For the past several years, Qassam and Grad rocket attacks on Israel’s southern district have provided Israel with an excuse to invade and bomb the Gaza Strip and terrorize its caged and defenseless populace. The pretext is simple: Israelis have the right to defend themselves from rocket attacks, and the Palestinian Authority is obligated to prevent such attacks. If it refuses or is unable to do so, Israel must go on the offensive, civilian casualties notwithstanding.
But Israel was taking defensive action as well. The Iron Dome missile defense system, developed by Israel on American dime, was seen as an important development in Israel’s national defense efforts. Being strictly defensive and reactive, and apparently highly effective at its mission of shooting down incoming rockets, it provided Israeli society with the patriotic shot in the arm it sorely needs in times of national anxiety.
There is only one problem with Iron Dome: it appears to be ineffective and little more than a sophisticated public relations stunt. Theodore Postol is an MIT professor and a world-renowned expert on missile defense systems who in recent articles (1, 2) and interviews (1, 2) claimed that an analysis of videos showing presumed interceptions shows that Iron Dome intercepts no more than five percent of all incoming rockets. This figure is seventeen-fold lower than the official Israeli government claim that Iron Dome boasts an interception rate of 86%.
Postol is not alone. Mordechay (Moti) Shefer is an Israeli aeronautics engineer with a Ph.D. from Stanford. He is an expert on missile defense systems and was instrumental in the development of the Python air-air missile and the Arrow anti-missile interceptor. In 1978, Israel’s Defense Minister awarded him the Israel Security Prize. In a recent radio interview, Shefer said that “no Iron Dome missile has ever collided with a single rocket” and that “the parts we see on the ground are from Iron Dome itself”. He referred to the entire Iron Dome operation as a “sound and light show”.
To be fair, not all experts think the system is a complete failure. Richard M. Lloyd, Warhead Technology Consultant at Tesla Laboratory, calculated that Iron Dome’s success rate is 30%-40%, far higher than Postol’s figure but still less than half the official Israeli number.
How can such a fantastic hoax be perpetrated on the Israeli population? Surely someone from the Israeli government or military can explain why Postol, Shefer and Lloyd are wrong. Retired Brigadier General Daniel (Danny) Gold, Ph.D., an Israeli engineer and the “father of Iron Dome”, was asked to do so in a radio interview immediately following Shefer’s. Here is my translation of the relevant portion of Gold’s reply (audio in Hebrew): “I’m not getting into personal affairs. He may believe anything he wishes. I don’t know. Any layperson can figure out what the truth is… It’s too far removed from reality… I don’t know… I’m not going to get into an argument about technology. It works, I mean, there’s nothing to argue about. The system works.”
“Prove it!” demanded the interviewer.
“I should prove it?” continued Gold. “Check it out for yourself and see… the system defends very well… everything is recorded… everything is well researched… everything is well known…”.
Known to whom? Researched by whom? The whole system is a state secret. Gold’s reply amounts to little more than an arrogant “trust me, pal”. A compelling rebuttal, indeed.
But the story doesn’t end here. The careful reader might ask what happens to the 95% of rockets that are not intercepted by Iron Dome. If Shefer’s and Postol’s analyses are correct, one would expect a barrage of rockets landing on Israel’s cities, but it appears such hits are rare. One answer to is that since Grads are very inaccurate, most hits fall in open (unpopulated) areas where they cause no damage, but this is not a satisfying answer. Iron Dome doesn’t even attempt to intercept Grads that are not about to fall in open areas, so the 5% interception rate can only be applied to rockets aimed at populated areas, leaving dozens of rockets a day unaccounted for.
Now comes the interesting part: Shefer claims that those intercepted rockets don’t even exist! Iron Dome missiles are aimed not at real rockets but at computer-generated phantoms created by the Israeli military on Iron Dome’s radar system, and the explosions seen in the Negev skies are those of the Iron Dome missile blowing up alone. Shefer doesn’t deny that some rockets are being launched into Israel from Gaza but argues that the actual number of rockets fired and intercepted may be significantly lower than that reported by the Israeli government.
If this is true—and no Israeli official has even attempted to provide a serious refutation thus far—then this would be an unprecedented conspiracy perpetrated by the Israeli government and military. The ends of this ploy are clear enough: to justify ruthless attacks on Gaza under the guise of defending the Israeli population, to scare Israelis into blind support for this and future wars, and to squeeze more money out of Congress.
Unfortunately, the possible ploy seems to have worked beautifully as a majority of Israelis support the assault on Gaza. Even Israeli novelist Amos Oz—usually a dovish humanist and a relentless supporter of the two-state solution—voiced reserved support for the recent assault using the trite “what would you do if your neighbor were shooting at you from his porch” argument, as if a population of almost two million people can be reduced metaphorically to a lone madman.
Israeli citizens would be well advised to wake up and ask themselves who their real enemy is. Next time they hear the wail of sirens and run to the nearest bomb shelter, they’d be wise to remember that the rockets they are fearing and fleeing may be no more than virtual dots on a computer screen, dots created by their government in order to scare them into blind patriotic conformity. And the explosion they’ll hear seconds later will be the sound of an Iron Dome missile destroying itself, much like Israeli society under its current war mania.
holy crow.
I read that before Iron dome, last time around, three Israelis died, and the same number died this time, with Iron dome.
This guy thinks Iron Dome in operation is nothing but a light show: http://www.democracynow.org/2014/7/31/iron_dome_or_iron_sieve_evidence
I’m amazed at how so many people – including some who are normally highly sceptical of anything Israeli – are taking reports of the ‘success’ of the Iron Dome at face value. The ONLY source we have for the number of ‘interceptions’ – and indeed of the number of rockets landing in Israel – is the IDF. Since they have an obvious vested interest in portraying the Iron Dome as stunningly successful and in exaggerating or playing down – depending on prevailing PR needs – the number of rocket strikes, nobody should even consider relying on them as a source. And yet they do.
Given that the rockets have killed about 5O people in a decade, ie less than 5 a year, it’s not really that surprising that only 1 Israeli was killed by a rocket over the past month, especially bearing in mind improved Israeli early warning systems and the fact that Hamas seem to be firing rockets from the tunnels, therefore further reducing their impact. The Iron Domes seems like more of an Iron Sieve.
” and to squeeze more money out of Congress.”
Is the explaination.
There have been numerous articles by experts over the years on the fallacy of the Iron Dome.
$$$$$…the parasite never sleeps….blood and money…money and blood.
I think the difference in interpretation revolves around the meaning of interception. If interception means “Iron Dome rocket explodes near incoming projectile” then the interception rate is high. If the meaning is “Iron Dome rocket destroys payload of incoming projectile” then the rate is low. So Postol challenges the effectiveness of the interception, rather than the rate of interception.