Israel's Iron Dome Illusions

Iron Dome: The missile system iN Ashkelon, Israel. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

Israel three weeks ago deployed its Iron Dome rocket and missile defense system. The government of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is very proud. The system cost some $200 million, the the Obama administration was more than happy to foot the $200 bill, even though Israel already receives $3 billion a year in U.S. military aid.

The anti-rocket system was developed after the 2006 war with Hezbollah, across the Lebanese border, and after Hamas began shelling Israeli civilian areas indiscriminately, albeit with dismal success, which is partly why the Iron Dome system has faced some serious criticism from segments of the Israeli public: a single Iron Dome missile costs about $100,000. It is fired at $5 rockets, with dubious chances of lasting success in spite of the occasional hit: Hamas, or whoever else is aiming rockets at Israel, is not about to run out of the cheap missiles, nor will it be inconveniencing to those who launch them to fire a few of them simultaneously, and literally play a cat and mouse game with the Israeli batteries, which they can easily overwhelm by sheer numbers--physical and financial.

Missile defense systems don't usually work for both those reasons. Witness the United States' ongoing, 30-year folly with ballistic missile defense systems, which have so far cost well over $150 billion for virtually no payoff. Investing in negotiations and peace is a lot6 cheaper and usually more effective. Again: witness the result of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. If those two mastodons could work things out, surely Israel and its neighbors could as well. Especially now, with the Middle East aflame against its tyrannies and 300 million Middle Easterners eager to turn the page on retarding authoritarianism, and maybe all those distracting obsessions with enmity toward Israel, too. There are more pressing matters at home.

OK, so Hezbollah and Hamas may not be there yet. But nor is Israel.

Yoel Marcus's latest column in Haaretz is instructive. "The fact that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Barak have their pictures taken in front of the Iron Dome missile defence system sends me into despair," he writes. "It would be better had they been photographed on the occasion of the signing of a peace treaty with the Palestinians instead of boasting about a device that fires expensive missiles (about $100,000 apiece ) and protects a tiny part of the home front on the periphery of the country, which is relatively exposed to the 80,000 missiles of Hezbollah, Syria and Hamas.

"The Jewish mind invents patents for us, but the Iron Dome goes counter to the strategy of Israel's first prime minister David Ben-Gurion, to transfer the war to enemy territory and to end it quickly." He adds: "With the surroundings raging, Obama believes that a diplomatic solution here will contribute to stabilizing the region. The U.S. administration's starting point is that a status quo is not sustainable. Sooner or later it leads to a bad outcome, while for Netanyahu personally the present situation of no movement is preferable."

The missile batteries, in other words, are a political mask for what ails Netanyahu: an inability to make a move to break the status quo, to look for peace, to quit posturing. Iron Dome will not stop the missiles from Hezbollah or Hamas. They will not stop the next war. Only negotiations will. Netanyahu appears uninterested. Iron, you see, rusts, and weakens: the history of iron curtains isn't grand. Domes aren't likely to be grander.

See Also:

• Iron Dome Missile Defense
• The IDF's "Environmental" Tank
• Hamas-Israeli Conflict - Background and Primers
• Hezbollah Recklessly Taunts Israel