Jennifer leaders from israel and gaza met in egypt today to discuss a possible drawdown with u. S. Secretary general. For now, though the fighting continues. Israeli air strikes killed nearly 40 people today, groups in gaza respondented by shooting nearly 100 rockets in israel. And on the israeli side of the border things appeared remarkably calm today. This picture has caused a stir online. It shows israelis watching passively as incoming missiles sail over head. So why to israelis feel so comfortable out in the open as missiles fly above them . Because of something called the iron dome. Its a Defense System that uses radar to detect incoming rockets and determine where they will land. If it is headed towards a populated area the gunner shoots the missile out of the sky. It is particularly good at detecting the smaller, older rockets that the palestinians use. Iron dome has had an incredible 85 successful rate against the 300 rockets the palestinians have fired. The gulf missiles intercepted less than 10 of their target. Iron dome has always made a huge difference. As of today, israel has only reported three deaths. In gaza the death toll is closer to 100 including 24 children and 10 women. But the price for each missile over 60,000 and the u. S. Has helped to fund the system. President obama asked to help provide money to develop iron dome. The cost of rebuilding whole neighborhoods would be far greater than the cost of the interceptors. So joining me now is matthew duss from the center for american progress. Matthew welcome inside the war room. Hi thank you. Jennifer you bet. So how has the iron dome system changed the nature of this conflict . Would israel would have already moved to a ground war without it . I think its probably safe to save that. Without iron dome with the level of rockets we have seen fired out of gaza you would have seen a much greater fatality and much louder cry out from the government. Jennifer it seems to have staved off the war game for a period of time. The groups in gaza are using these old soviet rockets. Would the iron dome be as effective against more modern rockets . No, but it is specifically designed to deal with these smaller rockets precisely because hamas and other militant groups are using these much lowertech weapons to launch out of gaza. You mentioned the patriot system, there is the next stage of the patriot which is known as the arrow Defense System but those deal with much higher tech and bigger missiles. Jennifer so is because it has been so successful will israel use a combination of the two . Is the Patriot Missile, if it only has a 10 successful interception rate, are these more advanced Patriot Missiles up to the level of the iron dome . Even though the Patriot MissileDefense System made a lot of headlines as you mentioned the shootdown rate was much lower. But another system has been developed, called the arrow Defense System, which even though it has not been tested in a similar way as the gulf war, is expected to be much more effective. Jennifer do you think other nations or even nato could replicate the Iron Dome Technology and what impact would that have in the region if both sides had interception and maybe missiles not landing in Populated Areas on either side . Right. Obviously it is all together a good thing to prevent rockets from landing on civilians and towns and homes, but i think the danger is to create a sense of security let me be very careful about saying this the danger is having dealt with the threat from rockets, israel and the United States would no longer see a need to deal with the underlying causes of the conflict. Jennifer yeah. I want to get to that because i think thats a really really important point, but before we jump to the underlying issues which we will talk about, but could the type of weapon this is, because it has been so successful in deterring the kinds of rockets they have coming out of gaza could it stoke the develop of Nuclear Weapons . Before we get to the question of Nuclear Weapons throughout history when you have a weapon, someone comes up with a way to defend against the weapon. Its sort of a rock paper, scissors thing. As soon as you find a way to stop someones weapon they come up with a way to get around your defense, so well be seeing both sides come up with new county measures to use against each other. Jennifer as you started to say technological advances might offer shortterm help but may defer from actual peacebuilding efforts. Do you see that as something that is in play right now . I do see that as a danger. We can look at the building of the separation wall during the second in tafada started by aerial sharon. Obviously its a good thing to stop bombers, but one of the unfortunate consequences is when things arent blowing up all over the place there is less of a sense of urgency, so i would very much hope to see leadership on the Obama Administration and the quartet, while once again everyone is focused on this conflict, which tends to reassert itself every few years to not lose focus again, because we really cannot keep seeing these casualties every few years. Jennifer of course on the human side egypt is playing an role in helping broken the cease fire. Well, hamas originated from the Palestinian Branch but as president he is behaving much more in line with egypts actual interests. Egypt has its own economic crisis, and this is just not something that morsi necessarily wants on his plate right now. As a matter of state crass he understands that