Non-Subscriber Extract
Israel develops comprehensive defences against varied missile, rocket threats
By Alon Ben-David
13 December 2007
In the next three years, Israel's missile defence alignment will be enhanced and realigned with three new layers of protection filling in gaps in the existing two.
Current defences comprise the Arrow anti-ballistic missile system as the upper tier and the MIM-104 Patriot Advanced Capability-2 (PAC-2) theatre defence system as a lower tier. The new five-tier missile shield will evolve to encompass the Arrow 3 as the upper, anti-ballistic missile layer, while David's Sling and Iron Cap will enter service to offer two new anti-rocket layers lower down.
While the threat, ranging from improvised Palestinian Qassam rockets to the Iranian Shahab 3 medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM), is not new, it was only after the 2006 war in Lebanon that Israel began considering missile defence as a key element in its defence doctrine.
More than 4,200 rockets rained on the Israeli rear in the 33 days of the country's war with the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, Hizbullah, graphically demonstrating Israel's vulnerability to attacks on its population centres and the Israel Defence Force's (IDF's) limited capability to defend against rocket fire.
"There is no other country in the world threatened with such a vast variety of rockets and missiles," Uzi Rubin, former director of Israel's Missile Defence Organisation (IMDO), tells Jane's. "There isn't a single spot in the country free of rocket or missile threat."
So dire is the perceived need to develop protection against rockets and missiles that Defence Minister Ehud Barak has tied it to his political platform as a precondition of future progress in the peace process with the Palestinians.
He believes that without a convincing missile shield, any withdrawal from Palestinian territory in the West Bank will expose central Israel - where most of the country's population and strategic sites are located - to increased rocket attacks. To underline the argument, he points to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which has brought daily rocket attacks on surrounding Israeli towns ever since.
As such, Barak claims that until the appropriate technology is fielded, occupation is the only means to prevent launches. "In several years, Israel will have a 90 per cent protection against any attempt to launch rockets or missiles at it," he recently declared. "With time, this percentage will become even higher."
Although missiles were introduced into the Middle East some 40 years ago, it is only in the last 20 years that they have become the main threat to Israel.
Image: A battery of Qassam missile launchers uncovered by the IDF. Planners assert that occupation is currently the only way to stop the launches. (Israel Defence Force)