Economy

Imports
$68 billion (2020). Cars ($4.31B), Diamonds ($2.65B), Packaged Medicaments ($1.9B), Broadcasting Equipment ($1.75B), and Computers ($1.34B), importing mostly from China ($9.01B), United States ($8.03B), Germany ($5.11B), Turkey ($4.67B), and Switzerland ($3.36B).

Financial inclusion factors (over 15 years of  age)

• 93% have an account with a financial institution
• 75% have a credit card
• 50% make online purchases

Ease of doing business
It is very easy to conduct business (rated 76.7 out of 100) 21st out of 34 OECD high-income countries, and 35th worldwide out of 186 countries (2019, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal).

Exports
$50.8 billion (2020). Diamonds ($5.77B), Integrated Circuits ($3.38B), Packaged Medicaments ($1.97B), Medical Instruments ($1.86B), and Other Measuring Instruments ($1.6B), exporting mostly to United States ($14.1B), China ($4.64B), Palestine ($3.34B), Netherlands ($2.28B), and Germany ($2.01B).

Economic freedom
‘Mostly free’ (rated 68.9 out of 100) ranked 2^nd out of 14 Middle Eastern countries ranked 34^th out of 186 countries worldwide (2019, Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal)

Global Innovation Index

Ranked 1st out of Northern Africa ad Western Asia countries, 16th out of 132 worldwide.

The Global Innovation Index captures the innovation
ecosystem performance of 132 economies and tracks the most recent global innovation trends.

Media

Media language English, Hebrew, Arabic

Information channels
Israel’s press and broadcasters are many and varied, reflecting differences in language, political viewpoint and religious outlook. TV is the leading medium and commercial networks top the ratings. Public broadcasting saw a major change in 2017, when the Israel Broadcasting Authority (IBA) ended more than 50 years of operations and was replaced by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC). The IPBC was intended to be more efficient, employing fewer staff than the IBA and outsourcing production. Israel has two free-to-air national commercial networks, Keshet 12 and Reshet 13. Most households subscribe to cable or satellite. Yes satellite TV and the HOT cable network are the main providers. Radio is an important news source. The sector comprises public stations run by the IPBC, two networks run by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and more than a dozen commercial outlets. The press scene is very competitive, although there is an ongoing decline in print readership as online media take an increasingly large share of the market. Yisrael Hayom, a freesheet, and Yediot Aharonot are the top print dailies. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (World Press Freedom Index, 2018) says the media are “free to be outspoken, which is rare in the Middle East”. It says this is tempered by “military censorship” and that the army “often violates the rights” of Palestinian and foreign journalists, especially when they cover demonstrations. Freedom House says the media “are vibrant and free to criticize government policy”. But it says diversity and editorial independence have been threatened by “financial difficulties in the industry”. Facebook is the top social media platform. Y net is the leading Hebrew-language news site.

Television

Kan 11 – public, in Hebrew
Mikan 33 – public, in Arabic
Keshet 12 – national, commercial
Reshet 13 – national, commercial

Radio

Kan – public, networks include main Hebrew station Kan Bet and Arabic-language Kan Mikan
Galei Zahal – Israel Defence Forces (IDF) Radio, broadcasts news and music to a mostly-civilian audience; also operates music and traffic news network Galgalatz

The press

Yediot Aharonot (Latest News) – Tel Aviv-based, widely-read daily
Israel Hayom (Israel Today) – Tel Aviv-based, free-of-charge, large-circulation daily
Haaretz (The Land/The Country) – Tel Aviv-based daily
Jerusalem Post – English-language daily
Maariv (Evening Paper) – Tel Aviv-based daily
Globes – business daily

Internet Data

Internet users
90% penetration, 7.97 million

Share of web traffic by device
54.95% mobile phones, 43.11% computers (laptops and desktops), 1.93% tablet devices, others 0.03%

Median speed of mobile Internet connection
24.80 Mbps

Median speed of fixed Internet connection
85.66 Mbps

Mobile connection as a percentage of total population: 117.3%

Percentage of mobile connections that are broadband (3G-5G): 98.5%

Most popular web search engines
Google (97.92%), Bing (0.87%),Yahoo (0.51%), Yandex Ru (0.36%), Duckduckgo (0.15%), Ecosia (0.1%)