he and egypt has an interest in playing a positive role. Jennifer all right. Matthew, thank you so much for coming inside the war room. Coming up, they never question the mission. They are also set for duty and when they go into battle that means our sons and daughters dont. In many ways drone are perfect soldiers. Plus combat outpost keeting was considered remote, but what happened there should hit all of us at home. Later, there is the looming fiscal cliff the crisis in the middle east, and a shake up in his cabinet, so pardon the president is now is not the best time to take a personality test. Hersheys drops. A lot of hersheys happiness in little drops of milk chocolate. And cookies n creme. Pure hersheys. [ explosions ] [ shouting ] jennifer israeli air strikes continue on the gaza strip killing at least 21 people there today. But there are other less visible fronts to this war. It was described this way yesterday. In fact the Israel Government says it has been hit with more than 44 million Cyber Attacks since it began aerial strikes on gaza just last week. Only one was successful in downing a website and only for about six or seven minutes. Its not just israel though in trying to fend off Cyber Attacks, so are we. The secretary of state said the u. S. Is facing a potential cyber pearl harbor. Its a crippling cyber attack, where launched against our nation the American People must be protected. And if the commander in chief orders a response the Defense Department must be ready to obey that order and to act. Jennifer joining me now, eric schmidt National Security reporter for the New York Times and the author of the new book counter strike. Thank you so much for joining me inside the war room. Glad to be here. Jennifer were talking an awful lot about wars and you have a certain expertise in that. This book counter strikes covers a lot in the new war that we have to wage against an unusual enemy like alqaeda. How much is cyber warfare playing into the conflict both in israel and in our confrontations with alqaeda . Sure. As you mentioned in your leadin, you see cyber warfare is definitely a part of the enemy structure going after israel. There is a conventional system up now knocking down some of these missiles. Israel estimates as much as 90 of the missiles have been knocked down. The u. S. For example in its fight against alqaeda has been able to hack into the cell phones of alqaeda leaders and leave false and misleading messages, get into alqaeda chat rooms, and they are able to go into the cyber chat rooms and forums, and duplicate the socalled websites of these cyber terrorists. Jennifer and this all comes from the department of defense . Yes, exactly. Highly classified research being done. Working in close cooperation with the Israeli Government developing cyber weapons, cyber viruses, a key but very shadowy world were entering into. Jennifer so the war against alqaeda is an unconventional far, and one is the Cyber Attacks and another is the use of drones. And there is no small degree of controversy concerning the use of drones. Sure. The military and Intelligence Agency is using them for surveillance, and they are known for attacking alqaeda sites. They are the weapon of choice in going after targets that are hard to hit and trying to minimize the killing of civilians. But there is always some sort of blowback. Jennifer because there may be civilian casualties . Thats right. And thats being used as part of the propaganda so whether there are deaths or not, it almost doesnt matter. Jennifer do we know whether alqaeda is close to getting that kind of technology . Clearly they are working on it. The question is whether they will be able to develop the kind of armed Drone Technology the United States has, but certainly a number of countries are working on this technology. Jennifer so what is the level of congressional oversight . Right now its a little bit murky, because the intelligence communities have oversight over the cia, but increasingly the militarys joint special Operations Command is using them in places like yemen and somalia, and the oversight, while fairly good is not quite as extensive as the intelligence side, and there are some gray areas where they almost take turns in shooting these missiles. Jennifer its interesting to me the new war, the new whether it is Cyber Attacks or iron domes or Drone Technology, all three of those types of technologies would remove the Human Element at least when you play offense from the equation. Does that pose a whole new level of moral choice for the United States . It does. As you pointed out, it reduces the risk obviously of american lives being put in jeopardy but leads to the temptation almost to have a pushbutton war, where you have the ability to strike targets from a long ways away and this would be the weapon of choice. So the ethical question is how much can you use this and how close to civilian populations do you do that and the enemy knows this. They put them near schools, basically Populated Areas. Jennifer uhhuh. So where are we now, with the time we have been in afghanistan, and the difficulty with pakistan where are we with alqaeda . Well, on the good news side of things the main alqaeda leadership that were there on the original 9 11 most of those have been killed or captured but over the last decade alqaeda has generated franchises in places like north africa whos member were involved in on attack on the American Embassy in benghazi and sending fighters into syria, and in yemen