Since Israel has no formal constitution, its Declaration of Independence occupies a special place as the nation’s foundational document. In its final form, the declaration was the product of extensive wrangling by various parties with different ideas about what sort of country the Jewish state should be. Jodi Rudoren describes the original version:

In 2004, a group called Ansar Allah—also known as the Houthis, after the tribe that dominates the movement—launched an insurgency against the government of Yemen, and in 2014 seized the capital city of Sanaa. Since then, a bloody civil war has engulfed the country, with Iran backing the Houthis and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and (until recently) the U.S. backing their opponents.