As the Iran war widens, Hezbollah and Iraqi Shias join the war, and Israel comes under incessant Iranian missile attacks, a little-known and rarely discussed Israeli security doctrine is under renewed scrutiny.
Known as the Samson Option, it refers to Israel’s undeclared but widely-assumed apocalyptic, nuclear last-resort policy.
While the doctrine emerged during the Cold War era, it has come under renewed focus ever since Israel has been involved in a multi-front, all-out war in the Middle East since October 7, 2023, and terror attacks by Hamas.
On March 3, Iranian forces announced that they had attacked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office with a Kheibar hypersonic missile, and the fate of Netanyahu is not known.
The Israeli media, however, reported no injuries in the attack.
Nevertheless, it is clear that the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is fighting an existential battle and will not hesitate to use all the missiles in its arsenal.
The IRGC, security experts are warning, will go down fighting.
However, the IRGC is not the only force that has ingrained a ‘fight to the last’ doctrine in its war ethics. Israel has its own version of this doctrine, one that involves not only fighting to the last, but taking the enemy with it when facing an existential threat.
Israel’s Strategic Ambiguity Over Nuclear Weapons
In 1979, a U.S. surveillance satellite, “Vela 6911,” detected a double flash of light in the Indian Ocean midway between Africa and Antarctica that appeared to be consistent with the detonation of a nuclear weapon.
The U.S. intelligence was certain that the double flash of light was an Israeli nuclear test, conducted with logistical support from the Apartheid-era South African government.
However, the Jimmy Carter government went against the conclusions of the US intelligence community.
On its part, Israel always maintained nuclear ambiguity. That is, it neither confirmed nor denied that it possesses nuclear weapons.
This Israeli strategy of maintaining a strategic ambiguity over the nuclear question continues to this day.
This has allowed Israel to enjoy the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state in terms of deterrence without having to suffer the international repercussions of acknowledging their arsenal.
For instance, India had to suffer widespread economic and technological sanctions in the aftermath of its nuclear tests in May 1998. However, Israel never faced any sanctions as it never acknowledged the existence of its nukes.
However, according to the Arms Control Association, Israel is estimated to have 90 nuclear warheads, with fissile material stockpiles for about 200 weapons.
Furthermore, according to the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Israel also maintains tactical nuclear weapons that could be used against an invading force to substantially deplete its numbers.
According to experts, Israel is capable of launching nuclear weapons by aircraft, land-based ballistic missiles, and sea-based cruise missiles.
However, Israel’s strategic ambiguity over possessing nuclear weapons also extends to its nuclear doctrine; i.e., the circumstances under which Israel would or could use nuclear weapons.
This is where the Samson Option comes into play.
The Samson Option
“Israeli officials do not explicitly discuss the country’s nuclear doctrine, but the country still needs to implicitly signal the circumstances under which it would use nuclear weapons for deterrence purposes,” says Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.
“Reading between the lines of statements from former and current officials and military planners provides insights into how the country may use its nuclear weapons, such as the Samson Option.”
Similarly, according to FAS, a key component of Israel’s nuclear doctrine is “the Samson Option.”
It refers to the biblical figure of Samson, who, when betrayed and blinded and nearing his end, pulled down the pillars of the temple where he was standing, along with the hundreds of Philistines who had caught him, in the process killing himself and all the other Philistines.
The Samson Option, similarly, invokes the final act of suicide-murder. It conveys that Israel could use nuclear weapons if it had been defeated militarily in a conventional war.
The doctrine’s message is clear: if Israel is brought to the edge of collapse, it will ensure its enemies fall with it. Much like Russia’s “Dead Man’s Hand,” the doctrine suggests that total annihilation remains a valid option.
The doctrine is in stark contrast to the ‘no first use’ policy of some nuclear states, such as China and India.
The ‘no first use’ policy is a declaration that the country will not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, unless it is attacked with a nuclear warhead.
Inherent in this doctrine is the pledge that nuclear weapons will never be used against a non-nuclear state.
The Samson doctrine, however, makes no such commitment. Rather, it specifically threatens the use of nuclear weapons against any state, nuclear or non-nuclear, if its own survival is at stake, even in a conventional war.
This posture also reflects Israel’s “never again” approach. It hypothesizes that the silence of Jews in Nazi Germany led to one of the worst genocides of recorded human history and almost led to the extinction of the Jewish faith from Earth.
So, the Jews promised themselves that “never again” will they allow themselves to be put in a situation where their existence and their identity are threatened, and they would do whatever it may take to safeguard their survival.
So, if the very existence of the Jewish state is under threat, Israel will not hesitate to take the final step of suicide-murder.
In theory, this should act as an ultimate deterrent, discouraging any misadventure against Israel.
However, it must be noted that Israel is not the only country having such a nuclear doctrine that allows the use of nuclear weapons when faced with defeat in a conventional war.
Pakistan, for instance, regularly threatens the use of nuclear weapons against India if it is facing defeat in a conventional military war and its survival and unity are under threat.
Consequently, Islamabad has never agreed to sign a ‘no first use’ policy.
Similarly, North Korea regularly threatens the use of nuclear warheads if it is attacked militarily.
However, Israel is perhaps unique in that it almost exercised its Samson Option.
When Israel Almost Exercised the Samson Option
In 1967, during the Six-Day War, Israel faced the combined might of the Arab states, fighting alone against Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan.
During the war, Israel had a contingency plan. If things went badly on the battlefield, Israel had a plan B, a fallback option, which involved detonating a nuclear bomb on a mountain top in the Sinai Peninsula, not to destroy the enemy force, but to warn and deter them.
The revelation emerged in 2017 from declassified interviews and documents, primarily from an interview with retired IDF Brig. Gen. Itzhak Yaakov, who oversaw weapons development.
However, Israel scored a swift victory in the war, and thus, the plan was never executed.
On a side note, many people believe that given Israel’s clear and demonstrable military superiority in the Middle East, the Samson Option will always be a theoretical option only.
However, what they ignore is that Israel is the only Jewish state in the Middle East, surrounded by several hostile Muslim-majority states.
As long as the US backs Israel, it can maintain a power differentiation with other Middle Eastern states. However, if the US priority changes or its commitment to protect Israel weakens, then the situation could change dramatically.
In that case, Israel could seriously consider the Samson Option, as it did during the 1967 war.
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