A repeating fizzle does not accomplish their goal on the world stage, even if they can claim the neutralization wasn't absolute.
Actually it does. Not in comparison to not having a "fizzle", but if they fire a thousand rockets, and say 2 of them are effective, the news will show those two. Misses, or even shoot downs are less interesting as news. Even if you show a shoot down for every effective strike, the effective strike becomes the big deal. No one cares much about the missiles that miss are stopped as long as any of them are effective.
Which is not to say the defense is not useful, just that it would have to be extremely close to perfect to make rocket launching a no longer viable method for Hamas (well in a sense its not a viable method to start with, because it won't achieve their goals, but it keeps them in the news, allows them to talk tough, and raise money from Iran, and other sources).
And there is some risk of a defense even strengthening Hamas' position, even if just in the PR sense. If Israel has a defense but counterattacks anyway, then you get even more condemnation of Israel's strikes against Hamas. If Israel doesn't counter, then the rockets become a free attack (not literally free, they cost some money, but they can attack with minimal worry, so they will keep doing so).
Despite that risk I'd still like to see the defenses. |