those that were responsible for the socalled underpanteds bomber. So these different franchises while maybe not having think ability to carry out mass attacks like the 9 11 attack still can cause great violence. Jennifer really appreciate you coming in. Thank you so much eric schmidt. Thank you. Jennifer appreciate it. Up next the saying it all depends on your point of view is especially relevant when discussing drones. There is a human dynamic that goes well beyond the strategy and statistics and well tell you about that right after the break. vo answer pour disaronno into a flute glass and top with prosecco. Brought to you by disaronno. Be originale. Unwrap your paradise. Soft, sweet coconut covered in rich, creamy chocolate. Almond joy and mounds. Unwrap paradise. Most of the Media Coverage and the u. S. Government mind in the United States is that drone strikes are very precise, and they target with surgical precision particularly militants and terrorists. What we have documented is that drones kill not only terrorists, they kill many others, they kill civilians, they have killed women and children. Jennifer that is just a clip of a video put out by life under drones, which is a joint project between stanford and nyu. There is widespread support for Many Americans because they are seen as a more humane alternative. But the folks at life under drones say thats a false narrative, and they are calling on the u. S. Government to reevaluate its drone policy so joining me to discuss drones is the man behind the life under drones project, james cavallaro. Can i call you jim . You certainly can. Can i call you governor . You can call me that on jennifer. Welcome inside the war room. Good to be here. Jennifer so you spent all of this time researchings the drones in pakistan and you say there is a false narrative. Describe what you meant. One area you saw in the video is one of surgical precision and no collateral costs. And we push back on both of those elements. So in terms of surgical precision, the technology is quite sophisticated, but the drone strikes are only as accurate as the intelligence. It could kill undesired targets, in other words civilians or others that should not be in the cross hairs. Jennifer and you have also got the impact of living under drones. And what is that . Talk about that. First there are a significant number of civilian tragedies, people who survived and lost limbs, and survived and had many other physical injuries and many others who had relatives who had been killed. And theres also the effect that drones have on entire communities. Just last night, Anderson Cooper was reporting, and he mentioned the presence of drones the buzzing, and the state of tension it was creating. We documented symptoms of people with ptsd other nervous disorders and community behavior. People are afraid to send their kids to school afraid to go to religious services jennifer the argument back is, isnt it better than the alternative. There has been between 474 to 881 civilians killed by drones in pakistan since 2004. Now if you look at the alternative in terms of war, if you just look at since 2007 when they started keeping records of what was going on in afghanistan, civilian deaths afghanistan is a country that is five times less populous than pakistan, and because of the war they have had 11,000 deaths in a short amount of time. So if you have go in to try to get the targets, isnt it better to choose the method that kills fewer people. The problem is the assumptions that the only alternatives are drones or fullscale invasion. Jennifer what else is there . There are many states that have dealt with terrorism without fullscale invasion. We have threats of terrorism in the United States and we are using Law Enforcement procedures, and those are an alternative throughout the world. We now have six theaters in which we may be using drones. With very little congressional oversight as the last speaking mentioned, with very little civil oversight jennifer when you say theres Law Enforcement, who would be doing the Law Enforcement . The fbi and other bodies in the United States are engaged in Law Enforcement measures. We need that as a first resource. Jennifer are you comfortable at least that talks with respect to hamas and israel have at least begun in terms of a cease fire . But it hasnt worked. Unfortunately Human History is replete with incident of violence, escalation of violence and warfare and we dont deny that there are situations where the United States has legitimate basis of using the force. We havent declared war on pakistan, though. Jennifer of course not, but if you have had highlevel alqaeda targets, and a drone can take out that target instead of risking u. S. Lives, dont you think that is not a bad thing . Let me answer your question by giving a broader context, what the studies show is the vast majority of drone strikes dont hit those highlevel targets. The majority of those kills are much lowerlevel operatives or civilians, and one of the things we need to think about is what happens when the United States is killing hundreds of people in northwest pakistan. How many future operatives do we create. Jennifer thats a really great point, but unfortunately were running out of time. Really appreciate you coming in. Fascinated by this conversation, the technology, and getting at the University Law professor and founder of the International Human rights and conflict resolution clinic. 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