Israel dropped eight ranks in its peace ranking, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace's (IEP) 2023 Global Peace Index released on Wednesday.
The country is now ranked number 143 on the list out of the total 163 countries that have their peacefulness measured annually by the IEP.
How does the Global Peace Index work?
The IEP's rankings are discerned by looking at 23 measurements within the larger categories of militarization, societal safety and security and ongoing domestic and international conflict, according to the report.
Some of these measurements include the number and duration of international conflicts, the number of deaths from internal and external conflicts, the level of violent crime, the number of jailed population per 100,000 people and the number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people.
Overall, Israel was given a score of 2.706 from the IEP, meaning that the country is having challenges maintaining a peaceful level. This number is based on a scale in which a 1 is considered the most peaceful.
Is Israel getting less peaceful at an unprecedented rate?
Israel's score this year represented a decrease of .154 from Israel’s 2022 result of 2.554. With this decrease, Israel recorded the fourth-largest decrease of any country this year, only behind Ukraine, Haiti and Mali.
Israel also had its largest deterioration in the political instability assessment, a data point that falls underneath the societal safety and security category. Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s controversial government decisions sparked protests nationwide in Israel, some of which amassed over 100,000 people.
This was a driving factor behind the decrease, the IEP said. “Israel now has the highest levels of political instability since 2008."
Israel has the least peaceful military in the world, IEP says
In addition, Israel was the worst-ranked country in the world in the militarization category as a whole. It was given an overall 3.783 for this category by the IEP.
Israel is facing a downward trend in its peacefulness that continues to see conflict both domestically and internationally.