This week Israel has been telling us of the successful testing of its Iron Dome defence system. Iron Dome was originally touted as the strategic answer to the primitive and homemade Qassam rockets fired at Israel from various groups within Gaza, as well as the more sophisticated Katyusha rockets which Israel claims are being stockpiled in their thousands by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
However, far from being the unprecedented technological success Israel would have us believe, the inception, development and final implementation of Iron Dome highlights a number of inconsistencies – and possibly even outright deception and deliberate obfuscation – in the arguments which the State of Israel and its apologists have put forward to justify the existence Iron Dome.
The Iron Dome project was initiated in 2007 by the then Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz against the wishes of military commanders who “fought bitterly to defeat any effort to fund and develop a system of defense against short and mid-range missiles”.
What makes the decision of Israel to go against military advice and spend years and millions of dollars on the Iron Dome project particularly questionable was that in 2007 there was already a defence system which could do everything the Israelis appeared to require.
The Phalanx system – which the U.S. had been using successfully in Iraq since June 2006 to intercept rocket, artillery and and mortar attacks – was specifically rejected as a solution by Israel to the problem of intercepting inbound rockets, despite the fact that the Israeli Air force wrote of Phalanx that it was “the most prepared weapons defense systems among those inspected.”
Phalanx was already battle proven, operational, and available. Furthermore, when compared to the cost of developing and testing an entirely new system, it was cheap.
Iron Dome uses missiles to intercept an inbound attack. Each Iron Dome missile is estimated to cost $100,000. Conversely, the Phalanx system uses inexpensive (in military terms at least) armour-piercing rounds.
One only has to apply a basic understanding of economics to understand that inbound ‘homemade’ rockets from Gaza costing perhaps at most $500 (some analysts estimate the cost at less than this) each to produce will cause Israel
to bleed economically, if not literally.
As early as November 2007 doubts were expressed by military analysts as to the economic and technical viability of the design and development of a missile based system to counter short-range rockets:
“It will have to be able to identify the launch of a rocket, analyze the data and feed it to the intercepting missile for launch, all within 20 seconds, the flight time of a Qassam. While it may be possible to surmount the technological obstacles to achieving this, it may not be possible to do so at a reasonable cost… Each interceptor missile will cost between $30,000 and $50,000. The rockets that they will intercept, however, cost only a few dollars to make. Some analysts fear that reliance on Iron Dome may lead to a costly arms race, in which Palestinian militants and Hezbollah would have the advantage.”
If the project was barely viable, if at all, when each missile was projected to have cost “between $30,000 and $50,000” what does it mean today when the confirmed cost of each Iron Dome missile is $100,000?
In February 2008, veteran Israeli defence analyst and senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University Dr. Reuven Pedatzur noted that tests of Iron Dome showed that it was capable of defending only against rockets fired from 4 or more kilometres away, rendering it “useless” for the defence of Sderot inhabitants, who, being “less than two kilometres from Beit Hanun, from which the rockets are fired” in particular feel the brunt of rocket attacks from Gaza. As a result, the then Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, was “compelled to approve recommendations to fortify 8,000 homes in Sderot and the communities of the “Gaza envelope,” to the tune of NIS 300 million [approx $77 million]”. Fortifications which were drastically scaled back to include just 3,600 homes just a day later.
And so the incompetence – or perhaps cynicism – of the Israeli government is laid bare.
Having rejected a fully operational, battle proven and relatively cheap defence system, the Israeli government embarked upon the expensive and lengthy development of Iron Dome with the distinct aim of stopping short-range Qassam rockets. However. Because Iron Dome took so long to develop, and would not work as initially thought, money was required to fortify Israeli communities who could already have been benefiting from the acquisition and installation of the Phalanx system.
But the criticism does not stop there.
In July 2008 it was revealed that those developing the system were given a “rare exemption” that entitled them to work on the Jewish Sabbath in order to finish ahead of schedule. Early tests of the Iron Dome system at this time further raised concerns amongst defence analysts – if not the Israeli military – that Iron Dome would not be effective against short-range rockets such as those being fired from Gaza.
Fears that have apparently since been proven correct.
In March 2009 Israel’s own State Comptroller reported with regards to the Iron Dome and Magic Wand systems (Magic Wand is a separate but allied system to Iron Dome supposed to operate at “a different aerial floor”) “flaws [in the programs] may lead to the development and stockpiling of systems that don’t fully answer the operative needs and may lead to unnecessary spending and time wasted.”
A criticism that has since come home to roost.
Exactly how can one rationally explain why Israel continued with such a huge military project given that it would take years to develop and test to operational standards, cost millions and leave Israeli citizens prone to rocket attacks in the meantime?
An answer can be found in the form of naked Israeli economic nationalism.
In April 2009, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak made it clear that he wanted to purchase a Phalanx system at a cost of $25 million. The Phalanx, he announced, would form part of a multi-layer defence system to defend against rocket attacks. But he met with political opposition within Israel from officials who “objected to the proposed Vulcan-Phalanx purchase since it is not made in Israel.”
Other sources were less tactful in their analysis:
“To adopt a new, low cost system would possibly deny an Israeli company a sizeable chunk of the defence budget. It could also possibly lead to the cancellation of the Iron Dome programme altogether, which means egg on face for a lot of high powered Israeli politicians and military personnel, and is therefore unthinkable.”
