Decoding Israel's Samson Option

A Modern Tale of Nuclear Deterrence

One recent article concludes "The real question is not 'if' Israel would use nukes, but under what conditions?  How bad does the situation have to get before a nuclear response is assured?  Given the rhetoric of previous Israeli leaders on defense, it would not take much." No one wants to see predictions of WWIII/Armageddon unfold. But is anything likely to prevent war from escalating?

Israel is a small nation - some 8,630 square miles (smaller than New Jersey) - with a population of about 9.3 million people, 3 million of whom are not Jews. These 6.3 million Jews are surrounded by potential

enemies - dozens of Islamic nations with vast resources and huge populations. Egypt alone has over 100 million people; Turkey and Iran each have over 80 million. Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen add over 100 million more. Israel also faces terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

So far, Israel has survived on some combination of superior training, superior intelligence networks, American support, and the grace of God. But many fear that someday, Israel's defenses will be overcome. Which brings Israel's last defensive option into the conversation: the threat of using nuclear weapons, so that instead of Muslim nations obliterating Israel without repercussions, the best they can expect is mutual assured destruction. Israel may fall someday, but they can take their enemies with them. Israel has hundreds of atomic bombs in its arsenal, and if Israel is overrun, it's missiles, planes, and submarines could probably level Teheran, Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo, Ankara, and many other targets. This is commonly referred to as the Samson Option - a reference to the heroic and preposterous Old Testament judge and strongman who pushed down the pillars supporting the temple of his enemies. He killed himself, along with thousands of his Philistine tormentors in Gaza.

The whole point of mutual assured destruction, doomsday weapons, and the Samson Option - is to discourage attack. Once upon a time the strong could invade the weak and gain from their conquests. Now the costs are much higher, and hopefully Nostradamus' predictions of a nuclear WWIII between the Islamic East and the (nominally) Christian West - or the biblical Armageddon - can be avoided.

There is a second way to think about Samson's story - with an astronomical twist.

Samson - the character in the bible whose name means "man of the sun" - was incredibly strong until Delilah tricked him and cut off his long hair, which took away his great strength. Before that, he is described performing many superhuman, impossible things. "Suddenly a young lion came roaring at

him, and the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him, and he tore the lion apart with his bare hands." (We won't get into it in depth here, but this is probably an astronomical myth, describing an event many thousands of years ago at the beginning of the Age of Leo ["the young lion"] when the sun became energized by an incoming galactic wave "the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him.") Samson is more famous for the story that ends his life: after Delilah tricked him and his hair was cut and his strength was gone (the magnetic field weakened) his Philistine enemies gouge out his eyes (the sun and moon both go dark, temporarily) and they force him to grind grain in a mill (grinding at a mill is the most common mythological description of cosmic rotation - if interested read Hamlet's Mill) at Gaza.

When they bring him into the Temple of Dagon to show off their captive and place him between the two central pillars, Samson prays to God to regain his strength and then pushes on the two central pillars and breaks them, causing the temple to collapse killing him and all the Philistines inside. As you might guess, I interpret this to mean the sun regains its magnetic field and with great new power caused a pole shift (breaking the two central pillars of North Pole and South Pole) and killing almost everyone just under 13,000 years ago (at the beginning of the Age of Leo.) Unfortunately, the next such event is due within decades.