Israel seeks new weapons against growing missile threat

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- Besieged on three sides by 50,000 missiles, Israel is gambling on two ambitious, pioneering ballistic missile defense systems to ensure its survival.

"We have today our country covered from both sides by something that may be nearing altogether 50,000 rockets and missiles," Israeli Ambassador to the United States Sallai Meridor told editors and reporters at The Washington Times Tuesday.

Both systems are the technological gambles that, if they work, will give the United States as well as Israel unprecedented extended capabilities in ballistic missile defense. But both of them also represent ambitious engineering leaps into the dark. And they are both being pushed hard by Israel's ambitious and immensely experienced defense minister, former chief of staff and former prime minister, Ehud Barak.

A month ago, in a move widely reported in Israel but largely ignored outside it, the Israeli air force publicly displayed the two systems: the already controversial Iron Dome very-short-range interceptors for missiles fired from a range of approximately 3 to 24 miles, and the David's Sling system to intercept.

The Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz then reported that Iron Dome was scheduled to go online during the first six months of 2010. The newspaper reported that the Israel Defense Forces already had tested the system several times and had claimed those tests successful. Iron Dome was created and is being produced by Rafael, an Israeli defense corporation, the newspaper said.

As previously reported in BMD Focus, Iron Dome is designed to protect Israeli centers of population and military bases against missiles such as the very low-tech but easy to build Qassams that Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, has been firing at the development town of Sderot from neighboring Gaza, as well as the Grad and Katyusha multiple rocket launch systems used by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Party of God, from southern Lebanon during Israel's July 2006 military operations against it.

The super-secret David's Sling system is designed to shoot down missiles that the Israelis describe as medium-range -- in effect, missiles fired from Syria and from other locations at distances of 24 to 150 miles. Haaretz said those missile interceptors were projected to be deployed by 2012 or 2013. David's Sling is also sometimes referred to as "Magic Wand."

At the beginning of 2007, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz approved the Iron Dome and Magic Wand anti-missile projects.

Back in January, as previously reported in our BMD Watch sister column, Olmert visited the Rafael Corp. and personally inspected the Stunner missile that will be used in the David's Sling/Magic Wand system.

While Peretz was defense minister, David's Sling and Iron Dome remained a shambles, with the widely criticized Peretz being accused of failing to make basic procurement and production decisions and delaying the signing of vital contracts to push ahead with their development.

Barak, by contrast, has made the successful development of both programs the highest national defense priority and hopes to revive his political credentials to win the next general election, after his earlier disastrous stint as prime minister in 1999-2000.

Iron Dome, however, already has become the subject of fierce internal controversy in Israel, with its critics charging it will not be able to defend Sderot and similar sites against short-range missiles like the Qassams.

Israel already has its own famous Arrow interceptor to defend against intermediate-range ballistic missiles, which is built by Israel Aerospace Industries and Boeing. Israel also has the excellent Raytheon Patriot Advanced Capability-3 to intercept incoming ballistic missiles at lower altitudes. But the new programs are designed to defend the country against much more numerous missiles of far shorter range.