As Israel enters its 3rd day of the war with Gaza, it once again becomes apparent that Iron Dome is the problem.
While I’m sure the IDF’s secular ethical committee that came up with the concept of “Taharat HaNeshek” (Purity of Arms) had good intentions, but the end result is what we see now – an IDF shackled by lawyers and a confused morality that not only prevents us from decisively winning any wars, put actually lengthens our wars, increases the dangers to our own citizens and soldiers, and gives the enemy plenty of time to develop their ability to attack us.
In the videos below, we see how easily Hamas has learned how to exploit the IDF’s self-imposed weak spot.
When Gazan terrorists want to try to avoid being killed (always) they merely grab a child, ask civilians to go into a building, launch a rocket from a children’s playground…. And the IDF will do nothing (unless sometimes, when the attack is absolutely imminent).
Hamas openly calls for civilians to do this, and in many cases, it is completely voluntary on the civilian’s part, as they see themselves as doing this as their part of the war against the “Zionists”.
One of Hamas’s military command center is in a bunker underneath Shifa hospital (ironically, built by Israel for the safety of the Gazan population). This isn’t a secret. But the IDF isn’t about to attack a hospital, even if that would end the war, or significantly hamper Hamas’s ability to attack Israel.
By the way, all you need to do is watch the video of Gazan civilians cheering, to know that many happily give Hamas their support against Israel.
So to deal with the self-imposed problem created by “Taharat HaNeshek”, Israel invented the Iron Dome, which allows the government to become complacent about actually winning.
“It’s OK, we have time now,” is the thinking.
Israel can absorb the inconvenience.
Sure rockets are flying at us, but most rockets don’t get through, certainly not to Tel Aviv, and that reduces the IDF’s and the government’s urgency to go out and actually win fast and win decisively.
So between the IDF’s self-imposed doctrine of avoiding civilian collateral damage at all costs, and the lack of urgency to win, we are left with rockets flying over our heads for days, weeks, months, and even years on end, when the reality is that key strikes, as ugly as they may be in the short term, would end this war and these attacks for a long time.
As unpopular as this might sound, nothing would be better for Israel than if Iron Dome would actually stop working, as then the IDF, and more importantly, the Israeli government, would be forced to think about these attacks on us from a healthier perspective.
Iron Dome isn’t the solution, its a symptom of the problem.