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Iran Exposes Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program, its Policy of Ambiguity
Iran Exposes Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program, its Policy of Ambiguity
This new disclosure reinforces the idea that some NATO allies are cooperating with Israel to project nuclear capabilities and deterrence in the Gulf, the Middle East and West Asia
In a documentary titled “Spider’s Lair,” which was broadcast on Iran’s national television on Wednesday, Iran’s intelligence agencies claimed to have acquired sensitive information about Israel’s nuclear weapons programs, nuclear reprocessing facilities, and the names of scientists involved in these projects. Iranian Intelligence Minister Seyed Esmail Khatib characterized the newly released data as a treasure trove, comprising millions of pages of varied and significant information about the Zionist regime. The first announcement about the trove was issued in early June 2025; however, yesterday marked the beginning of several expected releases that are likely to provide further insight into Israel’s undisclosed nuclear weapon program, which could put an end to Israel’s “nuclear ambiguity.”
Khatib stated that the Israeli nuclear sector, the military, and even ordinary citizens participated in the transfer of this data to Iran. Some individuals were compensated for their actions, while others were motivated by resentment towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As reported by PRESS TV, 189 Israeli scientific and military experts were identified.
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The documents presented during the broadcast indicated a supposed nuclear collaboration between Israel and France under a project named Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility (SARAF), based at the Soreq Nuclear Research Center (SNRC) in Israel. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization, “Soreq has several divisions: ElectroOptics, Non-Destructive Testing, a National Radiation Safety Center, the Israel Research Reactor-1 (IRR-1), the Space Environment Group, and Radiopharmaceuticals”. However, according to a declassified Pentagon study, the design and fabrication of nuclear weapons is said to occur at the Soreq Nuclear Research Centre, which ultimately raises a whole host of questions, ultimately challenging Israel’s so-called “Nuclear Ambiguity” stance. This information is also corroborated by Hans M. Kristensen and Joshua Handler, who delve into great detail into Israel’s Nuclear Weapons program at SOREQ in the SIPRI Yearbook 2002, in “Appendix 10A: World Nuclear Forces, Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 565.
DOCUMENT: Extract from SPIRI Yearbook 2002, World Nuclear Forces written by Hans M. Kristensen and Joshua Handler CLICK HERE TO VIEW>>>(Source: Appendix 10A (Page 41)Stockholm International Peace Research Institute – SPIRI Yearbook 2002)
This new disclosure, which reinforces the idea that some NATO allies are cooperating with Israel to project nuclear capabilities and deterrence in the Gulf, the Middle East and West Asia, comes as European nations are gearing up to advocate for a vote during the quarterly board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Vienna, scheduled to start on Monday. This vote could potentially result in the reinstatement of UN “snapback” sanctions on Iran in October. Next week, members of the IAEA board from France, Germany, and the UK will be requested to review an IAEA confidential report which claims that Iran has allegedly enriched 400kg of uranium to a purity level of 60%. This level is considered near weapons-grade and deemed to be sufficient for the production of 10 nuclear bombs, as per various reports. Should the motion be approved, the French, Germans, and British will have until 18 October to decide if they want to reinstate the sanctions outlined in the 2015 agreement.
Amid escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, this revelation reignites discussions about Israel’s unregulated nuclear weapons program, which, for reasons yet to be clarified by the IAEA, has stayed shrouded in secrecy. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s administration continues to push for military strikes aimed at Iran’s nuclear facilities, a strategy that Tehran has warned against…
Iran International reports on Israel’s nuclear program…
Iran says it obtained secret files on Israel’s nuclear program
Iran’s intelligence ministry aired a segment on national TV displaying information and documents that it says it obtained from Israel’s intelligence apparatus on the Jewish state’s nuclear program
The broadcast featured a series of video files that reportedly contain material from inside Israeli nuclear and other sensitive facilities, including the Dimona site. It also presented alleged details about personnel working on Israel’s nuclear program.
“We identified 189 Israeli nuclear and proliferation scientists and top officials, along with their networks,” Intelligence Minister Esmaeil Khatib said during the presentation, which included names and ID cards of alleged nuclear personnel.
“I tell Netanyahu … your employees collaborated with us for money and still do,” Khatib, a cleric and veteran military and intelligence official, added. Israel is widely believed to have an undeclared nuclear arsenal.
Tehran’s nemesis killed nuclear scientists and hundreds of military personnel in a surprise 12-day military campaign in June, underscoring Iranian intelligence failures. Iran has said it too has infiltrated its enemy, and Israel has arrested several of its citizens on charges of spying for Tehran.
