JERUSALEM – From Israel’s standpoint, the attack on the Saudi oil fields isnothing less than a formative event, whose regional implications will longbe felt, irrespective of Trump’s actions.
The operational capabilities evidenced by Iran exceed all the assessmentsand analyses of the Israeli defense establishment, and place in somethingof a ridiculous light the failed attacks organized by Iran’s RevolutionaryGuards against Israel from Syria in the past two years, HAARETZ has hasreported.
A strike capability of this precision and effectiveness puts Israel’sstrategic infrastructure sites in future danger, particularly in light ofthe fact that the country depends on single sites (e.g., Ben-GurionInternational Airport, the Hadera power station). It must be taken intoaccount that a considerable part of Iran’s arsenal of weapons is beingtransferred to Hezbollah – or will be in an emergency. Two months ago,Nasrallah, in one of his frequent speeches in Beirut, cited a studypublished recently by Israel Defense Forces Brig. Gen. (res.) Mike Herzogon the website of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Herzogdetailed how exposed Israeli infrastructure is to attack; Nasrallah quotedhim enthusiastically.
Recent developments will probably require an upgrading of Israel’sdeployment for protection against missiles, rockets, drones and unmannedaerial vehicles. The multilayered system of interception developed for theIDF in the past two decades – Arrow, Magic Wand and Iron Dome – was thespearhead of world technology and provided a suitable response,particularly to the rockets launched from the Gaza Strip. However, in thefuture, given the vast stockpiles of rockets possessed by Hezbollah and thedisparity in costs between attack missiles and defending missiles (whichexceed the former by a hundredfold and more), there will be no alternativebut to come up with supplementary solutions.
Approval of the new multiyear plan for the IDF, initiated by Chief of StaffAviv Kochavi and code-named Tnufa (“Momentum”), is still on ice, because ofthe prolonged impasse in the corridors of power. But within its framework,the intention is to reexamine the possible development of laser-basedintercept systems, a cheaper alternative that a decade ago lost out to IronDome – when the army and the Defense Ministry concluded that such systemshad not yet reached technological and operational maturity.