Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that Israel will soon be able to intercept 90 percent of the missiles launched at it, from Iran's Shahab-3 missiles to Palestinian Qassam rockets . The difference between intercepting a medium-range ballistic missile and a Qassam rocket is immense, and the technical challenges of defending against such a broad spectrum of threats will require not just one, but a series of systems. Israel's geographic location inherently leaves it vulnerable to this entire spectrum of ballistic threats, and Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has worked to confront them for more than two decades. Israel cannot do this alone; it needs the financial and technical support of the United States. In 1986, joint U.S.-Israeli work began on the first generation of Arrow ballistic missile interceptors. (Now deployed, they remain operationally unproven.) Meanwhile, other work continued at a quick pace.