US think tank: Israel had plan to use atomic bomb in 1967 [View all]
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel had a secret plan to detonate an atomic bomb in Egypt in the event that it faced defeat during the 1967 Middle East war, a leading American think tank said Monday, citing newly released documents.
The operation was never carried out, as Israel swiftly vanquished its enemies in six days. But details about the doomsday scenario, in which Israel planned to set off a nuclear weapon atop a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, shed new light on the fearful climate at the time. It also could undermine Israel’s decades-long policy of nuclear ambiguity.
The Nuclear Proliferation International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington unveiled a website Monday devoted to “Operation Shimshon,” the codename for the hastily arranged contingency plan of placing an improvised nuclear device in Sinai to be detonated upon the prime minister’s orders.
The operation’s name, Hebrew for Samson, invoked the biblical figure of great power and aimed to scare Arab armies into quitting their offensive should Israel face what was feared to be an existential threat.
Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/news/20170605/us-think-tank-israel-had-plan-to-use-atomic-bomb-in-1967
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