We have to admit that Israel is a tiny country with a huge punch when it comes to technology.
However, did they grow this capability from scratch by themselves or it is built on or borrowed from, or donated by the US public or private tech sector?
In other words, did they achieve it without the USA's (either government or private sector or both) active support (either financial or tech-transfer or both) or only on their own effort?
It's a fairly complex subject, and it also depends what you mean by "technology". Weapons tech, IT tech, biotech? I'll address mostly the weapons tech part.
First, at the risk of stereotyping, Jewish people are known for a strong dedication to education. That provides a good basis for building up technology.
The compulsory Israeli military service also has served as high tech incubators for many.
Israeli men and women are required to perform military service after secondary school. Many gain experience in a variety of high technology systems and that leads directly to careers. Tech companies make no secret of their military backgrounds; start-ups’ websites regularly highlight the units in which the founders served.
Israel is first in R&D spending per GDP in the world, at 4.5%.
For its first 50 or so years, Israel was under existential threat from its neighbors, though they had reached regional military dominance by the mid 90s (factors: collapse of Soviet freebie arms to neighbors, neutering of Iraq in 91, grudging truce by Egypt, strong growth of Israeli economy relative to its neighbors).
That constant threat motivated them in many ways that we do not see in Western nations outside of the accelerated cycles in wartime:
The 1967 war involved shootouts between upgunned Shermans (yes, that Sherman) and Soviet T62s.
The Israeli took the F15, a US pure air superiority fighter and transformed it
The very idea of what the Baz/Eagle is, and how it could be used in combat, was totally changed on October 1st, 1985 when six F-15Ds and two F-15Cs flew over 1200 miles from their Israeli bases across the Mediterranean Sea to strike the PLO’s headquarters located on the coast of Tunis, Tunisia.
Israel was the first nation to produce, around the early 90s, what we now know as UAV/Drones. It was a battlefield reconnaissance system and, while it may be extremely rudimentary compared to modern drones, Israel's were the first viable such system.
Even though the U.S. was able to achieve a breakthrough in the mass-manufacturing and supply of drones for the military, UAVs were often considered unreliable and expensive. This perspective changed in 1982 when Israeli forces used unmanned aircraft to gain a victory over the Syrian Air Force with minimal losses.
Arrow/Iron Dome. During Gulf War 1, the US supplied Patriot antimissile systems to protect Israel from Iraqi SCUDS (a souped up V2, really). Saddam was trying to pull Israel into the war against him and collapse the Arab components of the coalition. It was in everyone's interest to claim that Patriots did well during the war, but...
This got Israel to develop the Arrow which was a lot more convincing than its contemporary US counterparts at the time.
In the 2006 Lebanon War the IDF got its tanks unexpectedly whacked by anti-tank guided missiles.
5 tanks were damaged beyond repair ('lasting vehicle kills'), 22 tanks received armor penetrations, and 52 tanks suffered some form of damage.[225][20][21] other sources claim 20 main battle tanks destroyed (6 to mines, 14 to anti tanks guided missiles- all Merkava II,III or IV).[19]
As a result, Israel developed a point-defense system, whose development started in 2007, the Trophy. It was operational, and successful, starting in 2010. This is what I mean by accelerated development cycles: nothing would leave the drawing boards of Western defense firms after only 3 years.
US aid to Israel is significant and takes various forms. It can be straight out financial aid. It can also provide state-of-the-art weaponry, ahead of what's available for export elsewhere.
It can co-fund Israeli programs:
The multibillion-dollar development program of the Arrow is undertaken in Israel with the financial support of the United States. When the development program began, the projection for the total cost of its development and manufacture – including the initial production of missiles – was an estimated $1.6 billion.[27] The price of a single Arrow missile was estimated at $3 million.[27] Between 1989 and 2007 some $2.4 billion had been reportedly invested in the Arrow program, 50–80[28] percent of which was funded by the United States.[29] Israel contributes approximately $65 million annually.[27]
In the case of Iron Dome, the US provided assistance as well:
Funding for the production and deployment of these additional Iron Dome batteries and interceptor missiles was approved by the United States Congress, after being requested by President Obama in 2010.[31] In May 2010, the White House announced that U.S. President Barack Obama would seek $205 million from U.S. Congress in his 2011 budget, to spur the production and deployment of additional Iron Dome batteries. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor stated, "The president recognizes the threat missiles and rockets fired by Hamas and Hezbollah pose to Israelis, and has therefore decided to seek funding from Congress to support the production of Israel's short range rocket defense system called Iron Dome." This would be the first direct U.S. investment in the project.[31]
Case in point, the Lavi jet fighter:
The IAI Lavi (Hebrew: לביא, "Young Lion") was a single-engined fourth-generation multirole jet fighter developed in Israel, by Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), during the 1980s. The decision to develop the Lavi was controversial, both with the Israeli public, due to the enormous associated costs, and particularly with the U.S. government due to competition with American jets on the export market. By 1984 Israel, with a population of 4 million, had the world's highest military expenditure as a proportion of GDP, at 24%,[citation needed] a rate of spending considered unsustainable.[by whom?] These issues contributed to the ultimate cancellation of the aircraft, by the Israeli government, during the flight-test phase of development in August 1987.
