The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The "Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who
Philistines of pre-Maccabean Israelite religious literature, evidence for the name and the origins of the Philistines is less abundant and less consistent. In the remainder of the Hebrew Bible, is attested at Qumran for 2 Samuel 5:17. In the Septuagint however 269 references instead use the term ("of another tribe"). The Philistines are the subject of research and speculation in biblical archaeology. Since 1846, scholars have connected the biblical Philistines with the Egyptian "" inscriptions, all five of which appear from 1150 BCE to 900 BCE just as archaeological references to "Kinaḫḫu" or "Ka-na-na" (Canaan) come to an end, and since