Iron Dome

Did Israel push for the escalation of the conflict so
that it can sell its Iron Dome technology ?
Operation Protective Edge , Israel' s name for its
latest war on the Gaza Strip , shares many
characteristics with its predecessors of 2008 and
2012 .
Once again , there is a high casualty rate among
Palestinian civilians, especially women and children.
Israeli forces are again targeting the family homes of
suspected members of armed Palestinian groups as
part of the policy of collective punishment used to
deter Palestinian resistance .
But this time around , there is something new - the
ability of armed Palestinian groups in Gaza to reach
towns and cities deep inside Israel with their crude
missiles. It is the first time they have reached as far
as Haifa and Ben Gurion airport .
Israel's Iron Dome defence system is designed to
act as a shield against missiles and artillery shells
fired from Gaza - and it has attracted great attention
from international media. Major news outlets such as
CNN, the BBC, Sky News, The New York Times and
The Telegraph , have carried daily news and
operational information of the Iron Dome' s
successes .
The Dome' s fame has even reached prominent
business outlets such as Bloomberg and The Wall
Street Journal .
Reporting on the Dome has provided near- real time
televised war coverage . The media has repeated
statistics demonstrating its success rates - although
there appears to have been a reluctance to
scrutinise official Israeli figures and an absence of
voices from those who might question its
effectiveness.
It is understandable that Israeli officials would want
to promote the idea of the Dome's success . It gives
the Israeli public a sense of safety and security. It
demonstrates that the state is fulfilling one of its
commitments to its citizens - the duty to protect.
But it is undeniable that this unquestioning tone helps
provide a certain marketing message .
The mainstream media narrative is framed to show
the conflict as one between the democratic state of
Israel and Islamic "terrorist " groups - especially
Hamas - with little or no mention of Israel's
occupation , or the eight- year siege of the Gaza Strip .
So the message is clear - the Dome is an effective
and highly desirable product, made in Israel and
employed on the front line against Islamic terror,
able to be customised to meet the needs of potential
buyers .
The marketing message is designed to link
Palestinian groups which resist Israel's siege and
occupation with armed groups around the world ,
subliminally suggesting that Israel is fighting the
same threats - unexpected attacks designed to
create fear in the public - as many other "civilised "
countries .
The Dome is , according to Israel's security industrial
complex , an effective and successful high-
performance instrument in the fight against both
local and international terrorism . It protects not only
the general public in their homes but also important
soft targets with limited defence systems - civilian
airports, government buildings , public spaces , and so
on - making missile attacks ineffective .
Israel is also eager to show the Dome as an ongoing
development . Shortly after the launch of operation
Protective Edge, the Israel Army deployed new Dome
units described as advanced and able to meet the
diversity of missiles launched from Gaza . The tacit
message is that the war on Gaza is an experiment in
real life - where people are the mice of this war
laboratory, and the results are televised for the
world .
Of course, the Israel security establishment censors ,
as a war measure , what information is made
available for public consumption . But it does keep
feeding news outlets with new information about the
Dome's achievements . At the same time, opinions
that question its effectiveness, such as an analysis
that recently appeared in the MIT Technology
Review , is given little international attention .
The latest round of war on Gaza Strip has neither
promoted Israeli objectives nor met the Israeli
criteria of war. It is a military operation that was
widened as a result of a dispute between Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign
Minister Avigdor Lieberman .
The war on Gaza might have been launched as a
warning to armed Palestinian groups, but Israel's
security institutions and associated corporate
interests have exploited the situation , constructing
an advertisement event for the Iron Dome system
from the ravages of war.
Israel, as a colonial state, is run by the security
apparatus headed by the army , and private security
companies such as RAFAEL.
Following Operation Pillar of Defense, launched
against Gaza in November 2012 , seven nations ,
including the United States and South Korea,
expressed interest in buying some variant of the Iron
Dome system . As the Israeli economy depends on
the sale of weapons and other military equipment,
this latest round of war on Gaza is another
opportunity for Israel's weapon consortium to boost
its business around the world .
Israel has already succeeded in securing additional
funding from Washington to develop the Dome even
further .
Israel's intransigent approach to the political issue of
the colonisation of Palestine - whereby it employs
security solutions rather than working towards a
political settlement - may in some part be explained
by the Iron Dome's profitability .
Samer Jaber is a political activist and researcher .
He holds a master 's degree in Sustainable
International Development from Brandeis University,
and studied at the Kennedy School at Harvard
University and MIT. He served six years' political
internment in Israeli jails during the first Palestinian
intifada .