In his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 21, US President Donald Trump admonished Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to “Stop taking credit for the Dome,” calling it “our technology, our stuff” – a statement that left many observers confused.
There are two different “Dome” missile defense projects currently in progress. One is the by-now world-famous Iron Dome, a short-range rocket and missile defense system developed and deployed by Israel. The other is the Golden Dome – Trump’s initiative to deploy a defense system that would protect the US against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), with the goal of having it be deployed before the end of his second term in the White House – that is, before January 2029.
The president did not specify which of the two “Domes” his admonishment was referring to. There is practically no commonality between the two programs. Iron Dome is a land-based, highly matured system, operational in Israel since 2011, with a proven record of blocking salvoes of short-range rockets from Gaza and Lebanon. Golden Dome is a space-based system against global-range missiles, which will become operational – if all goes well – in three years’ time. The two programs vary fundamentally in their goals, timetables, technologies, and industrial bases.
If Trump’s admonishment related to Golden Dome, then his statement about “Our technology, our stuff” is totally correct: Golden Dome is a purely US program, with no Israeli involvement – or in fact that of any other country – at least at its present stage. It should be noted, though, that Trump’s Presidential Executive Order from January 2025 on Golden Dome calls, among other things, for cooperation with partners and allies in missile defense.
The lack of precision in the president’s language may have led some observers to think that his admonishment to Netanyahu was related to Iron Dome. If so, it should be clarified that Iron Dome is an Israeli-conceived system, with no US involvement in its development. The need for defending Israel’s border population centers against short-range rockets became clear in the early 2000s due to increasing rocket attacks from Gaza. A system, later dubbed Iron Dome, was conceived by the R&D directorate of Israel’s Defense Ministry in 2004.
Iron Dome program following Second Lebanon War
Following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, the program was kick-started in early 2007 by then-defense minister Amir Peretz and accelerated by his successor, Ehud Barak.
Full-scale development was entirely funded by Israel, as was the manufacturing of the first two batteries. To secure funding for the manufacturing of more batteries, Israel applied for US financial support in early 2008. This was initially turned down due to a negative report by a US technical team that doubted the program’s prospects to achieve its goals.
A second US technical team, reviewing the program in its more advanced stage, overturned the negative report of the first team and cleared the way for US support, which was first granted in June 2009, at a time when the system’s design was practically completed, hardware was already manufactured, and it was being readied for the first flight tests. American financial support turned the program into a joint venture, but only in the manufacturing system components. The intellectual property (IP) has been and remains Israel’s to this day.
Unlike Golden Dome, Iron Dome is “Israel technology, Israel stuff”: It is a testimony to Israel’s defense industries and the Israel Air Force’s creative capabilities. The nation should be grateful to the talented people – politicians, managers, engineers, and soldiers – who conceived and realized this life-saving system, thereby defending the people and the homeland in the truest sense of the words.
The writer was the founder and first director of Israel’s Missile Defense Organization, in charge of developing missile defense systems in the Defense Ministry’s R&D directorate.