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Over the last week, we’ve been shown a steady barrage of images and stories of rockets fired at Israel from Palestinian territories.

What we haven’t been told is the role of an American company in a joint venture in this amazing defense, how President Barack Obama played a role in its creation for Israel, and how Israelis are paying us back for our support of them in this anti-missile shield.

When Israel became pretty adept at stopping Hamas terrorists, who have called for nothing less than the destruction of Israel, Hamas switched from backpack bombs to rockets. Thousands of these rockets were fired from Palestinian territories at civilian neighborhoods.

In the 2000s, Israel approached the United States for help.

“Israel’s Defense Ministry approached the U.S. administration of President George W. Bush with a request for hundreds of millions of dollars for the system. The reception at the Pentagon was frosty…. ‘This is something that cannot be done,’” the Israelis were told, according to the Wall Street Journal. America’s military preferred a “phalanx system.”

But it was a different story when a new president came into office in 2009. “Top Obama administration advisers saw supporting Iron Dome as a chance to shore up U.S.-Israeli security relations,” the Wall Street Journal added.

The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved the Obama-supported Iron Dome defense system for Israel, joining with an additional Israeli-developed Iron Dome, by a vote of 410 to four back in 2010, with three liberal Democrats and GOP Rep. Ron Paul voting against it. 

Raytheon, an American company, teamed up with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, an Israeli company, to work on this Iron Dome. And there’s also the Redstone Arsenal, the Alabama military facility that helped conduct the crucial tests that made the Iron Dome initially possible.

And the best part is that Israel is working to help America utilize a similar system to protect U.S. troops facing similar rocket attacks, thanks to an Israeli algorithm that improves the system of knocking out the incoming rockets.

One of those Americans who helped make the Iron Dome possible in the first place is Eric Lynn, who is running for Congress in Florida. 

The Iron Dome has worked very well, taking out 90% to 95% of Hamas-led rocket attacks on Israel, according to Israeli Defense Force (IDF) estimates. Every time you see relatively low Israeli casualty levels from thousands of rockets fired into the country, you now know why.