All numbers here are as reported in the CIA World Factbook, except the last row which is me calculating GDP times % of GDP spent by the military.
| Israel | Iran | Jordan | Saudi Arabia | Egypt | |
| Population | 9 MIllion | 88 Million | 11 Million | 36 Million | 109 Million |
| GDP Per Capita (PPP) | $44,400 | $15,500 | $9,500 | $50,200 | $12,800 |
| Ginni Index | 38.6 | 40.9 | 33.7 | 45.9 | 31.9 |
| Unemployment Rate | 3.7% | 8.8% | 19% | 5.6% | 6.4% |
| Average Life Expectancy | 82.2 | 75.4 | 76.3 | 76.9 | 74.7 |
| Total GDP (PPP) | $424 Billion | $1.4 Trillion | $107 Billion | $1.8 Trillion | $1.4 Trillion |
| % of GDP spent on military | 4.5% | 2.5% | 4.8% | 6.0% | 1.2% |
| Estimated Military Spending | $19 Billion | $35 Billion | $5.1 Billion | $100 Billion | $17 Billion |
The sources of these numbers are not always crystal clear, so we can take them with a grain of salt, but still they yield some insights. Israel is just a small country. It’s about a tenth the size of Iran or Egypt in terms of population (I’m not sure how settlers and people in occupied territories are counted, but we are talking orders of magnitude here), and about a quarter to a third the size of Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia in terms of GDP. An average person lives a rich country lifestyle and enjoys a long life in Israel, but in terms of sheer amount spent on the military you can see why they need foreign (i.e. U.S.) assistance and conscription to be on a similar level with these other countries in the region. I threw in Jordan, but it is a relatively small, not very wealthy country by these numbers. You can see why they would prefer not to get in fights with their neighbors or the world’s superpowers.