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The Iron Dome anti-missile system has saved a lot of lives. It has also allowed Israel to avoid dealing with the underlying problems facing the country.
Picture walking down the street and a fellow pulls out a gun and aims it directly at you. He fires but just as the bullet leaves the gun, someone opens a car door where the bullet lodges. The shooter is apprehended and charges are being prepared. You demand that the fellow be charged with attempted murder: it was obvious that he acted in a premeditated manner and intentionally fired the gun towards your person. The DA tells you that you got away without a scratch; the most he is willing to charge is illegal discharge of a weapon. These types of questions show up throughout the ancient Talmud: intention versus outcome. A guy throws a rock to kill A but A ducks and he kills B whom the thrower did not know was even there. What is his punishment from a rabbinical court?
When one looks at the Iran attack as well as this week’s Hezbollah action, in both cases the bad guys sent in excess of 300 projectiles towards Israel. While they tried to peddle a story that they only directed their missiles, rockets, and drones toward military targets, the reality is that many of the incoming weapons were heading towards civilian areas. Over our neighborhood in Jerusalem we witnessed large explosions of interceptor rockets taking out incoming Iranian weapons. What Hezbollah sent into Israel this week also included many unguided munitions that would have exploded in civilian areas had they not been taken out by Iron Dome or other anti-missile platforms. Last week, Hezbollah rockets destroyed several homes in the emptied Golan town of Katzrin. If people had been there, they would be dead.
On the one hand, Iron Dome saves lives. One would be hard-pressed to perform a complete analysis of outcomes with and without Iron Dome to know how many people could have been injured or killed if Israel did not have this anti-projectile system partially funded—like the Arrow 4 interceptor—by the US government. So, Iron Dome is a life saver and other countries are looking to purchase batteries for their own protection. But there is a darker side to Iron Dome. Through its use, successive Israeli governments have simply ignored the basic threats the nation faces from multiple bad actors.
Iron Dome found its first use knocking off rockets from Gaza. Israelis in the south of the country had suffered for years from katyushas and other indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza. Iron Dome’s radar and computer calculate projectile trajectory, and if something is heading towards a populated area, it fires one or more interceptor missiles (at around $50k each). Let’s imagine that there was no Iron Dome. In the old days, when Grad or other rockets were fired at Israeli cities, citizens were trained to seek cover from the first second of hearing an air raid siren. One waited for the rocket explosion and the all clear signal to go back to normal life. If hundreds of Israelis were God forbid being killed by Gazan or Hezbollah rocket fire, the state of Israel would have had no choice but to remove the threat. Iron Dome made its first interception of a rocket in 2011. So for the twelve years between that event and 10/7, Israel simply lived on borrowed time. Rather than suffer huge casualties from rocket fire and wipe out Hamas, Israel swatted away dangerous projectiles and pushed off dealing with the Gazan menace. If Israelis in 2012 had become fed up with burying a couple dozen fellow countrymen every week from rocket impacts, Gaza might already be the Singapore of the Middle East—in Israeli hands. Just by comparison, every SCUD fired between Iran and Iraq had an average of 500 casualties.
And this is the problem with the anti-missile technology: it causes Israel to simply avoid the root problem of its enemies all around. The Iranians wanted to kill a couple hundred Israelis when they sent their air armada this way. That only one Bedouin girl was injured was a colossal failure for the mullahs. But it also meant that Israel’s hands were tied in wiping out Iran’s oil production and nuclear installations. The relatively free hand granted by the Biden administration to deal with Gaza came at the price of 1,200 dead and 250 kidnapped. If 10/7 had led to five deaths, Israel would not have just received its 500th air delivery of US weaponry (not including the 100 ships doing the same). When there are mass casualties, Israel acts and is allowed by Western nudnikim to act. When the deaths and injuries are relatively few, Israel is told to cool it. Hezbollah definitely wanted to kill a lot of Jews this week. Had they, maybe Beirut would already be a parking lot. That they did not—thank God—means that Hezbollah lives to keep fighting as Israel cannot give a response to what Nasrallah planned to do versus the actual results of killing chickens instead of people.
I am truly grateful to God when attacks from whomever do not lead to casualties. The Iron Dome and other systems are modern marvels in their ability to identify, lock on and destroy incoming projectiles. A laser-based system is in development but apparently is not yet ready for primetime. But one has to recognize that by putting umbrellas over our heads we are not dealing with the root problems. If Israel unleashed everything it has on Hezbollah and Hamas, there would be no more rockets because there would be no one left to fire them. But since the casualties are in trickles (the injured girl in Iran attack, and one dead sailor and two injured from Iron Dome interceptor debris this week), there is no impetus or world green light to take care of the problems once and for all.
