U.S.-Israel defense, diplomatic, and economic cooperation has been close for decades, based on common democratic values, religious affinities, and security interests. On May 14, 1948, the United States was the first country to extend de facto recognition to the state of Israel. Subsequently, relations have evolved through legislation, bilateral agreements, and trade. U.S. officials and lawmakers often consider Israel's security as they make policy choices in the Middle East. Congress provides military assistance to Israel and has enacted other legislation in explicit support of its security. Such support is part of a regional security order—largely based on U.S. arms sales to Israel and Arab countries—that has avoided major Arab-Israeli interstate conflict for about 45 years. Some Members of Congress have occasionally authorized and appropriated funding for programs benefitting Israel at a level exceeding that requested by the executive branch. Other Members have sought greater scrutiny of some of Israel's actions. Iran continues to be a top Israeli security concern. Israel has sought to influence U.S. policy on Iran, and supported the Trump Administration's May 2018 withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear agreement. In recent years, Israel and Arab Gulf states have discreetly cultivated closer relations with one another in efforts to counter Iran. As Iran-backed groups have been successful in helping Syria's government regain effective control of the country, Israel has conducted a number of airstrikes targeting these groups. Israeli officials consider an indefinite Iranian presence in Syria to be a serious security threat exacerbating the threat already posed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, and have vowed to prevent it. As a result, Israel's relationship with Russia, which cooperates with Iran in Syria and hosts advanced air defense systems there, has become more important. Israel also remains threatened by Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip while considering ways to work on Gaza's difficult humanitarian and security situation with neighboring Egypt and a wide range of actors. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, political disputes persist over key issues including security parameters, Israel-West Bank borders, Jewish settlements, Palestinian refugees, and the status of Jerusalem. Polls suggest wide skepticism among the Israeli public about prospects for a negotiated end to the conflict. Contentious domestic politics for both Israelis and Palestinians make it difficult for them to make diplomatic concessions, particularly in a climate where questions surround the continued leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu (see " Corruption Allegations Involving Netanyahu " below) and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Abbas. Possibly complicating the situation further, President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December 2017 and the Administration moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in May 2018. The Trump Administration may be contemplating a diplomatic proposal aimed at restarting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations with the support of the Arab states that Israel has been discreetly cooperating with against Iran. Israelis debate how their leaders should prioritize options such as participating in diplomatic initiatives, preserving the current facts on the ground, and acting unilaterally to influence outcomes. Israeli leaders and significant segments of Israeli civil society regularly emphasize the importance of closeness with the United States. Yet, a number of geopolitical factors distinguish Israel from other developed countries, including the regional threats it faces, its unique historical experience, and its population's relatively higher level of direct military service. The quest for a modern Jewish homeland can be traced to the publication of Theodor Herzl's The Jewish State in 1896. Herzl was inspired by the concept of nationalism that had become popular among various European peoples in the 19 th century, and was also motivated by European anti-Semitism. The following year, Herzl described his vision at the first Zionist Congress, which encouraged Jewish settlement in Palestine, the territory that had included the Biblical home of the Jews and was then part of the Ottoman Empire. During World War I, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, supporting the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Palestine became a British Mandate after the war and British officials simultaneously encouraged the national aspirations of the Arab majority in Palestine, insisting that its promises to Jews and Arabs did not conflict. Jews immigrated to Palestine in ever greater numbers during the Mandate period, and tension between Arabs and Jews and between each group and the British increased, leading to periodic clashes. Following World War II, the plight of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust gave the demand for a Jewish home added urgency, while Arabs across the Middle East concurrently demanded self-determination and independence from European colonial powers. