NewsMax.com
Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2001

According to a report Wednesday in the World Tribune:

Israel now perceives the threat of nuclear-tipped missiles being fired at it from surrounding hostile Arab states as real and serious.

With United States help, Israel has been able to beef up its rockets designed to shoot down inbound missiles.

But this is only a temporary defense, intended to blunt a first-wave assault in time for Israel to mount a retaliatory attack.

It is no longer considered an effective way of defending against continuing missile attacks throughout a war against Israel.

Added to Israel's concern is the conviction that its enemies have now the capability to attach nuclear bombs and biological or chemical weapons to the tips of their missiles.

All that has strengthened the Israeli military's resolve to be able to destroy such missiles on the ground, before they can be launched.

That goes counter to the policy of the United States under President Clinton, who did not want to give Israel, or any other country, a missile system that could be used offensively.

Now that George W. Bush has succeeded Bill Clinton as president, Israel wants to try to get that Clinton-Gore policy reversed.

What it wants specifically is for the Bush-Cheney administration to back a new, U.S.-Israel, theater missile-defense program meant to destroy enemy missile batteries before they fire.

Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, head of the Israeli Defense Ministry's research and development directorate, has been given responsibility for making Israel's case to the Pentagon.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Bush Administration
Israel

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