We have all had home projects that offer two solutions: a quick fix that will hold for a little while or a total repair job that will take time, be expensive, and be unpleasant. Israel has gone for the high-tech quick fix of knocking down rockets instead of the strategic move of wiping out the ones sending them.
Israel does not need a green light from anyone.
Apparently they do need permission. Otherwise this excellent article would not have been written. The entire concept of war was changed in Vietnam. How would you like to have Chinese troops riding around your town “keeping the peace”? Tacitus was correct. “they created a desert and called it peace.” is the only answer in a war.
The USA did not allowcarms exports to the Jews in 1946. There was no green light. American Jews sent arms anyway. They practically dared the Truman administration to bust them….and look almost as bad as the Nazis in the eyes of average Americans in the process.
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Israel in both senses – the state and the people – need no permission to be Jews, to stand up as Jews, to kick Nazi ass with whatever weaponry is necessary.
It does when my taxpayer money pay for the goodies
This is very short sighted of you since Israel is the key to peace in the Middle East and therefore the civilized world (with complete backing of the US). That’s how it works.
That’s not the fault of Iron Dome, it’s the fault of the people who ignored the threats.
The concept of sword and shield is fundamental to the history of war. Both are needed.
It would be good to have a Dome that redirects the rockets back the trajectory to the source.
That would take out a lot f mosques and schools of course.
When Lazer weaponry is perfected, we’ll be able to do that.
If Israel can do that, Iran can go as nuclear as it likes, because it will get back what it gives out. Totally proportionate.
My only problem with Israeli defences is that they couldn’t leave just a wee gap over the Dome on the Rock. It would be poetic justice if Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah busted the al-Aqsa mosque.
Yeah, they could program Iron Dome to allow hits on the Dome of the Rock.
I’m a nurse (30 yrs) with advanced education, with a heavy work history in the psychiatric milieu. The US Deep State with their Marxist Vax mandates have pretty much squelched my career and others in my field. It’s very depressing. However, I want to say, when I find myself feeling overwhelmed and defeated, I remind myself that my situation cold be worse. Israel’s predicament comes to my mind’s forefront. I cannot imagine living in such psychological turmoil and trauma like the Israeli’s face on a daily basis. I sincerely pray for their victory in this battle. For their endurance to NOT back down! To NOT make concessions in belief that a ceasefire will bring peace. Israel will Always be! The Lord made a covenant with Abraham He will never break His Word! A liar the Lord is NOT!
Stay strong and well done for resisting their tyranny.
This is a very interesting article. I’ve never heard the author’s question posed before.
As I understand the article, the Iron Dome has prevented Israeli deaths. But on the other side, by preventing the deaths, the Israeli Government has been able to ignore the fact that Israel and all Israeli’s are in mortal and eventual danger.
So what to do?
I think the way Netanyahu is handling the problem in Gaza and with Hamas (ie with the strategy of eradicating Hamas) is the proper strategy (Why 1500 Israeli deaths and many Israeli/American hostages had to die before Netanyahu would use this strategy is another story). But how about the North and Hezbollah and Iran?
I don’t know what Netanyahu or Israel should do. But this I do know. You don’t let evil grow stronger (especially in the Middle East, where doing nothing is seen as weakness) before you address it If you do then the Evil will eventually overwhelm you-and you will find it is too late to do anything.
If I were an enemy of Israel, I shouldn’t worry too much about the Iron Dome. If I knew anything at all about the history of Israel, I’d be much more concerned with Israel’s invincible “God Dome”, and how soon it will come into play. Like REALLY SOON, if Israel’s enemies keep it up.
I wrote earlier about if you don’t deal with evil, it will only get stronger and soon overwhelm you-so that even if you try to persevere and destroy it, you won’t be able to deal with it successfully anymore. It’s too late.
However, the author of this article makes, indirectly, another valid point I think. While the Iron Dome has saved a lot of lives, another guardian of Israel that used superior technology, the fences, which Hamas eventually overpowered on 10/7, hypnotized the Israeli government into inaction and led to the slaughter of 1500 and of hostages taken .
But just as the fences (which protected Israel for a long while) were eventually overcome, so might the Iron Dome’s effectiveness (either by Iran and Hezbollah using more elusive missiles or by Iranian missiles being developed that are too fast for the Iron Dome to prevail).
Using the Iron Dome as a defensive strategy is, in my opinion, a mistake, even if it is successful. The evil that is in Iran, Hezollah, Houthis, and Hamas must be eradicated.
The Iron Dome, so far eradicates the missiles but it is the hand that fires the missiles that must be cut off. The Iron Dome is a tactic to be used; it-like the Gaza gates-it is not a strategy.
This was shown on 10/7-and should not be forgotten by the Israeli government.