It is wrong to slash defense budget by these amounts. And it is sad that Trajtenberg did not point out the real problem in the country which is the underground economy. Many Israelis who drive expensive cars are out of the tax system..Many are :shiputznikim,restaurant owners,grocery stores,shuk ierakot dealers and everything which deals in cash. If those people were in the tax system and they declared only half of what they make,there won't be need to slash the defense budget .

choosing butter when the Psalm 83 war is at the door and defense spending must not be cut. Even with Michael fhe Archangel helping to defend Israel, the people must do their part. Ancient Israel was not given to General Joshua on a plate. It had to be won and maintained by warfare.

To an outsider it seems that the timing for this decision couldn't be more wrong, I mean the ME region is even more unstable than usual...

There is more emphasis on responsible government spending in Israel than the U.S. If Israel is attacked, it can repel the attackers; until then, one must respect the responsible adjustment of the budget. Corruption in gov spending is anti-jewish; therefore it must be seriously frown upon.

The defense establishment needs to revisit its war doctrine. An effective multi-layered missile defense is more important and cost effective than maintaining at full strength all of Israel's conventional forces. Hamas and Hezbollah are weak players who can only do stand off missile attacks and nuisance level cross border terror attacks. Neutralize their missile threat neutralizes their threat to Israel. Same is true with Iran. I'm sickened by Barak's attempt to blackmail the public with threats to stop anti-missile development unless he has the money to maintain 100% of the IDF's current conventional forces.

Hands off on Israel defence !! Cut you salaries Barak and every one in the knesset !!!!!!!!!!

Cutting the nation's life-line...the very assurance that keeps its blood flowing is a monumental mistake. A militarily strong Israel is the very breath of its existence, and the deterrence that assures its survival. It doesn't make sense,

had a tantrum, and her and a whole lot of idiots made tent villages all over Tel Aviv, and scared our worthless politicians, we are going to cut the defense budget, and put the whole country at risk? AWESOME!!!!!! This place is a big damn joke, how about enforce the labor laws, and make laws so that landlords can't keep raising rent every year for no reason? How about that? How about break up the monopolies. This is the solution? I have just about had it with this country and everyone in it.

Why are very high military retirement benefits untouchable by the military? Who controls them?

The lefties have succeeded. Influenced and financed by the EVIL SOROS the Israeli leftist movements have blown out of proportions their condition and succeeded in their agenda of WEAKENING ISRAEL at this time when the threats are from everywhere!. Shame on you the Israeli Left,...you should have waited for the OIL/GAS bonus to come to Israel for your demands no matter how justified they are or were. The defense budget is a matter of LIFE or DEATH!

court." What happens when hamass unleashes thousands of iranian missiles smuggled in through tunnels that should have been destroyed? With no effective missile shield, do you nuke gaza?

Use the new found gas profits from the Med we are at war and war is coming and what do we cut Defense DUMB. Hey but never mind Barak Bibi Livni are all selling Israel down the tubes peace by peace. Selling Israeli Out settlements and defensesble borders.

What is a good life? Today a good life means, that people are earning money, try to spend as few money as they can for the society and as much as they can for their own convenience. In the 21st century good life seems to be, to live a life you adopted from a soap opera or from one of these rainbow press magazines and realize only when it's too late, that you missed living your own life. Then you fight the rest of your remaining years for your life and don't manage to do so, because you sold it many decades ago. The state, and I mean, the peoples make the state, failed to keep the Jewish community alive. Rabbis and politicians permitted the Jewish society to drift apart strengthening the Hareidim on the on side and the secular and atheists on the other side. Today we are seeing Jews no longer working for the idea of our own Jewish state, where we can live within our own order, which by nature is different from the Western/Christian and the Muslim orders. Some of the protests in Tel Aviv and other cities were justified but enough of the protesters had no real reason, while many of those, who would have had a real reason didn't join the protests. To some extend this indicates, that we should openly discuss in what fields the issues raised, are luxury problems. So, the IDF may even limit the number of military drills. I remember reservists complaining about a lack of uniforms and that they had to attend the drills on their own expense. Limiting the number of drills will keep this consequence away from the reservists, finally making the gap between the Israelis and the IDF deeper. The IDF will not be able to protect Israeli civilians as they wish and the decision if IDF positions the iron dome batteries in the north or in the south will be highly inconvenient for all of us, since it will raise the question if we cut the right budgets. Furthermore we cannot catch up within a reasonably short time. Regardless, what we do, the decisions will have a right and a wrong aspect and we will not be able to correct any resulting undesirable development within short time. If the citizens feel, that there is social inequality they, the individual people, need to think in what respect they are having inappropriate advantages from their work or way of life and how they can take responsibility on their own and make things better for the whole society. We are not here to only work for ourselves and leave the rest to the state, while we assume, we (you and I) were not the state and paying tax would mean, that we ransom ourselves from our social obligations, because thus we put the whole society at risk. As Israel is a state, which faces a real threat by its neighbors, we also endanger our readiness to defend our country and our society from the hostilities, we all know only too good.

Israel could spend 98% of its budget on defence and if the defence establishment said "we need the money" the far right would say "let the people starve, we need to spend it on the army". Israel spends 55% of its entire budget on defence with no oversight. It can cut 3 billion NIS.

You can take even more cuts, just change the strategy...

to prisoners, at extra cost, while trying to reduce the budget at the same time Feed Slop to prisoners, buy best equipment for the IDF

I KNOW what you are doing! Good Bait! Wink! Wink! The budget cut is not slashed!! Hee! Heee! Heeee!

But who could argue with it?

One of the reasons Lebanon was such a failure was lack of modern hardware and training. For over a decade successive governments had slashed the military budget year in year out to finance politically popular civilian projects. The result was the army was not upgrading its equipment to deal with modern threats and reserves were not being called up for regular training and skills were lost. The result of that was more soldiers were killed. Big defense cuts will once again lead to more failures and then when soldiers are killed in wars there will be official investigations into why things went so badly and they will start looking for scapegoats and condemning the cuts. Some of those social justice protestors should remember they are the same people who have been demanding more Iron Dome batteries to protect their towns. These people have to ask themselves do they want to be protected by systems like Iron Dome and if there is another war and they are called up do they want the equipment thats going to give them best chance at survival or do they want old equipment which increases their chances of getting killed?

...must use the same PR firm and /or political consultant!