"Had there been no Iron Dome, perhaps Obama would have refrained from imposing anti-Israeli "sanctions," as he did a few weeks ago when he held up the resupply

of Hellfire missiles for Israel's Apache helicopters. The holdup was unofficially explained as stemming from U.S. concern that Israeli military behavior was resulting in too many Palestinian civilian deaths.

There is an irony here. The Hellfire missiles are precision weapons. Holding up their resupply could have meant that Israel was forced to use more dumb bombs, causing far more collateral damage. In other words, withholding smart weapons would probably result — and may already have done so — in Israeli use of weapons that cause far more civilian casualties.


Which, of course, runs contrary to Israel's policy, whether driven by moral considerations or political expediency. Before fighting resumed this week, the Israeli air force had launched 4,762 strikes, mostly using precision weaponry. These strikes caused several hundred Arab deaths; the remainder were caused in the limited ground assault and by artillery strikes. This means the air force had expended several missiles per death — so either the pilots and munitions were of very poor quality or the Israelis were very, very careful in their targeting, and took great care not to harm civilians.
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