The State of Israel is a sovereign nation-state, established as a homeland for the Jewish people. Its origin is rooted in the late 19th-century Zionist movement, which sought to re-establish a Jewish national home in their ancestral land, known as Eretz-Israel. The problem it aimed to solve was the millennia-long Jewish diaspora and the need for a safe refuge, particularly following the Holocaust.
Israel was formally proclaimed on May 14, 1948, by David Ben-Gurion, following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine. This declaration came after the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 29, 1947, which recommended the partition of Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. The establishment led to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the displacement of approximately 700,000 Palestinians, an event known as the Nakba.
Israel does not have a single, codified constitution; instead, it operates under a set of Basic Laws that function as its quasi-constitutional framework. Key mechanisms include the Law of Return (1950), which grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel and gain citizenship. The Basic Laws define the structure of the state, such as the legislature (Basic Law: The Knesset (1958)) and human rights (Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty (1992)).
A significant recent change is the passage of the Basic Law: Israel – The Nation State of the Jewish People on July 19, 2018. This law constitutionally anchors Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, stating that the right to national self-determination in Israel is "unique to the Jewish people" (Section 1(C)). Critics argue this law, which omits a reference to equality, undermines the country's democratic character. More recently, the Basic Law: Torah Study was passed on July 13, 2026, declaring Torah study a "foundational value" of the state, a move seen by critics as a legal maneuver to protect ultra-Orthodox military service exemptions. Israel's political and legal landscape is closely connected to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the tension between its identity as a "Jewish and democratic state".