Or again,
Pressure was mounting within both Israel and the US to cancel the program. In Israel, critics included members of the army and the air force who saw huge segments of the defense budget being eaten away by a plane that was years away from development (after seven years, only two prototypes had been produced) and millions of dollars over cost.17 US critics projected that by 1990 spiralling Lavi costs would consume nearly half of all military assistance funds to Israel. Even worse, the Lavi would compete against US aircraft in world markets.18
What comes out again and again is that Israel is very competent, highly reliant on a solid defense industry and can't afford to carry dead weight programs for jobs-for-the-boys reasons.
Shifting over to IT, rather than defense, it is fairly common to see Israeli-led innovations in that field. I am speculating a bit, but it seems that STEM professions are just a more valued outlet for highly capable people in Israel than they are in most Western countries, where people increalingly pursue careers in the law, politics, marketing...
Israel counts 140 scientists and technicians per 10,000 employees, one of the highest ratios in the world. In comparison, there are 85 per 10,000 in the United States and 83 per 10,000 in Japan.6 In 2012, Israel counted 8,337 full-time equivalent researchers per million inhabitants.1 This compares with 3,984 in the US, 6,533 in the Republic of South Korea and 5,195 in Japan. Israel's high technology industry has benefited from both the country's highly educated and technologically skilled workforce coupled with the strong presence of foreign high-tech firms and sophisticated research centres.7
Also, it needs to be noted that while US support for Israel often seems unconditional this was not always the case. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy claims that this started in earnest after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Previous to that France was a major arms supplier to Israel. So for the first 25 years of its existence, the US didn't have nearly the impact on Israeli tech as it does now.
Bit more background, looks like a bit self-congratulatory, but... not necessarily all that wrong either:
Why Israel has the most technologically advanced military on Earth.
I have tried to write this as an unbiased assessment of what makes Israeli defense technology so performant. In the light of current, and preceding, events I need to add that, in my opinion, given its regional military dominance, Israel's long term survival and prosperity is as much a factor of its capacity to reach a just and sustainable accommodation with the Palestinians as it is dependent on outperforming its opponents, with the possible exception of Iran.
Another factor is the migration of highly trained scientists from the Soviet Union after its collapse in the early 1990s. Many leading Soviet scientists were Jewish and scientific education in the Soviet Union was probably as strong as that in the west. Many of these have thrived in a more enterprising Western culture.
Included in the exodus were many with a strong understanding of military technology.
As some indication of the strength of Jewish Science in the Soviet Union, wikipedia has a list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jews_born_in_the_Russian_Empire_and_the_Soviet_Union#Scientists, which includes at least 6 Nobel prize winners and enginers including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Gurevich_(aircraft_designer) co-founder of MiG aircraft company. (Clearly this list includes some scientists who left the Russian empire before the revolution, but many did not).
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Russia#Glasnost_and_end_of_the_USSR "Since the 1970s, over 1.1 million Russians of Jewish origin immigrated to Israel". Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, no doubt it was more difficult for the highly skilled to leave, but once the Soviet Union collapsed, former engineers and scientists were free to seek better life outside of a disintegrating country.
Israel is a major ally and trading partner of the US and other Western countries.
In this sense Israel is part of a broad industrial and scientific community. If a private company in a Western country buys from an Israeli company, that increaes the economy of scale effects for the Israeli company. If an Israeli company can buy components, likewise. That might be labeled "tech transfer," but no more so than usual in international commerce. There are limits on the willingness to trade when it comes to some weapons and defense products, so Israel makes some high-tech weapons systems locally (and then sells them abroad if they can find agreeable customers).
That being said, Israel has received financial/military/industrial support which allowed them to maintain a high-tech society. If they had to do everything from scratch, they wouldn't be where they are.
