Iron Dome Cracked?

Ted Postol has been around a long time and is something of a controversial figure, but his seemingly too cynical claims about lack of success of our old Patriot missiles turned out to be on the money so why not now?  He surfaced a week or so ago with claims that Israel's much-ballyhooed Iron Dome actually wasn't destroying nearly as many Hamas rockets as claimed.  Now, based on this TPM story, he is getting support from some other experts.  Jury still out, however.

My concern, as usual, is with media reporting and bias, and if Postol is even halfway right,  U.S. media outlets (which usually fail to question official Isareli military sources) have been hoodwinked on this, repeatedly referring to the amazing track record of Iron Dome.  But in a way, it's part of the propaganda battle.  Israel wants people to believe that Hamas rockets would be killing thousands of their citizens (instead of two or three) if not for the Dome.  The flip side is that these rockets are very small, crude, unguided devices with little or no warheads which basically just cause damage from their weight crashing into a wall without a huge explosion--and the vast majority just land in the desert.  So if a Dome missile, as Postol claims, explodes near the rocket but doesn't destroy it and it continues on--and does the usual damage (very little or none)--that's quite a different media story.

So it's important for the IDF--via friendly media--to point to the Dome rather than the rather pathetic nature of the Hamas arsenal. If the Dome has actually performed very spotty, that changes perceptions a bit.