Israel Prepares for Large-scale Overwhelming Attack

Israel Prepares for Large-scale Overwhelming Attack

David’s Sling (Hebrew, Sharvit Ksamim) is an Israeli air defense system.

Wikimeda Commons

Is it just a powerful missile defense system that the Jewish nation lacks?

By Callum Wood • May 5

On April 2, Israel’s state-of-the-art missile system, David’s Sling, became operational. The Sling adds a fourth tier to Israel’s missile defenses. As recent wars in Gaza and Lebanon have proved, Israel is burdened with the task of defending its land from the threat of incoming projectiles, rockets and missiles.

To counter the imminent threat posed by enemy projectiles, Israel has developed an array of missile defense systems.

David’s Sling has a tested 80 percent success rate and a range of 186.4 miles—more than enough range to shield the nation of Israel, which is only 290 miles long and 85 miles wide. Israel Defense Forces also have the Iron Dome system, which has a range of 43.5 miles and a 90 percent success rate. But Israel has more missile defense systems. The Arrow 2 system has a 56-mile range, and the Arrow 3 system has a 1,491.3-mile range. Both are designed to intercept ballistic missiles.

Israel’s dilemma is not distances to cover, however, but rate of fire.

To the north, Hezbollah has an estimated 130,000 missiles and rockets. Israeli leaders know better than anyone that such quantities—if fired rapidly—would overwhelm the nation’s defenses.

Iran and Hezbollah certainly know it too. Ynetnews reported:

The aim is for [Hezbollah’s] arsenal to be comprised of a larger percentage of guided and precise missiles and rockets, which even if only a few of them manage to avoid being shot down, they will still inflict a massive amount of damage.

Hezbollah and Iran would no doubt select targets that, if crippled, would take a long time to restore. Infrastructure, such as energy, water, transport and airfields, are certainly on the list.

Iran, which funds Hezbollah, has been working to supply these advanced missiles. Israel has been working furiously to counter this, apparently going as far as to strike a suspected Hezbollah weapons cache inside Syria near Damascus International Airport.

But Israel can’t stop every shipment, and it is forced to continue to increase the size and scope of its missile defense batteries.

But there is a sad truth to countering missiles with missiles. Hezbollah can live with 90 percent interceptions—Israel cannot.

Hezbollah might lose the vast majority of its rockets, but the terror they inflict will still be felt. Those that do penetrate Israel’s defenses—though small in number—could do immense damage. Even if most are shot down and some miss their targets, the fact that Hezbollah—not to mention neighboring Arab powers—have 130,000 missiles at its disposal suggests Israel will get hit. As those missiles grow more sophisticated and the stockpile grows, so too does the likelihood of Hezbollah’s success.

But does this matter to you? If you live in the Middle East, most immediately and definitely, yes! But what about those of us who live beyond the rockets, missiles and mortars of Middle East terrorists? Should we concern ourselves with Islamist terrorists amassing weapons on Israel’s border?

Following the Lebanon war of 2006, Trumpet managing editor Joel Hilliker wrote:

The Israel-Hezbollah conflict is just one battle in a much larger, global war. It is a broad and building war between two massive, loose alliances. On one side are Israel, America, Britain and other Western states. On the other are Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Russia, China and other anti-American, anti-Western states. This second group is getting bolder all the time. In the middle is a German-dominated European Union seeking to play mediator—in order to boost its own aspirations for world power status. …

God prophesies that the violence in Lebanon today will soon explode to engulf many nations! “For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein” (Habakkuk 2:17). Other prophecies show that this warfare will go beyond rockets and air strikes—and will include nuclear warfare. Everyone on Earth will become swept up in the conflagration.

There is a great irony in the name David’s Sling. When David, a youth, faced Goliath, a human battle tank, notice where he placed his trust—it wasn’t with a sling and a few river stones!

“This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand,” he said, “and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (1 Samuel 17:46).

Today, Israel places trust in military technology, including a four-tiered missile defense program—perhaps the modern equivalent of David’s river stones. But it lacks faith in a God who can deliver its enemies into its hand.

“And all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear [or a missile]: for the battle is the Lord’s …” (verse 47).

The solution to Israel’s security crisis is not David’s Sling, but David’s God.