Well fancy that! BBC changes its tune on Israeli missile defence - by Hadar Sela

"...Technology has advanced dramatically with some of the most significant strides being made by Israel. Its interceptor systems and their associated radars – funded in large part by the US – have shown themselves spectacularly successful, even though against a full-scale onslaught even Israel’s system would be sorely tested.” Well fancy that!

Hadar Sela..
BBC Watch..
02 August '17..

Back in March 2013, the BBC’s defence correspondent Jonathan Marcus wrote an article entitled “Israel’s Iron Dome: Doubts over success rate” which appeared on the Middle East page of the BBC News website.

“A leading US expert on missile defence has raised doubts about the efficacy of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system.

Israeli officials say it hit some 84% of the targets engaged in last year’s conflict with Hamas in Gaza.

But Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggests the defence system’s success rate may have been “drastically lower”.”

Mr Marcus took great exception at the time to our critique of the claims made by his source. Six weeks later, the BBC News website published filmed and written reports by Kevin Connolly on the same subject, asking “Does Israel’s Iron Dome actually work?”.

Fast forward to July 4th 2017...

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Israeli security experts, assumptions, and the lessons of the the next missile war - by Jonathan Tobin

...This wouldn’t be the first time the assumptions of Israeli military leaders were mistaken—the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 2006 Lebanon War being just two such examples. The lessons of the last and the next missile war don’t just apply to those tasked with defending the Jewish state against Hamas and Hezbollah. They also apply to those who would further burden its defense by the creation of yet another potential terrorist missile launching pad in the West Bank.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
09 December '16..
Link: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/the-lessons-of-the-next-missile-war/

Israelis have slipped back into a degree of complacence about the missile threat from Gaza since the war in 2015. The same could be said about their level of concern about a repeat of the 2006 conflict with Lebanon in which the terrorist group rained down missiles on northern Israel. Due to the success of the Iron Dome anti-missile system developed with the United States and the devastating counter-attacks against both Hezbollah and Hamas by the Israel Defense Forces, the terrorist groups are believed to understand they have more to lose than to gain from another war. But assumptions are no guarantee, and the Israeli government and military may not be taking into account the increase in the arsenals possessed by their enemies or whether sufficient resources have been allocated to ensure adequate civil defense in the event of another war with either or both.

That was the conclusion of a recently published report by Israel’s State Controller about Operation Protective Edge — Israel’s counterattack against Hamas terrorists in 2014. It pointed out shortcomings in the government and army’s response to the war as well as the possible impact on future conflicts. Up to two million Israelis don’t have access to adequate shelters in the event of missile or rocket attacks. The country’s early warning system also was found to be faulty and may not be able to detect all possible forms of attack or give citizens adequate time to seek shelter.

After extensive re-armament campaigns financed in part by Iran, both Hamas and Hezbollah may now be in possession of so many rockets that Israel’s highly successful missile defense systems might be overwhelmed. Throw in the possibility that as a result of the Syrian civil war, Hezbollah may now be in possession of at least some of the Assad regime’s chemical weapons arsenal, and the report paints a potentially fearful picture.

IDF Says Massive Hezbollah Rocket Threat May Obviate Highly Anticipated Iron Dome Defense System

Jacob Levkowicz
JINSA
24 July '10

On Monday, Israel’s highly anticipated Iron Dome anti-rocket system passed its final operations test, following months of speculation and political haggling in both Jerusalem and Washington. While Monday’s test may have helped eliminate concerns about system’s ability to respond to short-range rocket threats, Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) leadership has indicated that ground operations would be still be necessary in the face of a large barrage of rockets and analysts continue to claim that Iron Dome’s high cost may well prevent it from ever entering serial production.

Rocket Threat Places Israel’s Civilian Population on the “Front Lines”

The rocket threat from Gaza and Lebanon poses several challenges to IDF planners who traditionally have placed the civilian population within the conceptual innermost “security shell,” far removed from the front lines of combat. The findings of a recent round table discussion featuring high-ranking Israeli defense officials and representatives from JINSA, the Near East South Asia (NESA) Center of the Pentagon’s National Defense University, and the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), however, shatter this illusion. Discussion centered on the implications of civilian population centers becoming the new front lines of combat.

(Read full report)

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