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
Beor (biblical figure) Beor (biblical figure) Beor ( "Bə‘ōr", "a burning") is a name which appears in relation to a king ("Bela son of Beor") and a diviner ("Balaam son of Beor"). Because the two names vary only by a single letter (, "-m", often added to the ends of names), scholars have hypothesized that the two refer to the same person. In a list of kings of Edom, Genesis records that a "Bela () son of Beor" was one of the kings of Edom who reigned "before there reigned any king over the children of Israel." Bela son of Beor is listed