At cost of $100,000 per interceptor, defense minister says Iron Dome is expensive, but prevented greater economic losses.
Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon commented on the defense budget and the cost of Operation Protective Edge during Calcalist’s Economic Forum Tuesday, and said that though military expenses are high, the expense is required to deal with the new form of terror threats Israel is faced with.
“The direct cost of the operation stands at more than $9 billion,” the defense minister said, adding that dealing with terror is “expensive,” and that even if the “defense budget would be tripled it would still not be a waste of money.”
He further claimed that the Iron Dome missile defense system saved Israel from being forced to take over Gaza and allowed life in Israel to continue as normal, thus minimizing the economic cost of the war. “Each Iron Dome interceptor is $100,000. In economic terms it’s worthwhile, but obviously this is still expensive.”
Ya’alon also responded to what he described as “ministers who claim that the treats on Israel have decreased.”
According to Ya’alon, “though the claim that there are no longer conventional military threats is mostly true – there is peace with Egypt, peace with Jordan, Syria is busy with infighting, and no Iraqi forces mounting – but nonetheless, regional developments forces us to deal with terror groups with state-like abilities – and dealing with this challenge is expensive.”
Ya’alon stressed that military intelligence was the key and also the most expensive in this regard. “What holds back our ability give better intelligence is money. The enemy also knows how to use technology and this forces us to deal with that as well. “
Bennett: IDF must act responsibly if they want money. (Photo: Eli Mendelbaum)
Economy Minister Naftali Bennett also spoke at the conference, and said the army needs to be more efficient if it wants more money. Spinning a famous quote from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bennett quipped: “If they grow efficient, they’ll get funds. If they don’t, they won’t get money.” (Netanyahu said once of the Palestinians: “If they give, they’ll get.”)
Bennett seemed to reference both the army in general and soldiers themselves, saying soldiers should get benefits and assistance on the basis of the level of their sacrifice.
Bennett lamented the fact that “a soldier wounded in a car crash gets the same treatment as a soldier wounded in London. Soldiers at the home front should not get the same benefits as combat soldiers.”
@ ArnoldHarris:
I agree completely.
Now. Observe the gestures, face making, body language of the trio including Netanyahu, Ya’alon, Gantz, in particular the first two. Nothing short of Keystone cops grade of “stern”.
Those sold out trotters will never either learn how to or risk themselves into doing what needs to be done to advance any of our rights here in Eretz Israel.
That applies at field level and or to sell our systems.
We have consistently presented to our readers the true nature of the “combina”, so far to little avail.
Soviet-Israeli-Indian APC
Israeli company Rafael and Indian group Kalyani cooperate in upgrading Soviet BMP APCs
Israeli-Indian cooperation: Rafael offers an upgrade for Soviet-made BMP Armored Personnel Carriers through a cooperative alliance with India’s Kalyani Group.
An experimental model of the upgraded APC has been showcased at the DefExpo exhibition in New-Delhi in February 2014.
In the context of the cooperative effort, Rafael installed a Mark-II Remotely Controlled Weapon Station which includes a 30mm cannon, a coaxial MAG machine gun and launchers for two Spike ATGMs, along with a payload for the commander and gunner, which provides them with a 360-degree field of view even from inside the vehicle. The payload is made by the Tamam division of IAI.
The Indian company was responsible for upgrading the vehicle.
Sources at Rafael say that BMP APCs mounted with an older model RCWS by Rafael had successfully served the Czech Army in Afghanistan.
The Indian Army currently has in service about 2,000 BMP APCs in need of upgrading.
Looks like Israel is going to have to increase the Defense budget a lot and not due to Hamas or terrorism.
There is a dirty game being played and not so much under the radar. Connect the dots.
Are S-300 Batteries on their way to Egypt?
In case the report published on itar-tass website will materialize and the procurement deal goes through, how will Israel deal with the S-300 batteries being placed on Egyptian territory? Russia is thinking what to do with the batteries that have already been produced for Assad, and one of the alternatives is to sell them to Sisi. It should be recalled that at the end of last year, Saudi Arabia provided Egypt with a grant of two billion dollars for the purchase of Russian weapons.
The cost of working with American money:
Reject American and stop cooperation with American Industry unless they have no veto power on Israeli Industry and exports.
US prevented the sale of David Sling missiles, manufactured by Rafeal, to Poland, following lobbying efforts by US companies competing in the tender. As a result, Rafael may lose a deal worth up to $13 billion. This was told by an Israeli defense official to Reuters news agency.
Defense in a military conflict that reopens every time your opponents can re-supply themselves with ground-launch missiles is not only expensive, but militarily idiotic.
It would prove far less expensive and much more useful for the Israeli armed forces to fight their way into the cities of Gaza, Rafah, et al, permenantly occupy them, and destroy Hamas.
After that is accomplished, using a large enough number of troops with sufficient artillery to get the job done expeditiously, Israel would be free to make local autonomy arrangements with all the locally-significant hamulas (urban Arab blood-relationship clans). Pay them enough, and protect them from retribution, and the right combination of these hamula leaders will locate and permanently eliminate everybody connected with Hamas.
Then put back into place the 18 or more settlements that were uprooted from Gush Katif in one of the most foolish moves Ariel Sharon ever got himself talked into doing.
And no, do NOT ask the permission of the US government, the EU or the UN before undertaking the vital policy suggested above. For once, just do it and shut up about it.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ jlevyellow:
Indeed.
What we must also incorporate to our review of the functioning…. of the IDF is that we spread for that sector the largest portion of our budget plus large chunks of US taxpayers funds and yet, they always, w/o fail, end up charging huge amounts of cash extra to defray the “costs” of enacting military forces and firing ordnance.
Right now a small snippet news item is in the news. The IDF rescued from the sea a few Israeli citizens and is again asking “who is going to pay for it”.
What the h… do we pay for with our budgeted giant sums?
The taxpayer rape must end and stern supervision enacted over the military.
There are a few ways to lose a war. One of them is financially. More efficient methods of prosecuting future conflicts is absolutely necessary for Israel. Technology can and has been used to reduce costs in all areas, but efforts must be made in that direction by the IDF and the political branch of the government.
One-hundred thousand dollars per Iron Dome response is probably the fastest way to lose national viability. Our response to Lebanon and Hizb’Allah would need to be much more dense. Less pleasant responses dealt at a more rapid rate would have brought things to a halt quicker. As I recall the IAF never made more than 100 targets per twenty-four hour period. The IAF is capable of 100 times that rate.
That element rapes the taxpayer during “peace” and double rapes the taxpayer as they pretend to attend to defense.
There are tens of thousands of worthless pseudo military parasites siphoning money from all of us.
We must demand that the military remove them from our pocketbooks.