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Moshe Dayan, the one-eyed general who led Israel to military victories in the 1956 Suez war and the Six-Day War of 1967, believed in what he called a detonatorstrategy for the Jewish state.

"When someone wishes to force on us things which are detrimental to our existence, there will be an explosion which will shake up wide areas, and realizing this, such elements in the international system will do their utmost to prevent damage to us."

Speaking to Israel's military elite after the Suez campaign, Dayan acknowledged that his was not a "constructive thesis."