Ethnic Groups: Jewish 74%, Arab 21.1%, other 4.9% (2020 est.)
Religion: Jewish 74%, Muslim 18%, Christian 1.9%, Druze 1.6%, other 4.5% (2020 est.)
Unemployment: 4.4% (2020 est.)
Other Facts
Israel is a parliamentary democracy comprised of legislative, executive and judicial branches.
About 93% of the land is owned by the State of Israel, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and the Development Authority.
The Israel Land Authority (ILA) manages the land. The government issues long-term leasing rights for land. Timeline
November 2, 1917 – The British government expresses support for the establishment of a permanent Jewish state in Palestine with a letter called the Balfour Declaration.
1922 – The League of Nations authorizes Great Britain to help the Jewish people establish a homeland in Palestine with the British Mandate for Palestine.
1936-1939 – Tension between Arabs and Jewish settlers leads to riots.
1937 – In the wake of the unrest, a British commission issues a report recommending the partition of Israel into an Arab state, a Jewish state and a neutral zone for holy sites. A year later, a separate commission concludes that the planned partition is impractical and the plan is abandoned.
1939-1945 – World War II is fought in Europe and the Pacific. More than six million Jews are killed in the Holocaust.
November 29, 1947 – The
United Nations approves a plan for
the partition of Palestine.
May 14, 1948 – The independent state of Israel is declared with David Ben-Gurion as prime minister.
May 1948 – Forces from Egypt, Syria, Jordan,
Iraq and Lebanon invade, leading to the first in a series of Arab-Israeli wars.
1949 – An armistice agreement is reached. The West Bank is split off from Israel to become Jordanian territory and the Gaza Strip is designated as an Egyptian territory. The armistice is meant to be a temporary arrangement, a prelude to permanent peace treaties.
1949 – Israel is admitted into the United Nations.
1950 – The UN begins operating a relief agency for Palestinian refugees. When the agency is introduced, about 750,000 displaced Palestinians are in need of services.
January 1964 – Pope Paul VI visits Israel.
1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is formed.
June 5-10, 1967 – The Six-Day War is fought between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and Syria. At the end of this war, Israel doubles its land holdings to include the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
September 1972 – Eleven members of the Israeli
Olympic team are killed by terrorists in Munich, Germany.
October 1973 – Egypt and Syria launch air strikes against Israel on the holy day,
Yom Kippur. The fighting continues for more than two weeks, ending after the UN adopts a resolution to stop the war.
November 19, 1977 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visits Jerusalem for peace talks with Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
September 5-17, 1978 – US President Jimmy Carter sponsors a summit between Israel and Egypt at Camp David. The summit leads to an agreement called “The Framework for Peace in the Middle East,” establishing a potential path to end the conflicts between Israel and neighboring countries. Begin and Sadat share the 1978
Nobel Peace Prize.
March 1979 – The Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is signed by Begin and Sadat. Israel agrees to withdraw its forces from the Sinai Peninsula while Egypt agrees to establish diplomatic relations with Israel and grant Israeli ships free passage through the Suez Canal.
December 1987 – The Intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, begins.
November 1988 – The PLO accepts two UN resolutions, recognizing Israel as a sovereign state and renouncing terrorism.
September 13, 1993 – PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shake hands on a Middle East peace deal.
1994 – Arafat, Rabin and
Shimon Peres share the Nobel Peace Prize. Full diplomatic relations are established with the
Vatican.
November 4, 1995 – Rabin is assassinated by an Israeli extremist opposed to the leader’s diplomacy with Arab states.
March 21-26, 2000 – Pope John Paul II visits Israel.
September 28, 2000 – Opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits the Temple Mount, a holy place for both Jews and Muslims. The visit is condemned by Arafat and it leads to a wave of violent clashes in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
2003 – US President George W. Bush presents “Middle East: The Road Map to Peace.” Israeli and Palestinian leaders agree to broad outlines of the plan, but the countries do not reach the road map’s endpoint: a two-state solution to resolve the conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians.
December 2003 – The Disengagement Plan, a planned withdrawal from Gaza and settlements in the West Bank, is announced by Sharon.
May 2010 – Pro-Palestinian activists aboard a Turkish passenger ship try to breach a blockade to reach Gaza with humanitarian supplies.
Israeli commandos intercept the ship and nine activists are killed during the raid. Three years after the incident,
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologizes to
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
June 2, 2014 – Hamas and Fatah swear in a unity government. A year later, the government is dissolved due to tensions between the two groups.
May 1, 2017 – Hamas unveils a new policy document that says the group accepts the idea of a Palestinian state within borders drawn up prior to the Six-Day War in 1967. The new charter does not, however, recognize Israel as a legitimate sovereign state. In response to the announcement, a spokesman for Netanyahu says, “Hamas is attempting to fool the world but it will not succeed.”
May 14, 2018 – The United States relocates its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in a move that is met with clashes and protests along the Gaza border. At least 58 Palestinians are killed and more than 2,700 injured as deadly protests take place ahead of, during and after the ceremony in Jerusalem, making it the deadliest day there since the 2014 Gaza war.
January 28, 2020 – Netanyahu is formally indicted on corruption charges. He is charged with bribery and fraud and breach of trust in three separate corruption cases. The charges in court mean that Netanyahu will be the first sitting prime minister to face trial in the country’s history.
March 2, 2020 – Netanyahu’s Likud party wins 59 seats in the general election, but is three seats short to win a majority.
December 23, 2020 – The
seven-month-old emergency government collapses after the parliament fails to meet a deadline for passage of the 2020 and 2021 budgets.
March 21, 2021 –
Israel holds its fourth general election in two years. Though Netanyahu’s party wins the most number of seats in parliament, neither he nor his opponents are able to prove they have the numbers needed to bring together enough parties to reach the 61 seat majority necessary.
May 30, 2021 – Naftali Bennett, leader of the small right-wing party Yamina, announces he is working toward a coalition agreement with Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist party Yesh Atid, to
join a new government.
June 2, 2021 – Lapid announces an eight-party coalition agreement has been signed. Under the agreement, Bennett will become prime minister for the first two years of a four-year term. Lapid will serve as foreign minister until the two men swap roles halfway through the term.
June 13, 2021 – Bennett is sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister after winning a confidence vote with 60 votes to 59, bringing an end to Netanyahu’s run as the country’s prime minister after more than 12 consecutive years in office.
June 30, 2022 – The Knesset votes to dissolve itself, triggering the fifth election for Israelis in less than four years.
July 1, 2022 – Lapid officially takes over as caretaker prime minister.
