donderdag 26 november 2009

De Israelische Terreur 1036

Toen ik de joods-Israelische filmmaker Eyal Eitan vroeg waar het zionistische project op uit loopt, zei hij: 'In wat heet de Samson Optie, een nucleaire genocide, in collectieve zelfmoord. Dan hoeven we ook niet meer op de Messias te wachten.'

Samson Option

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For the 1991 book by Seymour Hersh, see The Samson Option (book).

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] Israel refuses to admit it has nuclear weapons or to describe how it would use them, an official policy of nuclear ambiguity, also known as "nuclear opacity." This has made it difficult for anyone outside the Israeli government to definitively describe its true nuclear policy, while still allowing Israel to influence the perceptions, strategies and actions of other governments.^[2]

As early as 1976, the CIA believed that Israel possessed 10 to 20 nuclear weapons.^[3] By 2002 it was estimated that the number had increased to between 75 and 200 thermonuclear weapons, each in the multiple-megaton range.^[4] Kenneth S. Brower has estimated as many as 400 nuclear weapons.^[5] These can be launched from land, sea and air.^[6] This gives Israel a second strike option even if much of the country is destroyed.^[7]

The term "Samson Option" has also been used more generally in reference to Israel's nuclear program.^[8] Commentators have also employed the term in reference to situations where non-nuclear, non-Israeli actors, such as Saddam Hussein^[9], Yassir Arafat^[10] and Hezbollah^[11] have threatened conventional weapons retaliation - and even regarding former United States President George W. Bush's foreign policy.^[12]

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[edit] Etymology

The term "Samson Option" comes from the biblical story of Samson, who broke the columns supporting the roof of the temple to bring it crashing down on the heads of his enemies. This action is often used as an analogy for an action that brings victory at great cost (see also Pyrrhic Victory).

[edit] Deterrence Doctrine

The original conception of the Samson Option was only as deterrence. According to US journalist Seymour Hersh and Israeli historian Avner Cohen, Israeli leaders like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, Levi Eshkol and Moshe Dayan coined the phrase in the mid-1960s. They named it after the Biblical figure Samson, who pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated. They contrasted it with ancient siege of Masada where 936 Jewish Sicarii greatly outnumbered by Roman legions committed mass suicide rather than be defeated and enslaved by the Romans.^[13]

Although nuclear weapons were viewed as the ultimate guarantor of Israeli security, as early as the 1960s the country avoided building its military around them, instead pursuing absolute conventional superiority so as to forestall a last resort nuclear engagement.^[14]

Seymour Hersh writes that the "surprising victory of Menachem Begin's Likud Party in the May 1977 national elections...brought to power a government that was even more committed than Labor to the Samson Option and the necessity of an Israeli nuclear arsenal."^[15]

Louis René Beres, a professor of Political Science at Purdue University, chaired Project Daniel, a group advising Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, argues in that paper and elsewhere that the effective deterrence of the Samson Option would be increased by ending the policy of nuclear ambiguity.^[16] In a 2004 article he recommends Israel use the Samson Option threat to “support conventional preemptions” against enemy nuclear and non-nuclear assets because “without such weapons, Israel, having to rely entirely upon nonnuclear forces, might not be able to deter enemy retaliations for the Israeli preemptive strike.”^[17]

In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence^[18]. Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch" (2003) as saying "I consider it all hopeless at this point. ... We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under." He quoted General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."

[edit] See also

[edit] References

^ Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, Random House, 1991, 42, 136-137, 288-289; Israel’s Strategic Doctrine.
^ Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, Columbia University Press, 1998, 2, 7, 341; Avner Cohen, Israel's Nuclear Opacity: a Political Genealogy, published in “The Dynamics of Middle East Nuclear Proliferation,” Chapter 9, 187-212, edited by Steven L. Spiegel, Jennifer D. Kibbe and Elizabeth G. Matthews Symposium Series, Volume 66, The Edwin Mellen Press, 2001.
^ In March 1976 the CIA accidentally publicly admitted that Israel had 10-20 nuclear weapons "ready to use." Arthur Kranish, "CIA: Israel Has 10-20 A-Weapons," The Washington Post, March 15, 1976, p. 2 and David Binder, "Information Abstracts," The New York Times, March 16, 1976, p. 1.
^ Norris, Robert S., William Arkin, Hans M. Kristensen, and Joshua Handler. "Israeli nuclear forces, 2002," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58:5 (September/October 2002): 73-75. Excerpt online.
^ Kenneth S. Brower, “A Propensity for Conflict: Potential Scenarios and Outcomes of War in the Middle East,” Jane's Intelligence Review, Special Report no. 14, (February 1997), 14-15.
^ Douglas Frantz, Israel Adds Fuel to Nuclear Dispute, Officials confirm that the nation can now launch atomic weapons from land, sea and air, Los Angeles Times, Sunday, October 12, 2003.
^ David Eberhart, Samson Option: Israel's Plan to Prevent Mass Destruction Attacks, NewsMax.Com, October 16, 2001.
^ Examples include: Chris Hedges Bush’s Nuclear Apocalypse, Monday, October 9, 2006; George Perkovich, “The Samson Option: The story behind one of the world's worst-kept secrets: the Jewish state's atomic arsenal”, a review of Michael Karpin’s book “The Bomb in the Basement” in the Washington Post, February 19, 2006, BW03; Press Release: Syndicated Radio Talk Show Host Paul McGuire Has Called President Bush To More Actively Support The Nation Of Israel, And Work For Peace In The Middle East, July 2, 2006.
^ Tom Holsinger, Staying Alive - Saddam's Samson Option, June 20, 2002.
^ Herb Keinon, Selling the 'Samson option'.
^ Michael Young, The Samson Option, Is Hezbollah on the verge of destroying Lebanon? Slate Magazine, Monday, August 7, 2006.
^ Stephen Lendman, George Bush's Samson Option, March 12, 2007.
^ Seymour Hersh,129, 136-137; Avner Cohen, 236.
^ Israel’s Strategic Doctrine, Global Security.Org.
^ Seymour Hersh, 259.
^ final report
^ Israel and Samson. Biblical Insights on Israeli Strategy in the Nuclear Age
^ "We have the capability to take the world down with us"