>The phrase the “Samson Option” is used to describe Israel’s strategy of massive nuclear retaliation against “enemy” nations should its existence as a Jewish state be jeopardized through military attack.

>Originally a strategy of last resort retaliation – even if it means Israel’s annihilation – it has developed into being a nuclear bullying strategy to further Israel’s territorial goals through threats and blackmail. Israel has bullied not only Arab and Muslim nations, but the United States and Russia with its Samson Option threats.

>Mordechai Vanunu has alleged that Israel uses for purposes of blackmail its ability to «bombard any city all over the world, and not only those in Europe but also those in the United States.»

> A former Israeli official justified Israel’s threats. “You Americans screwed us” in not supporting Israel in its 1956 war with Egypt. “We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.” General Moshe Dayan, a leading promoter of Israel’s nuclear program, has been quoted as saying “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”

>During the 1960s Israel concentrated on conventional military superiority to defend lands confiscated in the 1948 and 1967 wars – and to convince Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories that they could not break free of it. However, in 1973’s Yom Kippur War Israel was almost overwhelmed by Arab forces. Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized a nuclear alert, ordering 13 atomic bombs be prepared for missiles and aircraft. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Simha Dinitz threatened “very serious conclusions» if there was not an immediate airlift of supplies. This forced U.S. President Richard Nixon to make emergency airlifts of state of the art military supplies to Israel.

>Fearing intervention by the Soviet Union, U.S. forces went on Defense Condition (DEFCON) III alert status, something which could have led to full scale nuclear war in case of misinterpretation of signals or hardware or software failures. Additionally, as Seymour Hersh documents in detail in his book The Samson Option, from 1973 these weapons have been used to discourage the Soviet Union – now Russia – from intervening militarily on behalf of Arab nations. Obviously an Israeli nuclear attack on Russia by the United States’ great ally Israel would result in Russia sending thousands of nuclear weapons towards the U.S. and the U.S. responding in kind.

>Two Israel supporters are frequently quoted for their explicit support of the Samson Option. Martin Van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has been quoted as saying: «Most European capitals are targets for our air force….We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.»

>In 2002 the Los Angeles Times, published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter in which he wrote: «What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away–unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans–have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?»