Nuclear Ambiguity and the Samson Option

Greg Reese

The Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, otherwise known as Dimona, is the cornerstone of Israel’s undeclared nuclear weapons program. Construction began in secret in 1958 with the help of France, which helped build Israel a 24-megawatt heavy-water reactor as part of a clandestine weapons program, believed to have been completed in 1965, with their first functional nuclear device produced before June of 1967.

When U.S. officials first inquired about the site, Israeli representatives described it as a textile plant, a metallurgical research installation, and a pumping station. When American inspectors were eventually granted limited access in 1965, Israeli engineers installed temporary false walls and physically blocked entire sections of the underground complex. The inspectors reported to Washington that their visits were useless, and inspections ended in 1969.

Photographic evidence leaked by Israeli technician Mordechai Vanunu in 1986, from which experts estimated a stockpile of 100 to 200 nuclear devices, confirmed that Israel has developed thermonuclear bomb capability. After leaking this information, Vanunu was kidnapped by Mossad and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Israel’s policy of amimut, the Hebrew word for ambiguity, combines three elements: the strict secrecy about the program’s existence, refraining from testing, and the managed leakage of evidence to allow Israel threat capabilities without ever making an official admission. The veiled threat repeated by successive Israeli prime ministers has been: “Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East.” In November 1968, the Israeli Ambassador formally informed the U.S. State Department that Israel’s understanding of “introducing“ weapons meant testing, deploying, or making them public, and that merely possessing weapons did not constitute “introduction.”

NUMEC, the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, was a nuclear fuel processing facility in Apollo, Pennsylvania, that processed highly enriched uranium for the U.S. Navy. It was established in part by chemist Zalman Shapiro, who also served as president of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Zionist Organization of America. On September 10, 1968, four Israeli nationals arrived at the NUMEC plant as personal guests of Shapiro. Two leading members of Mossad, a Shin Bet operative, and the head of Israel’s nuclear weapons program. According to declassified records, the CIA assessed that Israel had received highly enriched uranium from NUMEC and used it in its first nuclear weapons. The CIA Director briefed President Lyndon Johnson whose reported response was: “Don’t tell anyone else, even Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara,” the U.S. Secretaries of State and Defense. After a 15-Year Investigation, the FBI wrapped it up in 1980. No charges were ever filed. 337 kilograms total, roughly 2% of all highly enriched uranium NUMEC processed, disappeared over the company’s operational life.

Beyond its policy of ambiguity, what makes Israel’s nuclear posture uniquely alarming is the Samson Option, a last-resort retaliation strategy to be deployed in the event of Israel facing an existential defeat. Multiple analysts have described a targeting doctrine that extends to global capitals and major cities, not just Israel’s declared enemies.

In 2012, Der Spiegel reported that nuclear-tipped missiles have been deployed on Israel’s five German-supplied Dolphin-class submarines, each equipped with 20 launch tubes for cruise missiles with ranges sufficient to strike targets in Europe and beyond. Journalist, Ron Rosenbaum wrote that these submarines would retaliate not only against Israel’s direct attackers but would “bring down the pillars of the world.” Rosenbaum wrote that “abandonment of proportionality is the essence” of this doctrine. The West Point Modern War Institute has noted that the strategic logic of the Samson Option implies striking at large population centers.

In a 2003 interview, professor of military history at Hebrew University, Martin van Creveld, stated that, “We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”