Most used social media
Facebook (71.63%), Pinterest (4.86%), Instagram (12.88%), Twitter (7.04%), YouTube (2.56%), Reddit (0.31%)

Social statistics

Life expectancy
83 yrs (2020)

Healthcare expenditure
7.4% of GDP (2017)

Average age of the population
30.5 yrs (2020)

Current education expenditure
90.2% of total expenditure in public institutions

Co2 emissions
6.3 metric tons per capita

Gender
In Israel, male-female relations are equal in most areas (politics, the army and private life). Women have the same civic rights as men and you can find women with roles in government that have the same political prerogatives as their male colleagues. Women have the same status as men in the Israeli army and can rise to high-ranking positions (officers, fighter pilots, etc). The same holds true for the police force. Outside of religious roles, modern Israeli women can have access to any job provided they have the necessary skills. At work, women have the same decision-making power as men and the relationship between employees and female managers is generally respected. Sometimes there are salary differences between men and women with the same qualifications and skills and this situation is often denounced by the national union (Istadroute). With respect to a religious women, in an Orthodox Jewish families (as in other religions), the status of women is such that they are little or not at all employed outside the family; they are required to raise the children while husbands spend most of their time studying the Torah in Talmudic schools. In an orthodox family, it is considered to be a divine act (“Mitsva”) for a woman to have a lot of children and they are her responsibility, the father’s role being to teach them about Jewish traditions and values.

Class
The gap between the rich and the lower classes has broadened greatly since the beginning of the 2^nd Intifada. The recession has worsened and many budgets focussed on national security and military spending to the detriment of social welfare. Today in Israel, the poor who have very limited or no resources at all are becoming poorer while the rich become richer and travel abroad. This explains why many businesses have shut down or relocated abroad. The result is a considerably weakened Israeli economy and an unprecedented recession. There are still people who belong to the middle and lower classes who struggle to survive in terrible economic conditions.

Glass Ceiling Index
58 out 100, ranked 19th out of 29 countries

The glass-ceiling index measures the environment for working women combining data on higher education, labor-force participation, pay, child-care costs, maternity and paternity rights, business-school applications, and representation in senior jobs.

Corruption Perception Index
Israel scored 63 out of 100, ranked 31 out of 180 countries worldwide.

The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring absolute levels of corruption.

World Happiness Index
Israel ranked 9 out of 146 countries, with a score of 7.364.

The World Happiness Index measures happiness based on respondent ratings of their own lives, correlated with other life factors.

Religion
The Jewish religion, and religion in general, is very much respected. Respect for others is a dominant feature. In Israel, there are three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Many Christians and Muslims work in and are well integrated into Israeli society. However, it is evident that each religious community prefers to keep to itself. This means that there are areas or towns that are practically all Muslim or Catholic. This does not refer to the various branches of Islam (Shiites, Sunnites, Bahaï, Druzes), which can be found in many villages and whose followers are very integrated in the country (towns or cities that are primarily Arab include the main tourist areas – such as Nazareth – but the inhabitants of these communities prefer to avoid any contact with Israeli Jews and this feeling is sometimes mutual). Equality with regard to religion at work is generally respected by all, but with the understanding that many employers are reluctant to hire people from the Muslim Arab community due to the current situation in Israel. Since the beginning of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many Israeli Arabs who regularly work in Israel have suffered the consequences of the conflict. There is still a distrust of Arabs in Israel since the image of suicide bombers is ingrained in the hearts of the Israeli population that is literally traumatized from the numerous Palestinian attacks. With regard to festivities, Israel follows the Jewish calendar whereas in daily life the Christian calendar applies. In secular workplace environments, individuals who are more religious than their colleagues will not notice any difference.

Ethnicity
There are many different Jewish ethnic groups due to the great waves of immigrants from Russia in the early 1990s, the arrival of Jews from Ethiopia and those who were chased out of and fled from Iran and Iraq, as well as the many Jews from France and the United States who left on Aliyahs (which translates into “going (emigrating) to Israel”). Israeli society has greatly diversified and the Israeli melting pot has grown. Israel has welcomed (and continues to welcome) Jews from around the world with open arms, regardless of their origins, in order to increase the population and have more weight in its relations with the surrounding Arab countries.