Chandigarh: Whenever Israel confronts major military, multi-front crises like the ongoing war it has started with Iran and Hezbollah, the spectre of its so-called ‘Samson Doctrine’ envisaging unilateral nuclear use if its survival was supposedly threatened, inevitably resurfaces in strategic discussions.This doctrine draws its name from the biblical figure Samson, a Hebrew judge of ancient Israel renowned for his superhuman strength who, according to ancient scriptures, was captured and blinded by the Philistines, but brought down the pillars of their temple, killing himself and his captors.Translated into present-day strategic terms, the metaphor is stark: if Israel were ever pushed to the brink of destruction – or what it perceives as destruction, which might conceivably also mean being forced to end its illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza – it would respond with overwhelming nuclear retaliation, rather than submit to this.The term itself was not coined by Israeli officials but popularised by the American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh – himself Jewish – in his influential 1991 book The Samson Option. Drawing on biblical imagery, Hersh described what he argued was the implicit logic behind Israel’s nuclear capability, developed in the 1960s, but never officially acknowledged: an ultimate deterrent intended to guarantee the state’s survival against existential threats. While Hersh coined the phrase, Israel quietly embraced it within its strategic circles as shorthand for a doctrine affirming that its survival would be defended at all and, any cost however apocalyptic.Hersh’s work also helped crystallise in public discourse an idea long assumed within the small, close-knit world of nuclear strategists and intelligence analysts who study Israel’s opaque, but formidable deterrent developed at the Negev Nuclear Research Centre at Dimona, some 30 km from the Dead Sea. This understanding takes on added urgency against the historical backdrop of the Iranian clergy, which assumed power in 1979 and has consistently vowed the elimination of Israel, framing the Jewish state as its principal ideological and civilisational adversary.Decades later, that hostility continues to shape regional dynamics, with Israel presently attacking Iran and Lebanon with US help. Far from succeeding to bring Iran to its knees, the latest Israeli war has invited Iranian retaliation via missiles on its cities. Against this backdrop, the question of Israel’s ultimate threat the Samson Doctrine – looms quietly but unmistakably.And while no immediate existential threat appears evident – at least on the surface – in the ongoing US-Israeli air campaign against Iran, codenamed Epic Fury, the Samson Option concept continues to hover at the periphery of strategic thinking, as Tehran gamely withstands sustained aerial attacks. Since these strikes began on February 28, Iran has successfully employed its cache of liquid-fuelled short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic cruise missiles, and armed drones against Israeli and US-origin air-defence systems deployed across several Persian Gulf states.Consequently, the human and material costs of this confrontation for Israel remain difficult to determine with precision. Official Israeli statements have largely emphasised the success of its Iron Dome and Arrow missile air defence systems in intercepting incoming missiles, and much of the international media coverage has highlighted these defensive achievements. But due to strict censorship rules in Israel, little or no reporting has emerged regarding casualties or damage to Israeli infrastructure. Of course, a steady stream of videos and images circulating on social media platforms portray devastating missile impacts, damaged buildings, and disrupted urban districts across Israel, including areas near Tel Aviv, its airport, and other major population centres. Many of these posts are difficult to verify independently, but suggest that Iranian missile attacks – potentially assisted by Chinese and Russian satellite inputs – may have caused greater disruption than official accounts indicate. Taken together, the plethora of footage and images present a more disquieting picture of destruction inside Israel than is typically reflected in mainstream news reports.However, discussions of Israel’s nuclear posture rarely occur in public speeches or official communiqués. Instead, they unfold quietly in classified defence briefings, intelligence assessments, and closed-door strategy sessions in capitals around the world, where experts also debate the limits of the Samson doctrine and its implications for regional stability. These deliberations are less about confirming Israeli military capabilities than understanding how its ultimate deterrent shapes the calculations of rivals, allies, and the fragile architecture of Middle Eastern security that Tel Aviv has long sought – mostly unsuccessfully – to influence.Within this specialised community of nuclear strategists, intelligence analysts, and arms-control experts, Israel is universally treated as a nuclear-armed state. While the precise size and configuration of its arsenal remain officially unacknowledged, estimates from credible institutions