ABSTRACT
Establishing an advanced defence industry was one route whereby Israel was seeking to achieve a qualitative edge to compensate for its inherent quantitative inferiority. In 2007 sales of Israel’s defence companies amounted to US$8,150m., of which 24% were designated for domestic use of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) (The Marker, 2 September 2008), the balance being export sales and sales of subsidiaries operating outside of Israel. Local defence production accounted for some 2%–3% of gross domestic product (GDP), considerably less than 20– 30 years ago, thereby also having less influence than before on the economy. Meanwhile, the Israeli defence industry became a major player in the global arms market, ranking fifth-largest among arms exporters in 2006 (SIPRI 2008, 296).