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly developed a partition plan (Resolution 181) to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, proposing U.N. trusteeship for Jerusalem and some surrounding areas. The leadership of the Jewish Yishuv (or polity) welcomed the plan because it appeared to confer legitimacy on the Jews' claims in Palestine despite their small numbers. The Palestinian Arab leadership and the League of Arab States (Arab League) rejected the plan, insisting both that the specific partition proposed and the entire concept of partition were unfair given Palestine's Arab majority. Debate on this question prefigured current debate about whether it is possible to have a state that both provides a secure Jewish homeland and is governed in accordance with democratic values and the principle of self-determination. After several months of civil conflict between Jews and Arabs, Britain officially ended its Mandate on May 14, 1948, at which point the state of Israel proclaimed its independence and was immediately invaded by Arab armies. During and after the conflict, roughly 700,000 Palestinians were driven or fled from their homes, an occurrence Palestinians call the nakba ("catastrophe"). Many became internationally designated refugees after ending up in areas of Mandate-era Palestine controlled by Jordan (the West Bank) or Egypt (the Gaza Strip), or in nearby Arab states. Palestinians who remained in Israel became Israeli citizens. The conflict ended with armistice agreements between Israel and its neighboring Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. The territory controlled by Israel within these 1949-1950 armistice lines is roughly the size of New Jersey. Israel has engaged in further armed conflict with neighbors on a number of occasions since then—most notably in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. Since the 1950s, Israel also has dealt with the threat of Palestinian guerrilla or terrorist attacks. In 1979, Israel concluded a peace treaty with Egypt, followed in 1994 by a peace treaty with Jordan, thus making another multi-front war less likely. Nevertheless, as discussed throughout the report, security challenges persist from Iran and groups allied with it, and from other developments in the Arab world. Israel is a parliamentary democracy in which the prime minister is head of government (see textbox below for more information) and the president is a largely ceremonial head of state. The unicameral parliament (the Knesset) elects a president for a seven-year term. The current president, Reuven Rivlin, took office in July 2014. Israel does not have a written constitution. Instead, Basic Laws lay down the rules of government and enumerate fundamental rights. Israel has an independent judiciary, with a system of magistrates' courts and district courts headed by a Supreme Court. The political spectrum is highly fragmented, with small parties exercising disproportionate power due to the relatively low vote threshold for entry into the Knesset (3.25%), and larger parties needing small-party support to form and maintain coalition governments. Since Israel's founding, the average lifespan of an Israeli government has been about 23 months. In 2014, however, the Knesset somewhat tightened the conditions for bringing down a government. Israeli society and politics have evolved. In the first decades following its founding, Israeli society was dominated by secular Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews who constituted the large majority of 19 th - and early 20 th -century Zionist immigrants. Many leaders from these immigrant communities sought to build a country dedicated to Western liberal and communitarian values. From 1948 to 1977, the social democratic Mapai/Labor movement led Israeli governing coalitions. The 1977 electoral victory of Menachem Begin's more nationalistic Likud party helped boost the influence of previously marginalized groups, particularly Mizrahi (Eastern) Jews who had immigrated to Israel from Arab countries and Iran. This electoral result came at a time when debate in Israel was intensifying over settlement in the territories occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Begin and his successor in Likud, Yitzhak Shamir, helped drive the political agenda over the following 15 years. Although Labor under Yitzhak Rabin later initiated the Oslo peace process with the Palestinians, its political momentum slowed and reversed after Rabin's assassination in 1995. Despite Labor's setbacks, its warnings that high Arab birth rates could eventually make it difficult for Israel to remain both a Jewish and a democratic state while ruling over the Palestinians gained traction among many Israelis. In this context, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a longtime champion of the Israeli right and the settlement movement, split from Likud and established Kadima as a more centrist alternative in 2005. He was succeeded as Kadima's leader and prime minister by Ehud Olmert in 2006. Likud returned to power in 2009 with Netanyahu as prime minister (he had previously served in the position from 1996 to 1999). Since then Netanyahu has led two additional coalitions following elections in 2013 and 2015. The enduring appeal of Netanyahu and right-of-center parties to Israeli voters in recent years may stem from a number of factors, including Arguments by some that Palestinians have rejected peace and that Israeli military withdrawals from southern Lebanon (in 2000) and the Gaza Strip (in 2005) emboldened Hezbollah and Hamas and contributed to subsequent conflict.