US President Donald Trump’s speeches are generally unpredictable. Certainly his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos surprised everyone, particularly Israel, when, in listing his achievements, he said "Bibi, stop taking credit for the dome. That's our technology, that's our stuff," referring to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Iron Dome rocket interception system.
The response in Israel was one of astonishment. Iron Dome has been marketed for years as a fantastic Israeli achievement, and the system that has saved many lives is a known source of Israeli pride. But should it really be American pride? We’ll try to put matters in perspective.
The chain of events involving Iron Dome is set out in a 2009 report by the State Comptroller. In August 2005, the decision on the Iron Dome program, covering research and proof of concept, full development, procurement, and a timetable, was made by Brigadier General Danny Gold, then head of the Directorate of Defense Research & Development in Israel’s Ministry of Defense ("Mafat’).
A year later, then Minister of Defense Amir Peretz declared that Iron Dome was "the most important project at present and consideration should therefore be given to defining the development program as an ‘emergency program’ and to expedite it as much as possible." Mafat subsequently instructed Israeli defense technology company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems to begin full development of the project. Peretz demanded an extra budget, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said "We can’t delay execution by even a day," and in April 2007 Rafael and the Ministry of Defense signed an agreement for the development and procurement of Iron Dome.
A couple of months later Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi did decide not to approve the project as long as there was no defined budget for it, but the problem was solved, the new minister of defense Ehud Barak approved development, and in December 2007 the cabinet ratified the decision. In 2009, the system was handed over to the IDF. In April 2011, an Iron Dome battery in Ashkelon carried out the system’s first operational interception.
Who takes the credit?
So much for a potted history of how Iron Dome came about. Now for the key question: To whom does the success belong?
The company that led development of the interceptor missile and the launcher was Rafael. Israel Aerospace Industries unit Elta developed the radar, and Petah Tikva-based company mPrest Systems developed the command and control system. These are all Israeli companies. Yossi Druker, formerly VP and head of Air Superiority Systems at Rafael, and a leading figure in the Iron Dome project, says, "Without exception, Iron Dome was developed with Israeli money, and the technology is entirely Israeli. At Rafael we developed the most advanced air-to-air missiles in the world, and we derived the technology for Iron Dome from them."
So when did the Americans come into it? "At a certain stage, when we were half or threequarters of the way along, a team of ten American experts came to examine the project’s development status, as part of a review of an Israeli request for American funding for production. The report they issued said that there was no chance that we would meet the timetable or the goal for operational capabilities that we had set for ourselves, and a year later they came to apologize for that report. We managed to develop the system within three years; in the US a thing like that would take at least fifteen years."
Today, according to the Ministry of Defense, US company Raytheon is also part of the project, and the US Missile Defense Agency is an important partner in the production of components for the Iron Dome System. The system’s interceptor missiles are manufactured both in Israel and the US, to which part of the production was transferred, in accordance with US demands.
But is that enough to plant an American flag on Iron Dome? Far from it. Dr. Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), says, "Adding radar to the missiles, the controls and the connections between them that turn everything into one system, that is an Israeli development. The people at Rafael did the simulations and Israeli scientists led these processes. They took the technology and made the great leap forward, and so Iron Dome is by definition an Israeli development."
As far as the battle over credit is concerned, Kalisky suggests that at a basic level we should take a step back. "The know-how circulates in the world, and all technology is based on previous knowledge. There’s interaction between scientists and technologists, that’s how it works. Missile technology wasn’t invented in Israel; it was developed in Germany in the 1930s and was later adopted by the US and rest of the world. But to say that Iron Dome is the fruit of US-Israeli collaboration is like saying that the Kassam rockets from Gaza are an Arab-American development. You certainly can’t make such a claim."
Where does the money come from?
That said, it’s important to state that the Americans do have a share in the project, not in the technological aspect that President Trump was speaking about, but in a no less vital aspect: the funding. "It’s part of the bilateral agreements that we have with them," Kalisky explains. "Part of the US military aid goes to the American factories that produce Iron Dome’s interceptor missile, the Tamir. They financed that pretty much from the start. Back in the 1980s the Americans financed US-Israeli laser projects, and in that there was collaboration between Israeli and US companies."
Ever since Iron Dome became operational in 2011, the US administration’s dollars have continued to flow to the project. After the first interception, Israel approached President Obama and Congress and presented a multi-year program. In 2011, the US allocated $205 million to Iron Dome, and in the following years the sum grew. By 2014, the US transferred about $1 billion for this purpose, the purchase of the missile batteries themselves having been made with US financing. The cost of an Iron Dome missile battery was estimated at $50-60 million ($70-80 million in 2025 terms).
Since 2012, Israel has received extensive funding for development of Iron Dome and other air defense systems. Iron Dome is now a joint initiative of the two countries, in which the US provides the finance and Israel provides the technological know-how and the operational experience.
From time to time we are informed of another package of dollars that the US transfers for the purpose of Israeli procurement of Iron Dome systems. In 2012, for example the US Congress allocated close to $1 billion for this purpose. In 2022 alone $1 billion was allocated to Iron Dome, and in 2024, when Israel was at war, the amount reached $4 billion for procurement of Iron Dome and David’s Sling systems and munitions for them, to intercept aerial threats to Israel.
"Today the Americans do help Israel a great deal," says Druker. "The financing of the development was wholly Israeli, a large part of it from Rafael’s internal development funds - and production is entirely US financed."
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 22, 2026.
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