Question about Israel rifels

I really dont know much about weapons but I have noticed that every picture I saw in the news shows their soldiers carring the M-16. I remember watching a program on the history chan where some famous general (?) was talking about some rifle that they invented and how good it was. Do they actually use it or do most of them carry american made weapons? Or are those pics just propaganda for the US audience?

Originally posted by Lecter
Or are those pics just propaganda for the US audience?

Not at all. Be assured Israel uses PLENTY of US weaponry:

Much has been made in the U.S. media of the Syrian- and Iranian-origin weaponry used by Hezbollah in the escalating violence in Israel and Lebanon. There has been no parallel discussion of the origin of Israel's weaponry, the vast bulk of which is from the United States.

The United States is the primary source of Israel's far superior arsenal. For more than 30 years, Israel had been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance and since 1985 Jerusalem has received about $3 billion in military and economic aid each year from Washington. U.S. aid accounts for more than 20% of Israel's total defense budget.

Over the past decade, the United States has transferred more than $17 billion in military aid to this country of just under 7 million people.

Source.

[edit on 11/8/06 by Implosion]

This source will answer your question

While being a successful weapon, the Galil was not widely issued to the IDF during its lifetime, because during the late 1960s and early 1970s Israel received large shipments of the US M16 and CAR-15 assault rifles at the very low prices. M16 rifles became the major armament of the IDF, with the Galils mostly issued to the Armored corps, Artillery corps and some units of the Israeli Air Forces.

World Guns

Don't know what happened to them, but after experimenting with FN SLRs, M16s, AKs and whathaveyou, IMI came up with two weapons:

First in was the Uzi SMG and we all know where that led and secondly IMI developed an AK lookalike in the Galil. Reputedly a cross between the AK47 and the South African R4 and just as reliable.

It would now appear that the IDF is almost exclusively armed by Messers Colt & Co. Pity cos the Israelis make some pretty good stuff of their own.

Lecter, was it this rifle you saw on a program?

Modern firearms

This one is still in developement... but from what I know, it will be an exellent assault rifle

And then there was also the Tavor assault rifle. and several variants of the Galil. Yeah, pretty much most of the weapons are US made. By the way, whatever happened to the Uzi? Yeah I know it sucked, so did they stop using it completely?

Galil is being outphased from front line service, as is M-16, they're slowly replacing them with Tavors. M-16 will remain in reserve use.

Galil is actually not based on R4, it's made with machinery obtained from Finland (Valmet) And it's basically and RK-62/75 with wooden grips.

Just as IMI/Soltam mortars are actually license built Tampella mortars...