Current events in the news have once again cast a glaring light on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, with the House recently passing $1B in legislation to aid Israel in replenishing its Iron Dome. For the average American struggling to pay health care costs during a pandemic and a government unwilling to provide universal healthcare, it might be infuriating to learn that Israeli citizens beat the US in the Better Life Index on health, safety and life satisfaction. As our House representatives who voted no on the massive bill, quickly found out, saying, “No,” to Israel with quickly get one branded as an anti-Semite or terrorist sympathizer, thus effectively shutting down any debate. Let’s explore…
What is and isn’t Israel’s Iron Dome system? The Iron Dome is a system in southern Israel that is used to protect Israeli life and property primarily along the border Israel shares with Gaza.
It is a three tiered system designed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in conjunction with Israel Aerospace industries and the United States, designed to protect from short range rockets and artillery shells.
The first tier is a radar system that detects an incoming rocket.
The second tier is a control system that tracks the trajectory of said rocket and determines the response. If it is determined that the rocket will land in uninhabited areas, the system does not engage.
If the explosive device does present a threat, the control system will engage its third tier, and launch a Tamir Interceptor missile that uses the constantly updated information from the control system to get as near as possible to the incoming rocket and then explode, destroying the rocket mid-air, away from civilians.
These three tiers are put together in a mobile, all-weather unit referred to as a battery.
While the efficacy of the Iron Dome is somewhat debated (the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claims an 86-90% success rate.
However, detractors such as Ted Postol, a physicist and expert in missiles and missile systems at MIT suggests the number is closer to 5% and refers to the Iron Dome as the “Iron Sieve.”
Another issue with the system is that it is not intended for more sophisticated ballistic missiles that could be shot from other countries (Israel has the Arrow and David’s Sling for those types of missiles), so it is only intended to intercept the type of slow and unsophisticated rockets fired from inside Gaza.
Not up for debate is the enormous cost of the Iron Dome both physical and moral.
Aside from the R&D costs of the Iron Dome, the components themselves are expensive.
The batteries cost upwards of $100M, and each Tamir Interceptor costing anywhere from $40-100K while the Qassam rockets that Israel is intercepting typically cost about $800.
The US has been providing financial assistance every step of the way.
In 2010, Barack Obama’s administration approved $205M to go to Israel’s Iron Dome development.
These funds were separate from the over $200M the US was also giving to Israel for their David’s Sling and Arrow missile defense systems.
According to Congressional Research Service, since the US began investing in the Iron Dome, it has spent $1.7B on it.
Provided in the September 14, 2016 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the United States and Israel, the US has agreed to give Israel $3.3B annually for military aid and will also give Israel an additional $500M annually for missile defense ($95M for Iron Dome, $191M for David’s Sling,$55M for Arrow III, and $159M for Arrow II).
This MOU covers FY2019 through FY2028. It is also specified in this MOU that “Both the United States and Israel jointly commit to respect the FMF [Foreign Military Financing] levels specified in this MOU, and not to seek changes to the FMF levels for the duration of this understanding.”
While Israel is a country of 8.8M people (roughly the same as the population of the state of New Jersey), it is also the biggest recipient of US FMF, accounting for approximately 59% of total US FMF funding worldwide.
On June 1 of this year, Sen. Lindsay Graham announced that Israel would be requesting an additional $1B in funding for the Iron Dome following an 11 day conflict between Hamas in Gaza and Israel that began May 10th.
“There will be a $1 billion request coming to the Pentagon this week from the defense minister to replenish the Iron Dome and a few other things, to upgrade the system,” Graham said at a press conference in Jerusalem.
Graham went on to say, “There’s been a big dustup over the last engagement between Hamas and the State of Israel in the United States, but I’m here to tell you that there’s a wide and deep support for Israel among the Democratic Party.”
On September 23, the House overwhelmingly voted 420-9 in favor of the additional $1B in funding to Israel.
There are many reasons this is controversial.
From a military perspective, it is an immense cash cow that is very limited in scope.
Jean-Loup Samaan, a research affiliate with the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore who has studied Israel’s missile defense, has described the system as “designed for unsophisticated weapons like rockets,” and that it would be ineffective against ballistic missiles, mid-range ballistic missiles or precision-guided weapons.
Basically, it is a very expensive system specifically designed for the cheap-style weapons that are typically launched by Hamas from Gaza.
In fact, the US Army had a prototype shoot-off earlier this year between Leidos-owned Dynetics (Enduring Shield) and a Rafael/Raytheon Technologies team (Iron Dome) to produce a system that would be effective in countering both cruise missiles and drones. The Army chose not to pursue the Iron Dome system, according to Defense News.
Additionally, “[s]ince 2011, a range of scholars, defense scientists, and other experts have queried Iron Dome’s purported 90 percent success rate. They include US weapons expert Richard M. Lloyd and Philip E. Coyle III, who previously oversaw the Pentagon’s weapons testing program. Reuven Pedatzur, a former Israeli fighter pilot, and Mordechai Shefer, an Israel Defence Prize winner and aerospace engineering expert, [and MIT’s Theodore Postol] have also questioned the program’s efficacy.”
Despite the criticisms, Israel has refused to provide any material proof of Iron Dome’s effectiveness, preferring to simply double-down on the rhetoric that the system has saved countless lives. Thus “[t]he system reproduces the anxiety of Israelis about Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations while managing that anxiety at the same time.”
