the article you posted before were about reactions to iraqi WMD programs and israeli responses to the potential threat with nuclear threats...

What does it matter if it was an avoidable war, Israel was attacked and nuclear weapons were kept as a failsafe.

"This is the end of the third temple" Moshe Dayan

ie, we're fucked lets nuke them

They weren't mobilized as a 'failsafe'. And Israel's nuclear threat was in response to any potential conventional attack on Israel, it had nothing to do with nuclear deterrence.

Yeah so fucked they were charging through Egyptian and Syrian lines in two days.

Just because a leader raises the specter of hysteria, doesn't mean it's justified.

And the nukes were targeting the Soviets, so your argument fails.

"Yeah so fucked they were charging through Egyptian and Syrian lines in two days."


read your own article Dayan did not think so, and how did he raise the specter of hysteria he did it in private with the prime minister

Your own article says the Soviets wern't targeted by Israel until they realized they were on the soviet target list in the 80s

From Hersh's book: Ch. 17

"There was an ironic twist to the spy scandal, for the senior leadership of the Israeli government understood from the moment of the first collaboration with the French that the Soviets not only were the primary targets of the nuclear arsenal but would be among the first to be told of its existence. By 1973, Dimona's success in miniaturization enabled its technicians to build warheads small enough to fit into a suitcase; word of the bomb in a suitcase was relayed to the Soviet Union, according to a former Israeli intelligence official, during one of what apparently was a regular series of meetings in Europe between representatives of Mossad and the KGB. The
Soviets understood that no amount of surveillance could prevent Israeli agents from smuggling nuclear bombs across the border in automobiles, aircraft, or commercial ships.

Israel's leadership, especially Moshe Dayan, had nothing but contempt for the Arab combat ability in the early 1970s. In their view, Israel's main antagonist in the Middle East was and would continue to be the Soviet Union. Dimona's arsenal, known by the Kremlin to be targeted as much as possible at Soviet cities, theoretically would deter the Soviets from supporting an all-out Arab attack on Israel; the bombs also would give pause to any Egyptian or Syrian invasion plans."

"Israel, preoccupied by the Soviet threat, saw the expulsion as diminishing any real chance of war. On paper, Israel's army and air force were more than a match for even the combined forces of the Arab Middle East. Without Soviet backing, no Arab nation would dare to initiate a fight. There would be no peace, perhaps, but there was no immediate threat to continued Israeli control of the captured territories. This message came through loud and clear in the late summer of 1973 to Kenneth B. Keating, a former Republican senator from New York who was Wally Barbour's replacement as U.S. ambassador to Israel. In August, Keating and his deputy, Nicholas A. Veliotes, paid a courtesy call on Moshe Dayan, whom they found to be not just confident, but swaggering. There had been constant talk that summer of an impending Arab attack, Veliotes recalls, and the embassy had been put on a higher alert. Dayan was asked if he was worried. His response, recalled Veliotes, was " 'Don't worry.' He described the Arab armies in the desert as 'rusty ships slowly sinking'—as if the desert were a sea. It was very arrogant." Dayan's comments were accepted without challenge at the time, said Veliotes: "We had a great belief that the Israelis knew more than we did. We also were mesmerized by 1967"— the Six-Day War.

"and how did he raise the specter of hysteria he did it in private with the prime minister"

And was about to do so at a news conference had he not been stopped by Meir. Israel raised the nuclear alert twice. And for what? Control of the Sinai that they ended up giving up anyway?

Whatever, stop pretending like Israel has been restrained in its use of the nuclear threat. Just admit you don't want an enemy state to get nukes.

And?

What does that have to do with anything?

What happens after the attack when your Air Force position paper says that Dayan was visibly shaken and suggested the bombs should be used on Syrian and Egyptian targets. The use of the weapons was not on the table, as I said the upper echelon had reason to fear the end was near

"And was about to do so at a news conference had he not been stopped by Meir. Israel raised the nuclear alert twice. And for what? Control of the Sinai that they ended up giving up anyway?

Whatever, stop pretending like Israel has been restrained in its use of the nuclear threat. Just admit you don't want an enemy state to get nukes. "

Why did Meir stop him? The paper you posted makes it very clear Dayan thought that the end was near.

The funny thing is your author is setting up the Yom Kippur war as if it is going to prove Dayan wrong, when you have been saying all along Israel had nothing to fear. Something tells me he says diffeent in the next chapter

No, they didn't have reason. If they had reason then they wouldn't have won so easily. Clearly there was no reason.

"Why did Meir stop him? "

I don't know, why did the hysterical response get leaked to the public anyway?

ok disagree with the article you yourself posted and probably the book that you yourself posted.

"I don't know, why did the hysterical response get leaked to the public anyway? "

Because Dayan was approaching hysterical?

Reporting the fact that the Israeli leadership were "scared" doesn't make it justified, as I've been saying all along. You never listen. Iran is scared of being attacked, you're not going to justify their nuclear sabre-rattling, am I right? It's a weak defense.

what the hell are you talking about.

The perception was that Israel was teetering on the brink of collapse.

