comment: >
  
  Israeli aircraft have gotten much better. Soviet Era anti-aircraft installations in widespread use by Arab countries did not. S-300, for example, failed to protect sites in Syria from Israeli airstrikes, and that was before they started fielding F-35s.
context: I think that the suspected Israeli nuclear arsenal would become the confirmed Israeli nuclear arsenal >
  
  Look into the Samson Option. Retired Israeli brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov referred to this operation as the Israeli Samson Option. 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. >
  
  Golda Meir would have used the nukes if she had to.
  Her real goal was to get the US to notice her posturing so Israel could get resupplied.
  We only got to this point because Kissinger told Meir not to make a preemptive strike despite intelligence being high that an attack was coming. >
  
  Interesting to contemplate how 1973 would have played out if Israel had launched a preemptive strike.  The IAF had a very difficult time dealing with Soviet SAMs during the war:
  
  Official Israeli Air Force losses of the Yom Kippur War number at 102 aircraft, including 32 F-4 Phantoms, 53 A-4 Skyhawks, 11 Dassault Mirages, and 6 IAI Sa'ars
  
  I doubt that Israel would have achieved anywhere near the level of success of the 1967 war opening air strikes.