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 were all crushed. They were subsequently absorbed into the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Achaemenid Empire, and disappeared as a distinct ethnic group by the late 5th century BC. Amos in sets the Philistines / ἀλλοφύλοι at Ashdod and Ekron. In God is quoted asserting that, as he brought Israel from Egypt, he also (in the Hebrew) brought the Philistines from Caphtor. In the Greek this is, instead, bringing the ἀλλόφυλοι from Cappadocia. The following is a list of battles described in the Bible as having occurred between the Israelites and the Philistines: According to Joshua and , the land of