Israel contemplated using weapons for this reason.

You have spent a page arguing that Dayan and the Upper echelon of israelis could never have believed Israel was on the brink of collapse, and that Israel's contemplation of the use of the weapons was not tied to their belief in imminent collapse. Now you want to change your argument, whatever.

I do believe Israel and Iran for that matter are susceptible to seeing imminent threats where there are none. Which is why a nuclear showdown in the middle east is not desirable

I'm not changing my argument. I said reacting hysterically doesn't make it justified. I've said this over and over. I didn't say they didn't have these visions of doom, I said these visions of doom were ridiculous. You'd know what I was talking about if you bothered to read instead of put words in my mouth.

I read exactly what you meant when you wrote "They weren't mobilized as a 'failsafe'." meaning that Israeli leaders did not fear the destruction of Israel.

And if you were making that argument, what exactly was your problem with my argument which from the very beginning was talking about the perception that Israel was on the brink of destruction?

They were paranoid about a full scale Soviet intervention. News of nuclear armament was deliberately leaked to the Soviets. They used the threat to blackmail the Americans into sending airlifts. That's exactly how Kissinger saw it. It had less to do with the Egyptians and Syrians and more to do with the Soviets and Americans. In that case it wasn't really a failsafe.

Your own article again

'The Samson Option states that Moshe Dayan gave the go-ahead for starting weapon production in early 1968, putting the plutonium separation plant into full operation. Israel began producing three to five bombs a year. The book Critical Mass asserts that Israel had two bombs in 1967, and that Prime Minister Eshkol ordered them armed in Israel's first nuclear alert during the Six-Day War.54 Avner Cohen in his recent book, Israel and the Bomb, agrees that Israel had a deliverable nuclear capability in the 1967 war. He quotes Munya Mardor, leader of Rafael, the Armament Development Authority, and other unnamed sources, that Israel “cobbled together” two deliverable devices.55

Having the bomb meant articulating, even if secretly, a use doctrine. In addition to the “Samson Option” of last resort, other triggers for nuclear use may have included successful Arab penetration of populated areas, destruction of the Israeli Air Force, massive air strikes or chemical/biological strikes on Israeli cities, and Arab use of nuclear weapons.56 "

Seems like aiming them at the soviets wasnt the only rational behind the weapons program

"On the afternoon of 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in a coordinated surprise attack, beginning the Yom Kippur War. Caught with only regular forces on duty, augmented by reservists with a low readiness level, Israeli front lines crumbled. By early afternoon on 7 October, no effective forces were in the southern Golan Heights and Syrian forces had reached the edge of the plateau, overlooking the Jordan River. This crisis brought Israel to its second nuclear alert.

Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, obviously not at his best at a press briefing, was, according to Time magazine, rattled enough to later tell the prime minister that “this is the end of the third temple,” referring to an impending collapse of the state of Israel. “Temple” was also the code word for nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Golda Meir and her “kitchen cabinet” made the decision on the night of 8 October. The Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs. The number and in fact the entire story was later leaked by the Israelis as a great psychological warfare tool. Although most probably plutonium devices, one source reports they were enriched uranium bombs. The Jericho missiles at Hirbat Zachariah and the nuclear strike F-4s at Tel Nof were armed and prepared for action against Syrian and Egyptian targets. They also targeted Damascus with nuclear capable long-range artillery although it is not certain they had nuclear artillery shells.62 "

Again your own article disagrees with you.

Syria had literally stopped completely with absolutely no opposition in front of them. The article was given to demonstrate that the Arab armies had been beaten back before the American airlifts took place, demonstrating the total lack of need for this escalation, not to mention two nuclear alerts. The Hersh book discusses at length the fact that Kissinger urged the Nixon administration to airlift loads of arms because of fear of Israel going nuclear. Israel made this decision on the assumption that the Soviets would quickly find out and thereby restrain their response.

"There was an equally important second purpose for the arming of nuclear weapons, according to former Israeli government officials: such a drastic step would force the United States to begin an immediate and massive resupply of the Israeli military. There was widespread rage inside the Israeli cabinet at the Nixon White House—aimed especially at Henry Kissinger —over what was correctly perceived in Israel as an American strategy of delaying the resupply in an attempt to let the Arabs win some territory, and some self-respect, and thus set up the possibility of seriousland-for-peace bargaining. Kissinger, just sworn in as secretary of state, would direct the negotiations."

Much as it pains me to +1 Putin, as it says in Revelations... 'It is done'.

Israel was never under any real threat in the Yom Kippur War. The Arab forces never passed beyond their objectives (the '67 borders), despite having crushed the Israeli defenses at the Bar Lev line (due largely to the massive airlifts of weapons and supplies to the Israelis by the Nixon regime) and generally catching them flat-footed (as Israel had done to the Arab states in the Six Day War). Initial Egyptian/Syrian victories in the Yom Kippur War and the (militarily unjustified but psychologically understandable) scare it produced in Israel caused the most positive (arguably) result of all the Arab-Israeli Wars - a permanent peace treaty between Israel and Egypt.