Since oslo in real terms the millitary budget has been shrinking more and more under succesive governments who have put the dreams of peace above the reality of war. Syria has been ignored pretty much because they were not a major millitary powe. The IDF needs a massive budget increase a mixture of using doing deals with the Americans to buy a substanital number of jets using millitary aid ( its just been increased to $3 billion over 10 years. Sell off old equipment rotting in storage sell the old merkava 1 and the old patton tanks use the money to buy more merkava 4 The government must stop seeing the IDF as an organistion we will use on but they will have to pay for themselves dont expect anything from us. The government also needs to do more to promote Israeli weapons abroad there are countries who would buy merkava and the merkava 3 is licenced for export all thats needed it to find customers dont treat it as an example of what Israel can build but never sells.