General information about Israel

22,145 square km, including Golan Heights and East Jerusalem and not including Judea and Samaria ("The West bank") - 5,800 square km, and Gaza Strip - 400 square km.

Population

Population at 1999 (according to JCSS): 6,120,000, including:

	Population	Percentage
Ethnic groups:
Jews	4,982,000	81.4
Arabs, Druzes, and others	1,138,000	18.6
Religious groups:
Judaism	4,982,000	81.4
Islam	836,000	14.1
Christianity	171,000	2.8
Druzes and other	104,000	1.7

Comments

Druzes live in villages at North Israel (mount Carmel, Galilee and the Golan Heights. Ethnically, Druzes are Arabs.

Except of Israel, they live in Lebanon (6% of the population) and in Syria. It is said in many sources, that Druzes are one of the sects of Moslem Shiites. It is the same as stating that Islam is a branch of Judaism. The religion of the Druzes indeed broke of from a Shiitic sect of the Ismaelites in the 11-nth century, but completely changed afterwards, and it is worth regarding it as a completely separate religion. To preserve their small communities, it is common among the Druzes to be loyal to any local rule. Some Druze leaders had contacts with Jews already in 1928, and during the Independence War in 1948-149 obviously passed to the Israeli side. In 1954 the leaders of the community offered to extended the law of common military service to the Druzes too. Since 3-rd of May 1956 the Druzes (and the Cherkesians too) in Israel are called for military service for a fixed period (except of Golan Heights Druzes).

The Cherkesians are descendants of military migrants from the Caucasus. They were transferred to Palestine by the Ottoman empire at the 19-nth century. The Turks didn't rely on the local Arab population and brought the Cherkesians here, to serve in the police. By the English rule, and afterwards in Israel, the Cherkesians continue to serve in the IDF and the police. By the way, they live also in Jordan, where they serve in the army and in the police, including the king's personal guard. They shouldn't be mistaken for the Cherkesians that live in Karachaev-Cherkesian autonomic region in the Stauropol county - the Israeli Cherkesians are descendants of miscellaneous Moslem peoples of North Caucasus - (the Adygues, the Chechenians, the Ingushes and others). They live in two villages at North Israel.

The Bedouins are descendants of Arab nomads, to distinguish from settled Arab farmers (the fellahs). Currently most of them live in villages (mainly at the south of the country, in the Negev, but also at the north). Many Bedouins of the northern villages serve as volunteers at the IDF and the police, and among the southern Bedouins very few serve there.

Age groups, according to IISS:

Age	13-17	18-22	23-32
Men	284,000	272,000	525,000
Women	268,000	258,000	528,000

Economics

Economic information, according to JCSS (all figures are in billions of US dollars)

Year:	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999
GNP in billions of dollars (current prices):	86.9	95.5	98.6	97.5	98.9
GNP per capita, US dollars:	15,685	16,754	16,912	16,331	16,160
Real GNP growth, 1995 prices %:	6.8	4.6	2,9	2,2	2,2
Growth of prices, %:	10.0	11.3	9.0	5.4	5.2
External debt in billions of dollars:	29.718	31.972	33.919	35.893	36.248
External trade
Export, billions of dollars	19.268	21.241	22.650	22.972	25.386
Import, billions of dollars	26.834	28.426	27.824	26.197	29.927
Current balance, including service and other income, in billions of dollars	-5.196	-5.316	-3.399	-0.667	-2.602
Government expenses
General budget	39.514	44.802	44.407	38.437	40.032
Defense budget	7.075	8.150	8.264	7.836	8.777
Actual change of the military expenses, %	7.71	15.19	1.39	-5.17	12.00
Defense expenses as percentage of GNP	8.14	8.53	8.38	8.03	8.87
Other information
Population, in millions	5.54	5.70	5.83	5.97	6.12
Exchange value of the shekel relatively to the US dollar	3.14	3.25	3.54	4.16	4.15

Defense budget

Expenses for security and defense, in millions of shekels (according to official statistics of Israel)