At a time when US citizens are suffering from looming evictions, homelessness, lack of health care, student debt, Israel is thriving. During Covid, Israel is one of the top 20 nations with the highest GDP per capita at $$43,689 in 2020, topping countries like Canada ($43,278) and the UK ($40406).
Israel provides universal health care coverage as mandated by law to all its citizens and permanent residents.
All of Israel’s 9 universities are publicly funded, as are the majority of their colleges.
Given facts like these, it is not surprising that the majority of US citizens would like to reduce spending to Israel, not hand over billion dollar boondoggles. In fact, a recent report by the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs found that half of Americans do not support unrestricted military aid going to Israel.
Yet despite these numbers, the House still voted overwhelmingly in support of an additional $1B in funding for just Iron Dome alone. What gives?
Our government has strongly supported Israel since its inception, and it is largely seen as a bastion in the Middle East. So why does our government support Israel in a way that seems so out of touch with US taxpayers that are continually shouldering these military burdens, when at least half would rather see that money invested at home? This is a complex issue, and setting aside strategic reasons, we must address the influence of the israeli lobby in American politics.
“Pro-Israel interest groups have definite clout, according to Ben Freeman, author of “The Foreign Policy Auction” and director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy, a think tank. “It would be hard to say that the Israel lobby is not one of the most influential lobbies in D.C.,” Freeman told MarketWatch. “I don’t think anybody would disagree with that, whether they think it’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
The pro-Israel lobby contributed $14.9M during the 2018 election cycle. However, questioning the influence of the lobby efforts will immediately get one in hot water, and likely labeled an anti-Semite, as Ilhlan Omar discovered in 2019, when she received backlash and was forced to apologize for even suggesting that AIPAC money has influence on US politicians.
This type of backlash was seen again this past week when a small group of mostly Progressive Democrats first got the funding allocated stripped from a larger stop-gap funding bill, and then voted no on the stand-alone bill. The Times of Israel blasted those who voted to strip the funding from the original bill with the headline “The immorality of Democratic ‘progressives’ targeting the Iron Dome,” claiming they were leaving Israelis vulnerable to “murderous” terrorists.
Quin Hillyer, writing for the Washington Examiner decried that “House antisemites block funds for Israel’s Iron Dome,” saying that “[h]ard-left Democrats this week proved themselves not just anti-Zionist, but murderously antisemitic.” He further describes the billion dollars as a “pittance” of government spending, completely disregarding the fact that the Iron Dome is already funded through 2028.
Not to be outdone, our own Senators and Representatives weighed in, repeating the same talking points:
Iron Dome is a defensive system used by one of our closest allies to save civilian lives. It needs to be replenished because thousands of rockets were fired by the Hamas terrorists who control Gaza.
Consider this my pushing back against this decision. https://t.co/SbyLgzYbGV
— Ted Deutch (@RepTedDeutch) September 21, 2021
Tragic. Dem leadership surrenders to the anti-Semitic Left.
They hate Israel so much that Dems are stripping $1 BILLION in funding for Iron Dome—a purely defensive system that protects countless innocent civilians from Hamas rockets.
Will any Dems have the courage to denounce? https://t.co/2TzLw7uR96
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) September 21, 2021
A missile defense system (i.e. Iron Dome) defends civilians from missiles. Hence the name. Only in a morally inverted universe would this be considered a “controversy.” https://t.co/z8moIdqWg1
— Rep. Ritchie Torres (@RepRitchie) September 21, 2021
That is quite a lot of vitriol for a bill that passed with flying colors.
Unfortunately, in today’s US Politics, there is little space for anything but total fealty and support for Israel
Sadly, it also doesn’t address the reasons that led to the most recent round of fighting between Israel and Gaza, with Israel being the primary aggressor.
Not only was Israel restricting access to Palestinian holy sites, specifically Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, but Israeli courts ruled that Palestinian families were to be removed from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in order for Jewish families to reclaim property lost in 1948.
This “historic” appropriation is not equally afforded to Palestinians who still hold keys to homes lost at the same time. In fact, it’s not afforded to Palestinians at all.
It is not inappropriate to object to billions of taxpayer dollars going overseas, when the country they are going to can afford to pay for it themselves.
Also, completely lost in the conversation is how this affects Palestinians living in Gaza, especially when one considers that during most conflicts between Israel and Palestine, it is Israeli rockets that inflict the most death and destruction.
The May “conflict” resulted in twenty times more Palestinian deaths (243) than Israeli (12), with Benjamin Netanyahu declaring to the world how Israel had gone to “extreme” lengths to avoid civilians.
Arguments can certainly be made that defensive systems such as these, in fact, make it less safe for the people in Gaza, a territory that has no control of its borders, no freedom of movement, and no military.
If Israel can mostly deflect Gaza’s crude rockets, what motivation do its leaders have to come to the table and resolve issues?
Gaza, of course, has no such protection, and as we learned during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, Israel has the power to inflict massive death and destruction on the defenseless territory, and routinely does, never addressing the root cause of Hamas’ rockets to begin with.
“This is why on the Palestinian street, the Iron Dome is often frowned upon, not for what it actually is but for symbolizing the disparity in power between Palestinians and Israel, for being part and parcel of an oppressive apparatus, an integral shield which maintains Israel’s near impunity and allows its government and military to recognize—correctly—that they will always be able to hurt [Palestinians] more than [Palestinians] can hurt them… If the message of the Iron Dome is that every life is infinitely precious, it’s a message that is unequally heard, unequally enforced,” says Muhammed Shehada, a social activist writing from the Gaza strip.