Does Israel have nuclear weapons?

Israel is widely known to have nuclear weapons, though the details of its arsenal remain scarce.

Now, the Israel-Iran conflict is shedding light on Tel Aviv’s nuclear arsenal –  the only such country in West Asia to have such weapons – and a secret programme to unleash them in case it faces extinction.

But what do we know about Israel’s nuclear programme? And about the Samson Option?

Let’s take a closer look:

What do we know?

Israel has been wanting a nuclear bomb since its founding in 1948.

This was a direct result of the Holocaust – and the desire of the Jewish state to be in control of its own destiny.

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Three men began Israel’s pursuit of the bomb – its first Prime Minister Ben Gurion, scientist Ernst David Bergmann and civil servant Shimon Peres (who himself would later become Prime Minister of Israel).

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It was Ben Gurion who helped establish the reactor at Dimona – where Israel's nuclear weapons program is still widely believed to be located.

The French are believed to have assisted Israel in building the nuclear reactor – known as  the IRR-2 research reactor at the Negev Nuclear Research Center – which provided the plutonium for its nuclear weapons program.

It remains unclear when Israel conducted its first nuclear test.

The country is thought to have had nuclear weapons since the 1960s.

The country is thought to have built its first nuclear bomb in complete secrecy – lying even to its staunch ally the United States.

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Israel first claimed that the center was a textiles factory. Afterwards, they claimed it was a civilian research center that did not have chemical reprocessing plant needed to make a nuclear weapon.

Israel is believed to have build or tried to build its first crude nuclear devices during the May 1967 crisis – which came before the Six-Day War.

The US government by 1975 became convinced that Tel Aviv possessed nuclear weapons.

Israel has for decades maintained a position of strategic ambiguity when it comes to its nuclear arsenal – known as “Amimut”.

This means it neither confirms nor denies it has one.

“We won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East”, Netanyahu claimed in 2011 – echoing what Peres earlier said – despite all evidence to the contrary.

Israeli officials and those in the know are also loathe to talk about the program openly.

This is because the Israeli state takes an extremely severe attitude towards whistleblowers.

Take the example of Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who revealed the secrets of Israel’s nuclear program to the world in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Vanunu was abducted by the Mossad from a foreign country and forcibly taken back to Israel – where he spent nearly two decades in captivity – eleven of those years in solitary confinement.

Israel remains the only country in West Asia to have nuclear weapons.

Estimates about its arsenal greatly vary.

Some say it has between 75 and 400 nuclear weapons.

Others place that number between 100 and 200.

Israel has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Nor does it of come under the purview of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The Samson Option

Israel also has what it calls the Samson Option.

This is a means of last resort if Israel is on the brink of extinction.

It is a reference to the Biblical hero Samson, who was endowed with supernatural strength.

The story of Samson and Delilah – who beguiled him to reveal the secret of his strength (his hair) only to cut it off in his sleep – is a well-known fable.

Samson, now absent of his strength, was taken captive by his enemies, the Philistines, and blinded. Samson, who prayed to God for his strength to return one last time during his time in servitude, then brought down the pillars of the temple of Dagon – causing it to collapse and kill himself and all his enemies.

The term Samson Option itself entered the lexicon after award winning journalist Seymour Hersh wrote a book about 1991.

Entitled The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, the book, for which Hersh consulted with Israeli and US intelligence officials, revealed many important details about Israel’s nuclear programme and its strategic doctrine.

According to Hersh and Israeli historian Avner Cohen, Ben Gurion, Peres, Levi Ashkol, and Moshe Dayan are said to have come up with this term in the 1960s.

Under this option, Israel would launch an all-out nuclear assault on the civilian centers of its non-nuclear rivals – in contravention of international law.

“The Samson Option is not designed to deter a nuclear adversary from a first strike or counter strike—Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the region. Rather, its purported purpose is to ensure Israel’s survival. Under the Samson Option, nuclear weapons would be deliberately used against a non-nuclear adversary as a last resort to prevent an Israeli defeat,” Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, told Progressive Magazine.

With inputs from agencies