One alleged employee was introduced with a photo and described as working across seven Israeli nuclear sites under the cover of a company called ROTEM. Another was identified as a nuclear scientist allegedly involved in “proliferation projects” between Israel and the United States.
It also mentioned the Chaim Weizmann laboratory, which it described as Israel’s leading proliferation program and was targeted by Iranian ballistic missiles during a 12-day war in June. Additional documents shown in the broadcast suggested alleged nuclear cooperation between Israel and France under a project called SARAF.
One batch of the alleged material included private and family photos of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi, which is alleged to have been obtained from Israeli intelligence sources.
The video, published on Tasnim’s Telegram channel, showed images of Grossi with his family at Disneyland, at home during birthdays and in gatherings with colleagues and friends.
According to the intelligence ministry, the material demonstrated that Israeli intelligence spies “on everyone,” including the IAEA chief, and that the data it had obtained proves this claim.
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@IntlCrimCourt #WH: #Trump will #host #Netanyahu in #Washington on Tue | Jan 31
— Graviola Finland (@GraviolaDOTfi) January 31, 2025
- "'#Mileikowsky' will be here #Feb4 for a working meeting; ~#KarolineLeavitt saidhttps://t.co/NZ1Jj66qOe#AbrahamAccord-#Chrislam
#NoahideLaws-#GenocideTreaty #GazaGenocide #GazaOil https://t.co/Bj1jujfuKq pic.twitter.com/tLa4ULJnMZ
@IntlCrimCourt
#WH: #Trump will #host #Netanyahu in #Washington on Tue | Jan 31
- "'#Mileikowsky' will be here #Feb4 for a working meeting; ~#KarolineLeavitt said.
#AbrahamAccord #Chrislam
#NoahideLaws #GenocideTreaty #GazaGenocide #GazaOil
Former close #aid takes stand in #Netanyahu #corruption trial | Oct 22, 2021
- #Netanyahu was heard #giggling often during his former aid's #testimony, while his supporters demonstrated outside.
https://x.com/GraviolaDOTfi/status/1885459239109345348
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The Samson Option (Hebrew: ברירת שמשון, romanized: b'rerat shimshon) is Israel's deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a "last resort" against a country whose military has invaded and/or destroyed much of Israel.[1] Commentators also have employed the term to refer to situations where non-nuclear, non-Israeli actors have threatened conventional weapons retaliation.[2]
The name is a reference to the biblical Israelite judge Samson who pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had captured him.[3][4]
Background
When the Lehi militant group were discussing ways to assassinate General Evelyn Barker, the British Army commander in Mandatory Palestine, a young woman volunteered to do the assassination as a suicide bombing.[5][6][7] She said "Let my soul die with the Philistines" as a reference to the Samson story in the Hebrew Bible.[5][6][7] Other members of the group rejected her offer.[5][7][6]
Nuclear ambiguity
Israel refuses to confirm or deny it has nuclear weapons or to describe how it would use them, a policy of deliberate ambiguity known as "nuclear ambiguity" or "nuclear opacity." This has made it difficult for anyone outside the Israeli government to describe the country's true nuclear policy definitively, while still allowing Israel to influence the perceptions, strategies and actions of other governments.[8][9] However, over the years, some Israeli leaders have publicly acknowledged their country's nuclear capability: Ephraim Katzir in 1974, Moshe Dayan in 1981, Shimon Peres in 1998, and Ehud Olmert in 2006.[10]
During his 2006 confirmation hearings before the United States Senate regarding his appointment as George W. Bush's secretary of defense, Robert Gates admitted that Israel had nuclear weapons,[10] and two years later, in 2008, former US president Jimmy Carter stated the number of nuclear weapons held by Israel to be "150 or more".[11]
In his 2008 book The Culture of War, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel's Hebrew University, wrote that since Gates admitted that Israel had nuclear weapons, any talk of Israel's nuclear weapons in Israel can lead to "arrest, trial, and imprisonment." Thus Israeli commentators talk in euphemisms such as "doomsday weapons" and the Samson Option.[12]
Nevertheless, as early as 1976, the CIA believed that Israel possessed 10 to 20 nuclear weapons.[13] By 2002, it was estimated that the number had increased to between 75 and 200 thermonuclear weapons, each in the multiple-megaton range.[14] Kenneth S. Brower has estimated as many as 400 nuclear weapons.[15] These can be launched from land, sea and air.[16] This gives Israel a second strike option even if much of the country is destroyed.[17]
In 1991, American investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning political writer Seymour Hersh authored the book Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal & American Foreign Policy.[18] In the preface of the book he writes: "This is a book about how Israel became a nuclear power in secret. It also tells how that secret was shared, sanctioned, and, at times, willfully ignored by the top political and military officials of the United States since the Eisenhower years."