Comments on Israeli TV by a senior Israeli defence official referring to “developing blue-and-white [Israeli-made] systems” appear to indicate an Israeli government preference to investing in the Israeli defence industry rather than finding the right solution to strategic problems.
Israel was then led to believe, by Ehud Barak, that the Iron Dome, Magic Wand, and Phalanx systems were all part of a multi-layered defence against inbound rocket attacks. This in retrospect seems a wise course of action, but it was certainly not the initial intention of the Israeli government who in the past touted -and seemingly still do given recent reports – Iron Dome alone as the answer to inbound attacks from Gaza.
It was only as the costs mounted and technological and strategic limitations of Iron Dome became public that the Israeli government settled belatedly upon the multi-layered defence strategy.
Just as the Israeli State Comptroller had foretold, Israel has – apparently – unnecessarily wasted time building and stockpiling a defence system which doesn’t answer strategic needs.
But was there a quite separate motive for ensuring development of a “blue and white” missile defence system?
Reports in May 2010 suggest that Singapore assisted in financing the development of Iron Dome and in return is expecting to take delivery of “several Iron Dome systems to deploy on its territory.” Israeli daily Haaretz went on to ask why “…after the system was developed and one battery had been deployed [at] an Israel Defense Forces base, it turned out that the Defense Ministry had no budget for additional batteries. In that case, why was there a need to develop a system for which there is no budget and which the IDF does not intend to deploy?”
There was a quick and easy solution to this problem though.
Israel’s apologists appear to be pointing at Barack Obama’s recent agreement to provide $205 million of US taxpayer money towards funding the scheme as some sort of recognition of Israeli security concerns. An alternative analysis – in fact, the only one that is supported by verifiable facts – is that Israel was running short of both time and money needed to implement Iron Dome and had to go cap in hand to American tax payers, as Reuters reports, in order to “expand what they can produce and deploy, and how quickly they’re able to do it”.
Reuters also reports that Iron Dome is effective only between 5 and 70 kilometres, which supports earlier analysts fears that it would not be effective in defending Sderot.
Reuven Pedatzure questioned the results of the most recent test of Iron Dome explained that after seeing the limited footage available of the test, his “requests to the defense establishment for details of the rocket ranges against which Iron Dome was deployed in the latest tests were not answered”.
What should American taxpayers think when they learn that they have provided a $205 million subsidy to an Israeli defence company to complete a system that was not fit for purpose from the very beginning, but which it is now reported was designed and developed in order to meet the security objectives not of Sderot, but of Singapore?
Perhaps it is too cynical to imagine that Israel rejected an existing system which was ideally suited to their defence needs in order to build a commercial missile defence system which could be sold by Israel on the international arms market at a profit. But if we view Iron Dome as an Israeli home-territory defence system it fails on many levels. Israel will conceivably run out of Iron Dome missiles – even if they have the budget to pay for more them – before Gaza groups and Hezbollah get through their own stockpiles in the case of concerted or co-ordinated attacks against Israel from Gaza and/or Lebanon.
And just what are Israeli citizens to presume about a government that failed to budget enough money to design and build the required amount of Iron Dome systems in the time alloted as well as test the systems and train defence forces in their use? Haaretz also astonishingly reports that “Despite the completion of development and the announcement that the system is operational, there is still no intention to deploy the first two batteries, which will be ready in the fall, to protect Sderot and other communities in the south.”
Like the majority of countries, Israel is feeling the effects of a global recession. So when over 20% of Israelis are actually below the poverty line, how long can the Israeli government sustain making such poor financial and military decisions?
It is clear that, from the outset, Israel did not have the funds required to develop Iron Dome independently and deploy it it enough numbers to protect the areas of Israel that it was being created to defend. If Singapore contributed to the initial design and development and expects to take delivery of Iron Dome systems in return, is it not the case that U.S. taxpayers not only subsidise the Israeli defence industry, but also that of Singapore, whilst Israeli citizens pay twice the price as they contributed to the development of systems which may not be used to defend them?
Iron Dome has already proven more expensive than the Phalanx system and represents a further burden upon Israeli government budgets at a time when Israeli health, education and welfare systems suffer in order to fund enticements and tax incentives to maintain increasingly expensive settlements on the East side of the Green Line.
In December 2008, Israel attacked Gaza, ostensibly to halt rocket attacks that had resumed after Israel broke a ceasefire by making a military incursion into Gaza. The State of Israel has publicly conceded that during the ceasefire Hamas fired no rockets (though other groups in Gaza did) and statistics released by Israel show a substantial decrease in rocket fire during the ceasefire.
Israel’s attack on Gaza was – in the terms of the Goldstone Report – disproportionate, and that also “Statements by political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza leave little doubt that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy”.
Would Israel have needed to attack Gaza in December 2008 if it had stuck to the ceasefire or even purchased the Phalanx system instead of initiating the Iron Dome project? How many lives – both Israeli and Palestinian – could have been saved had the State of Israel exercised a more critical and robust approach to the peace process, let alone the funding and acquisition of expensive military technology.
Hamas has demonstrated that it can keep to an agreed ceasefire, showing us that the way of peace is much less costly than the way of war, though for Israel, seemingly a lot less profitable. Peace may cost Israel the price of it’s clearly expansionist aspirations, but not as much as war is already costing it’s civilian population.
Perhaps the most offensive of all is that Israel has yet to place a Phalanx system – the first-line of defence in the multi-layered missile interception strategy – on operational duty.
