Defense Industries Forum

Defense Industries — Merkava and Armored Vehicle Manufacturers Forum
Leading the future of Israel's defense industry, together

The Merkava and Armored Fighting Vehicle (AFV) Manufacturers Forum of the Manufacturers Association of Israel operates within the Association's defense industries framework and is the professional home of hundreds of defense-industry plants and suppliers taking part in one of the most important and far-reaching national projects in the State of Israel — the Merkava, Namer and Eitan program.

The Forum serves as a central platform for cooperation, influence and value creation for Israel's defense industrial base, connecting suppliers directly with the defense establishment and with decision-makers. Its structure and mandate are grounded in the Forum's vision and objectives documents.

The Merkava and AFV program is far more than a procurement program — it is a national growth engine and a "technological locomotive" that drives innovation, attracts investment, develops advanced manufacturing capabilities and expands Israel's technological knowledge base, while sustaining skilled employment in both the periphery and the center and cultivating a generation of engineers, technicians and production professionals whose expertise serves the wider economy.

Over the years, the program has yielded breakthrough technologies that have found their way into a wide range of civilian applications — in medicine, transportation, electronics and advanced manufacturing — turning defense-driven development into broad economic value.

The Forum currently brings together some 200 suppliers and subcontractors, approximately 80 of them direct suppliers to the program. It acts as a unified professional voice working to strengthen the national industrial base, safeguard the continuity of defense production, increase local procurement, and reduce dependence on imports and foreign supply chains — a strategic imperative underscored by recent global disruptions and by Israel's need for independent, resilient production capacity.