The Israel Defense Prize, in honor of Eliyahu Golomb, is a prize awarded annually to people and organizations who made significant contributions to the defense of the State of Israel.
The prize was first awarded in 1958 and it is awarded each year by the President of Israel in proximity to the Israeli Day of Independence. It is usually given for exceptional technological breakthroughs, alongside an annual award for lifetime achievements. Until 2003 there have been 730 recipients.
The recipients are chosen by the Minister of Defense on the basis of recommendations given by an external committee appointed by the Minister. In 2008 the award was for the sum of 36,000 NIS.
Recipients of the Israel Defense Prize usually remain in confidentiality for various periods of time. Some of the past recipients include Israel Tal, Moshe Arens, Uzi Gal and various teams of the Intelligence corps, the Mossad, the General Security Service and weapon industries.
Famous quotes containing the words israel, defense and/or prize:
“The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“The cliché organizes life; it expropriates people’s identity; it becomes ruler, defense lawyer, judge, and the law.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“It is impossible to think of Howard Hughes without seeing the apparently bottomless gulf between what we say we want and what we do want, between what we officially admire and secretly desire, between, in the largest sense, the people we marry and the people we love. In a nation which increasingly appears to prize social virtues, Howard Hughes remains not merely antisocial but grandly, brilliantly, surpassingly, asocial. He is the last private man, the dream we no longer admit.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)