The State of Israel is a nation-state and a unitary parliamentary democracy officially defined by its Basic Laws as a "Jewish and democratic state". The state was officially declared on May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv by Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion. Its establishment was the realization of the Zionist movement's goal for a sovereign Jewish homeland in Eretz-Israel. This followed the United Nations Partition Plan (Resolution 181) of November 29, 1947, which proposed dividing Mandatory Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states.
Israel's political system is based on 11 Basic Laws rather than a single written constitution. Legislative power is held by the unicameral Knesset, which has 120 members elected via a nationwide proportional representation system with a 3.25% electoral threshold. The Prime Minister is the head of government, while the President serves a largely ceremonial role. Israel's existence is fundamentally connected to Zionism and the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For India, Israel is a strategic partner with full diplomatic relations established in 1992, focusing on defense, agriculture, and technology.
A significant recent change was the passage of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People on July 19, 2018, which codified the right to national self-determination as unique to the Jewish people. More recently, a 2023 judicial reform effort saw the Knesset pass a bill to curb the Supreme Court's power to declare government decisions "unreasonable," which the Supreme Court subsequently struck down. The Knesset also recently approved a controversial law introducing the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks against Israelis.