Year	Ministry of Defense		Ministry of Police		Nuclear energy committee
Year	Budget	Actual	Budget	Actual	Budget	Actual
1992	17,579	18,542	1,431	1,405	76	76
1993	18,300	19,164	1,509	1,638	79	78
1994	20,546	21,944	1,887	2,188	89	89
1995	25,297	25,740	2,597	2,673	100	100
1996	27,598	30,723	3,199	3,166	110	107
1997	30,420	33,600	3,410	3,451	126	124
1998	32,770	36,538	3,721	3,799	136	141
1999	34,322	37,747	4,676	4,942	138	138
2000	36,655	?	5,327	?	146	?
2001	37,504	?	5,591	?	148	?
2002	?	?	?	?	?	?

Remarks: since 1995 the Ministry of the police is called the Ministry of internal security. Both the Israeli Police ("Mishteret Israel") and the Prisons Service (the "SHABAS" - "Sherut Batei ha-Sohar") are subdue to it.

The "Bamahane" magazine published the following data about the budget in 1999 (October 8-th, 1999, p.19) * 13.6 billions of shekels - wages and payments for soldiers and workers at fixed period, regular and reservist service.

1.5 billions of dollars (that is, 6.225 billions of shekels at exchange rate of 4.15 shekels per dollar) - buying abroad (that is, US military help to Israel

2.4 billions of shekels - R&D.

2.5 billions of shekels - payments to 95 thousand people registered at the rehabilitation department of the Defense ministry, that is, disabled veterans, widows and orphans of IDF.

0.45 billions of shekels - food supply (including 35 thousand tons of fresh vegetables, 11.3 thousand tons of meat and fish and approximately 93 tons of eggs). In this magazine it is said that the IDF also uses 4 millions of "Acamol" tablets.

All of it makes 25.175 billion shekels. In 1999 the total military budget was 34.322 billion shekels, there still is a disparity of 9.147 billion shekels, or 26.7 of the budget, It wasn't mentioned there, where this money goes, apparently it is buying of weapon, ammunition and ammunition in Israel, capital building, and also usual expenses, aside of food, such as water, gas, electricity, telephone, municipal taxes (the "arnona"), maintenance of buildings etc.

The "Bamahane hashavua" newspaper published the following information about the military budget (January 18-nth, 2002, page no.2)

75% of the budget comes out of Israeli funds, 25% - US military help

80% of the budget is spent in Israel, 19.2% - in USA, and 1.6% - in other countries (that is, the Americans permit Israel to spend no more than 23.2% of US military help outside of USA).

42% - wages and payments, 36% - R%D and buying of weapons, 8% - expenses of the rehabilitation department, 14% - usual expenses.

The "Bamahane" magazine (August 28, 2000) published prices, that let conclude how small is the Israeli military budget.

Modern tank ammunition - 10,000 shekels

A hour in the sea on "Saar-5" - 58,000 shekels (price of a hour on a plane/tank/ship consists of expenses on fuel and other spent materials, and also expenses of ammunition).

An hour of flight on F-15I - 112,000 shekels

Guided ammunition - 811,000 shekels (it is unclear where this price is taken from, because if a TOW anti-tank guided missile costs approximately 20,000, and "Hellfire" - about 40,000 dollars, the "Patriot" and "Popai" guided missiles cost more than million dollars).

Merkava-4 battle tank - 19,000,000 shekels.

F-15I fighter-bomber - 84,000,000 dollars.

Sources:

1) "The Middle East Military Balance" report for 2000/2001 by JCSS - Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies -
near Tel-Aviv university.
2) "The Military Balance" report for 2001/2002 by IISS - The International Institute for Strategic Studies -
in London
3) "Armament, Disarmament and International Security" report for 2001 by SIPRI - Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
4) The "Bamahane hashavua" newspaper, the "Maarakhot" and "Bamahane" magazines.
5) Israeli statistics information books
6) "Political strategy in period of systems crisis" by Arie Stav ("Isrategia medinit beidan shel teruf maarakhot", Hebrew, 1997).