Israel aims to purchase the Raytheon Co. [RTN] Vulcan-Phalanx close-in air defense systems to kill rockets and mortars launched into Israel by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, according to reports in Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post.
However, because Raytheon has sold all of its near-future production of the projectile-firing Vulcan Phalanx systems, Defense Minister Ehud Barak will ask U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to sell Israel one of the $25 million systems already in the American arsenal.
If that unit proves effective against the relentless terrorist bombardment of Israeli buildings and people, then the democratic Jewish state, the only true democracy in the Middle East, would order more of the defensive assets.
That Vulcan-Phalanx system, involving both a radar to spot incoming threats and the 6,000-rounds-a-minute Gatling gun itself, would dovetail into a multilayered Israeli missile defense system. That composite shield also would include the Iron Dome system from Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and the Arrow system by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and The Boeing Co. [BA].
Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip endlessly fire Qassam rockets into southern Israel. Also, in 2006, Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon fired 4,000 missiles and rockets into Israeli civilian areas, using weapons such as Katyushas.
Many of those weapons are supplied to the terrorists by Iran, which has made dramatic strides in missile technology. It has the Shahab-3 missile that can reach targets in Israel.
It also has launched a satellite, using the same basic technology as an intercontinental ballistic missile able to reach the United States. Further, Iran is operating a clandestine nuclear materials production program that it claims would be used for fueling electrical generating reactors, but which western observers fear will be used to build nuclear weapons.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped from the map, and that Israel soon shall cease to exist. He also has said he envisions the world without the United States.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Congress has placed restrictions barring use of funds to build a European Missile Defense (EMD) system that would guard against missiles that Iran might fire against European cities, U.S. forces in Europe, or the United States.
Gates has proposed a defense budget for the upcoming fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, which would zero out the EMD program, giving it no additional funds for fiscal 2010.
A U.S. lawmaker, Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Senate minority whip, sees it as curious that Israelis — facing an “existential” threat of damage and death in the endless missile barrage — appreciate the value of missile defense, but many in the United States fail to see that urgent need.
“A long time ago, the Israelis moved past the ideological debate about missile defense that we’re still having in this country,” Kyl noted. “Given the existential threats to [Israel], they can’t afford those debates. I worry that too many in Washington think we can still afford them here.”
He spoke before a National Defense University Foundation and National Defense Industrial Association breakfast at the Capitol Hill Club.