Deterrence doctrine
Although nuclear weapons were viewed as the ultimate guarantor of Israeli security as early as the 1960s, the country avoided building its military around them, instead pursuing absolute conventional superiority so as to forestall a last resort nuclear engagement.[1] The original conception of the Samson Option was only as deterrence. According to American journalist Seymour Hersh and Israeli historian Avner Cohen, Israeli leaders like David Ben-Gurion, Shimon Peres, Levi Eshkol and Moshe Dayan coined the phrase in the mid-1960s. They named it after the biblical figure Samson, who pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had captured him, mutilated him, and gathered to see him further humiliated in chains as retribution for his massacres of their people.[19][20][21] They contrasted it with the ancient siege of Masada where 936 Jewish Sicarii committed mass suicide rather than be defeated and enslaved by the Romans.[22][23]
In an article titled "Last Secret of the Six-Day War" The New York Times reported that in the days before the 1967 Six-Day War Israel planned to insert a team of paratroopers by helicopter into the Sinai. Their mission was to set up and remotely detonate a nuclear bomb on a mountaintop as a warning to belligerent surrounding states. While outnumbered, Israel effectively eliminated the Egyptian Air Force and occupied the Sinai, winning the war before the test could even be set up. Retired Israeli brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov referred to this operation as the Israeli Samson Option.[24]
In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Arab forces were overwhelming Israeli forces and Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized a nuclear alert and ordered 13 atomic bombs be readied for use by missiles and aircraft. The Israeli Ambassador informed President Richard Nixon that "very serious conclusions" may occur if the United States did not airlift supplies. Nixon complied. This is seen by some commentators on the subject as the first threat of the use of the Samson Option.[25][26][27][28][29]
Seymour Hersh writes that the "surprising victory of Menachem Begin's Likud Party in the May 1977 national elections ... brought to power a government that was even more committed than Labor to the Samson Option and the necessity of an Israeli nuclear arsenal."[30]
Louis René Beres, a professor of political science at Purdue University, chaired Project Daniel, a group advising Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. He argues in the Final Report of Project Daniel and elsewhere that the effective deterrence of the Samson Option would be increased by ending the policy of nuclear ambiguity.[31] In a 2004 article he recommends Israel use the Samson Option threat to "support conventional preemptions" against enemy nuclear and non-nuclear assets because "without such weapons, Israel, having to rely entirely upon non-nuclear forces, might not be able to deter enemy retaliations for the Israeli preemptive strike."[32]
Authors' opinions
Some have written about the "Samson Option" as a retaliation strategy.
Ari Shavit
Israeli reporter Ari Shavit writes of Israel's nuclear strategy:[33]
David Perlmutter
In 2002, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter.
In his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, the American Jewish author Ron Rosenbaum described this opinion piece as "goes so far as to justify a Samson Option approach".[35] In that book, Rosenbaum also opined that in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." and that the "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option.[dubious – discuss][36]
Martin van Creveld
In 2003, a military historian, Martin van Creveld, thought that the Second Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence.[37] Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch (2003) as saying:
However, according to Aluf Yitzhak Yaakov, who was the mastermind behind the "Samson Option",[39] it was unlikely Israel could have even targeted Europe,[citation needed] as Israel did not yet have other measures like bombs or missiles to carry the nuclear payload.
Günter Grass
In 2012, Günter Grass published the poem "Was gesagt werden muss" ("What Must Be Said") which criticized Israel's nuclear weapons program.
Israeli poet and Holocaust survivor Itamar Yaoz-Kest published a poem entitled "The Right to Exist: a Poem-Letter to the German Author" which addresses Grass by name. It contains the line: "If you force us yet again to descend from the face of the Earth to the depths of the Earth—let the Earth roll toward the Nothingness".
Israeli Jerusalem Post journalist Gil Ronen saw this poem as referring to the Samson Option, which he described as the strategy of using Israel's nuclear weapons for "taking out Israel's enemies with it, possibly causing irreparable damage to the entire world."[40]
See also
- Dahiya doctrine – Israeli strategy of destroying civilian buildings
- Hannibal Directive – Controversial Israeli military protocol
- Israel and weapons of mass destruction
- Massive retaliation – Military doctrine focusing on using more force in retaliation to an attack
- Mutual assured destruction – Doctrine of military strategy
- No first use – Refrainment from using weapons of mass destruction unless attacked with them first
- Nuclear weapons and Israel
- Pre-emptive nuclear strike – Preemptive attack using nuclear weapons
- Preventive war – Military action to prevent an enemy from acquiring attack capabilities in the medium term
- Project Daniel – Israeli threat assessment of Middle Eastern countries
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