]:

    (excerpts) The Samson Option is a term used to describe Israel’s alleged deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a “last resort” against nations whose military attacks threaten its existence, and possibly against other targets as well.[1] . . .
    . . . Some have written about the “Samson Option” as a retaliation strategy. In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter which has been seen as justifying a Samson Option approach.[19] He wrote:

    “Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow—it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. . .[20]

    . . . In 2003, Martin van Creveld [professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem – J.L.D.] thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel’s existence.[21] Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst’s “The Gun and the Olive Branch” (2003) as saying:

    “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. . . Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”[22]

    Ron Rosenbaum writes in his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III that in the “aftermath of a second Holocaust” Israel’s surviving Dophin-class nuclear missile submarines would retaliate not only against Israel’s attackers, but “bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)” as well as the “holy places of Islam.” He writes that “abandonment of proportionality is the essence” of the Samson Option [and the “Iron Wall” as well – J.L.D.].[23] . . .

    SOURCE – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_Option

        1. Wikipedia is an acceptable source if the information in the article is backed up by credible sources. But some Wikipedia articles are either propagandistic or too thin to be trusted.

  2. Will Israel become a latter day Samson and take the Middle East down with it in a fit of stubborn pique? Stranger things have happened.

    Conventional wars, no matter how bloody, are over, once they’re over, but with a chemical weapons the war isn’t over for a long time, and with nuclear bombs, the aftermath and radiation lingers.

    The US would never approve Israel using nuclear weapons.

    If Israel ever uses the Samson option, it will really have to be as a final ‘take the world down with us because we’re going down too’ scenario, and not as a defence ie. a few nukes here and a few nukes there. The world wouldn’t tolerate that, and besides if Israel used nukes in the Middle East, the blowback (radiation) would affect Israel too if it planned on living and thriving after that. It wouldn’t.

    Some nut may take over Israel’s nuclear weapons and bring the world down. But then again, the chances of that happening exist in every nuclear armed country.

  3. A nuclear armed Iran would create a balance of power in the ME and a kind of Cold War would ensue, marked by containment. It is in everyone’s interests (aside from Israel’s) to have a nuclear armed Iran for this purpose. Without it, Israel will run unchecked throughout the ME and this creates trouble for the US and the rest of the world. I think the EU and the US should positively arm Iran with nuclear weapons, maybe just tactical nuclear weapons or low yield A bombs, something that can offset Israel’s arsenal. I trust Iran to use more sense in this matter than I trust Israel to not exploit its power beyond the Jordan, etc.

    1. Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall doctrine is virtually the same as an Iron Fist. There is no significant difference which is why the source to which I linked uses the terms interchangeably.

  4. I don’t have the link to hand, but I remember some military analyst saying that Israel’s nuclear capability is a carefully cultivated myth to put fear into her enemies, and that she is nowhere near as capable as the myth rumours.

  5. Dickerson, The Samson Option is overrated.

    I think the chances of NATO attacking Israel are more likely than Iran attacking Israel, or Israel using the Samson Option.

    By the way, Richard, a good read, if you havn’t already:
    ‘The Shadow World’, by Andrew Feinstein. Some troubling and not altogether surprising tit bits in there.

    Using weaponary sales, the US has tied Israel to it’s apron strings just like it tied Afghanistan to it’s apron strings. It uses Israel to test it’s weapons.

    The Israelis are stupid being guinea pigs in a wider geopolitical battle. When the chips are down, the wrath against them won’t be any the less, just because they were guinea pigs.

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