ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: Homeland Security News Wire
29March2011 4:02amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Israel on Sunday stationed the first batteries of its Iron Dome short-range missile defense system in the south of the country;
The military stressed the initial deployment was experimental; after being deployed in the south, the system will then be deployed along the Lebanese border, from where Hezbollah militants fired some 4,000 rockets into northern Israel during a 2006 war;
The most obvious and immediate benefit of the defensive system would be the de-fanging of the two more radical groups in the region, Hezbollah and Hamas;
The system, though, is more significant in what it will allow Israel to do vis-à-vis the Palestinians: if the same rockets Hamas is firing at Israel from the Gaza Strip were to be fired from the West Bank, all of Israel's population and economic centers will be under threat;
If Iron Dome proved effective, it would make it easier for Israel to consider deep withdrawals from the West Bank, thus allowing the establishment of a viable Palestinian state without compromising Israeli security. (read full report)
