Pressure in Israel for missile defense

Ehud Barak, Israel's defense minister, told a recent parliamentary meeting that Israel could not carry out a substantial West Bank withdrawal for another 2-1/2 years because of the need for a missile-defense system.

Seizing on reports this week that some of the more progressive circles in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet support turning Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem over to the Palestinian Authority in a peace deal, rightist parliamentarian Effi Eitam said that "a government that divides Jerusalem will cause a Grad missile [similar to the Katyusha] to hit the Knesset."

The comments were in reference to Sunday's Katyusha, which the Israeli foreign ministry says is "an improved version of the infamous Katyusha," according to the ministry's website.

Military sources said the 122-mm heavy artillery rocket was apparently produced in the former Soviet Union and smuggled into Gaza through Egypt.

"It's something we've been expecting for a long time. It's longer range and it theoretically could do more damage because it could carry twice as much explosive," says Uzi Rubin, the president of Rubincon Defense Consulting Ltd.

Mr. Rubin, who established and headed the Israel Missile Defense Organization from 1991 to 1999 and was in charge of Israel's Arrow missile-defense program, has been critical of what he says is Israel's slowness in responding to the missile threat from near and far.

After establishing its conventional air superiority in the Middle East wars of 1967 and 1973, Rubin said in a recent briefing, defense analysts decided that a larger "missile shield" approach was unnecessary.

"In the wake of the Iraqi missile attacks in 1991, the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] was forced to accept the development of a missile shield," Rubin said. "But the growing threat from shorter-range rockets failed to change the IDF's doctrine of relying on air power. It changed after the summer 2006 war."

Today, he added, "every single point in Israel is within range of a hostile missile or rocket."

Now, he says, Israel is racing to build a missile-shield program. The defense ministry has declined requests to comment on it or to estimate its cost.

The Katyusha launch on Sunday, Rubin says, "will give more impetus to those setting it up, but we should have done it earlier."

Meanwhile, Mr. Barak has said that Israel is considering a major military operation in Gaza in response to the almost daily rocket salvoes. Israel also has threatened to cut power it supplies to the territory unless the attacks cease.

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