Israel entered its 70th year of independence today with a population of 8,680,000, over ten times the number when the state was established in 1948.

According to a special update by the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israel’s Jewish citizens amount to three quarters of the population and number 6,484,000.

Twenty one per cent of Israelis are Muslim and Christian Arabs (this does not include Palestinians living in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza). The population grew by 159,000 in the last year, with 174,000 babies born, 30,000 new immigrants and 44,000 deaths. At Israel’s foundation, six per cent of the world’s Jews lived there. Today it is 43 per cent.

Life expectancy in Israel is currently 80.9 years for men and 84.5 for women. That’s an increase of 16 years on average for men over the last six and a half decades, and 17 years for women. Another indication of prosperity is that 3.24 million cars are currently on Israel’s roads, nearly 100 times the number in 1951, when the statistic was first recorded.

According to a survey carried out by the Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, Arab citizens (66 per cent) were more likely to describe Israel's overall situation as good than its Jewish citizens (44 per cent).

Israeli Arabs viewed more positively Israel’s situation in the fields of health, economy, education and science. The only field in which Jewish Israelis (86 per cent) were more positive in their assessment than their fellow Arab citizens (74 per cent) is national security.

Despite the differing assessments, Jews were more likely to say they are proud of being Israeli (86 per cent) than Arabs (51 per cent) and a larger majority of Jews (73 per cent) said they were optimistic about Israel’s future than Arabs (61 per cent).