Israel is a country established by a United Nations (UN) resolution in 1948, in a partitioning of the Palestine territory previously occupied by the United Kingdom. On December 31, 2020, Israel's population is estimated at 9,291,000 residents. 6,870,000 are Jews (73.9% of the total population), 1,956,000 - Arabs (21.1%) and 456,000 "other" (5.0%). The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Israel was worth 395.10 billion US dollars in 2019, according to official data from the World Bank and projections from Trading Economics.
The official language is Hebrew; the two languages in widest use are Hebrew and Arabic. Arabic is the daily language and language of instruction for Israel's Arabic citizens. But for Jewish Israelis the day-to-day language is Hebrew.
The Israeli government is a Parliamentary system, consisting of the legislative, executive, and judicial systems. Its institutions are the presidency, the Knesset (parliament), the government (cabinet of ministers) and the judiciary.
The political structure of Israel
During elections, people vote for parties and parties receive seats based on what percent of the popular vote they receive. As of 2019, the cutoff for a party to receive seats in the government was 3.25%. After an election, the parties negotiate with each other to form a coalition of parties with a majority of the seats. Once a coalition is formed, the parties in the coalition choose a prime minister. To date, all governments have been based on coalitions of several parties, since no party has received enough Knesset seats to be able to form a government by itself.
