I just can't comprehend this hate against the Leopard right now. Can we take a minute and accept the fact that Leopard was the best thing we could get at that time. Our tank inventory was incredibly obsolete up until we acquired Leopard 2A4 and our best tank was second-hand M60A3s. 2A4 acquisition and Sabra modernisations were emergency programs at that point.
It was 1980s when we last bought brand-new tank, Leopard 1A3T1, rest was used up M48s and M60s. Another point you seem to miss is that Land Forces Command had chance to trial competitors of Leopard 2A6EX in Tank 2000 Tender. In trials 2A6EX beat the competition by large margin, ommand witness how badly Leclerc and Yatağan performed and how problematic and expensive to maintain Abrams was. Sadly 2A6EX acquisition was never finalised and the closest think we could get after Tank 2000 was 2A4.
Acquisition of Leopard was no blind-purchase it was best bang for its buck and there were no other proper option (also it was easiest to acquire). 2A4 has been neglected for too much far too long, and we suffered its catastrophic results.
+ the fact that many of our tanks were sitting ducks in the open terrain without cover. Some of them were obliterated by long range ATGM because of that.