like the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute place it at roughly 80–90 warheads, with delivery options spanning aircraft, ballistic missiles, and submarines. Discussions within this esoteric community emphasise Israel’s strategic leverage in a region where multiple fronts, longstanding enmities, and ongoing conflicts could rapidly escalate into scenarios where the Samson Doctrine could come into play.The foundations of Israel’s atomic arsenal were laid in its early years under Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Aware of the fact that the violent expulsion of Palestinians from their homes during the Nakba of 1948, would lead to enduring military hostility in the region, the Israeli state concluded that conventional military strength alone would not suffice. Israel, he believed, required a strategic deterrent so powerful that no adversary would ever risk taking it on.With quiet assistance from France in the late 1950s, Israel constructed a nuclear reactor at Dimona. Officially presented as a research facility, the complex soon became the centrepiece of Israel’s emerging nuclear programme, and by the late 1960s, according to declassified intelligence assessments, Israel had assembled its first nuclear devices.In ‘Gideon’s Spies’-widely regarded as an authoritative account of the “inside story” of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad – British investigative journalist Gordon Thomas provides a detailed portrayal of the clandestine operations and secret strategic capabilities underpinning Israel’s nuclear deterrent. Among the themes he explores in his 698-page tome is what he calls “Gideon’s nuclear sword,” a phrase used to characterise Israel’s concealed nuclear capability and the intricate web of intelligence, secrecy, and global procurement networks that spawned, sustained, and protected it.Thomas details how this covert programme allegedly resorted to stealing, smuggling, and acquiring fissile material – including plutonium 239 – from across the world, including the US, through a combination of Mossad operations and international espionage. In his narrative, this hidden capability represented the ultimate strategic guarantee of Israel’s survival, maintained far from public scrutiny within the shadowy world of intelligence and covert statecraft.According to Gideon’s Spies, the development of Israel’s nuclear weapons at Dimona was ring-fenced by an elaborate web of secrecy, counter-intelligence and international deception designed to shield the project from all manner of scrutiny, even internal. The key role in this effort, according to Thomas, was played by LAKAM (L’akademya le-Kidum Mabinot in Hebrew), which translates to the Committee for the Advancement of Israeli Weaponry.LAKAM was established in the 1950s as a specialised Israeli intelligence unit, charged with acquiring – by any means necessary – sensitive scientific knowledge, equipment, and materials to support the development of atomic weapons. While the better-known Mossad focused on foreign intelligence and covert operations, the low-profile but single-minded LAKAM concentrated on securing the technological foundations of the Dimona nuclear weapons complex.The existence of Israel’s atomic weapons programme continued secretly, but was effectively accommodated in 1969 when its PM Golda Meir reached a quiet understanding with US President Richard Nixon. Under this arrangement, Washington agreed broadly not to press Israel to publicly declare its nuclear arsenal or sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, provided it maintained its policy of secrecy and refrained from conducting “visible” nuclear tests. The resulting posture allowed both governments to sustain the fiction of nuclear ambiguity even as Israel’s strategic capability quietly matured – an arrangement critics have long argued exposed the full measure of double standards by the US and other Western states on nuclear proliferation.Thereafter, Israel developed what analysts describe as a sophisticated nuclear triad. Its land-based component includes the Jericho series of ballistic missiles, while nuclear-capable aircraft provide an air-delivered option. Increasing emphasis has also been placed on the sea-based leg, comprising submarines equipped to launch nuclear-armed cruise missiles. Taken together, these three elements form the operational architecture of the Samson Doctrine, Israel’s last-resort weapon of deterrence – or compellence.Today, as Israeli forces continue their relentless multi-front campaign against Iran and its allied militias, the logic of the Samson Doctrine continues to echo in quiet, high-level strategic deliberations in Tel Aviv, Washington, and other world capitals.With its narrow geography, dense population, and limited strategic depth, Israel faces not just battlefield challenges but the unsettling possibility that Iran might endure the ongoing campaign and retain sufficient military capability to continually threaten Israeli population centres, including Tel Aviv. While far from inevitable, that scenario is one Israel would find difficult to accept.In this context, the possession of a nuclear triad and the wider logic of the Samson Doctrine takes on an ominous strategic significance.