Background to the BBC’s claims regarding the Iron Dome missile defence system

Readers may recall that soon after the commencement of Operation Protective Edge the BBC’s diplomatic correspondent saw fit to recycle a link to an article he had written in 2013 questioning the performance rate of the Iron Dome missile defence system on the basis of publications by MIT professor Ted Postol. The same claims were also the basis for two additional reports by the BBC’s Kevin Connolly in April 2013.Iron Dome

The Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University recently published a paper by Uzi Rubin in which he examines Israel’s air and missile defence during Operation Protective Edge.

“Skeptics in Israel and the US voiced doubts about the disclosed achievements of the Iron Dome system. US critics used commercial and private videos of rocket interceptions to allege that the system was significantly less successful than claimed. The low number of casualties was attributed by them to the efficiency of Israel’s public alert system and extensive shelter network, as well as the supposedly low lethality of the Gaza rocket warheads. However, a comparison of losses and damages in the 2014 Gaza War to those from the 2006 Lebanon War, when no active defense system existed, refute the critics’ allegations.”

Dr Rubin’s very interesting report can be found here in both English and Hebrew. 

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