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Main article: Economy of Israel
Israel has a technologically advanced market economy with substantial government participation. It depends on imports of crude oil and gas, grains, raw materials, and military equipment. Despite limited natural resources, Israel has intensively developed its agricultural and industrial sectors over the past 20 years. Israel is largely self-sufficient in food production except for grains. Diamonds, high-technology and military equipment, and agricultural products (fruits and vegetables) are leading exports. Israel usually posts sizable current account deficits, which are covered by large transfer payments from abroad and by foreign loans. Roughly half of the government's external debt is owed to the U.S., which is its major source of economic and military aid. The influx of Jewish immigrants from the former USSR topped 750,000 during the period 1989- 1999, bringing the population of Israel from the former Soviet Union to 1 million, one-sixth of the total population, and adding scientific and professional expertise of substantial value for the economy's future. The influx, coupled with the opening of new markets at the end of the Cold War, energized Israel's economy, which grew rapidly in the early 1990s. But growth began slowing in 1996 when the government imposed tighter fiscal and monetary policies and the immigration bonus petered out. Those policies brought inflation down to record low levels in 1999.
Main article: Demographics of Israel
As of 2001, 81% of Israel's population (excluding the non-Jewish population of the West Bank and Gaza) is ethnically Jewish. Among Jews, 26% have at least one Israeli-born parent, 37% are first-generation Israelis, 27% are immigrants from the West, and 11% are from developing countries in Asia and Africa, including Arab countries.[3]
6% of Israeli Jews define themselves as haredim (ultra-orthodox religious); an additional 9% are "religious"; 34% consider themselves "traditionalists" (not strictly adhering to Jewish halacha) ; and 51% are "secular". Among the seculars, 53% believe in God.[4]
Arabs make up 18% of Israel's population. Within this group is a minority of Palestinian Christians who make up 9% of the Israeli Arab population.[5]There are also a number of smaller minorities, including Druze (1.5%) and a tiny Armenian community.
As of 31 December, 2003, 224,200 Israeli citizens live in the West Bank in communities established before the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and re-established after the Six-Day War, and in numerous settlements. All but a few of these were new settlements, established after the Israeli military occupation following the Six-Day War in 1967, and assisted in their development by government funding and military protection. This number does not include Israelis in East Jerusalem, which was captured by Jordan in 1948, and annexed by it from 1950 to 1967. About 7,500 Israelis live in settlements built in the Gaza Strip. [6].
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