1978 in Israel

Israel entered 1978 governed by Menachem Begin and his Likud-led coalition, which had come to power after the 1977 Knesset elections and ended almost thirty years of Labor Party dominance.[7] Egyptian President Anwar Sadat's unprecedented November 1977 visit to Jerusalem had opened direct negotiations between Israel and Egypt under American auspices.[7]

Israel's population stood at approximately 3,738,000.[8] Jerusalem, the capital, had 386,600 residents—279,400 Jews and 107,200 Arabs and others—and accounted for 10.3 percent of the national population and 12.0 percent of Israel's urban population.[9][10] Tel Aviv-Yafo had 339,800 residents and Haifa 229,000.[9] Alongside the diplomatic opening with Egypt, Israel's northern communities faced PLO terrorism, cross-border attacks, and mortar and rocket fire originating in Lebanon.[11]

On March 11, 1978, eleven PLO-Fatah terrorists who had traveled from Lebanon landed in rubber boats near Maagan Michael beach.[2] The squad killed American nature photographer Gail Rubin shortly after coming ashore, then hijacked a bus on Israel's Coastal Road.[12][13] The terrorists forced passengers from a second Egged bus onto the first vehicle and drove south before Israeli security forces stopped them near the Glilot junction, where a firefight followed.[2]

The attackers ultimately blew up the bus. The Israel Ministry of Defense Archives records 38 Israeli civilians killed, including 13 children, and 71 wounded.[2] The Library of Congress account records 37 people killed, while other approved sources likewise distinguish between 36 Israeli civilians and one American civilian.[4][13] The attack shocked Israel and became the immediate catalyst for a major military response in Lebanon.

Israel began Operation Litani on March 15, 1978, following the Coastal Road massacre and repeated PLO terrorist attacks originating in Lebanon.[3][11] The campaign opened with airstrikes on terrorist bases in southern Lebanon. Israeli ground forces advanced the following day across four sectors, taking control of territory between the international border and the Litani River while stopping short of Tyre.[3]

The campaign sought to destroy terrorist bases and push armed groups away from Israel's northern border. Ynet describes it as a six-day operation during which Israeli forces established a belt across southern Lebanon and linked Christian-controlled enclaves.[3] The same account reports that approximately 300 armed operatives were killed and that Israel lost 15 combatants.[3]

Following international criticism of the operation's effects on southern Lebanon's civilian population, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolutions 425 and 426 on March 19, calling for Israeli withdrawal and establishing the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.[3][14] UNIFIL arrived on March 23 and established its headquarters at Naqoura, while Defense Minister Ezer Weizman ordered Israeli forces to withdraw.[14]

Israel completed its withdrawal in June under intense American pressure, and UNIFIL replaced Israeli forces. The withdrawal did not remove the PLO from its southern Lebanese bases and became a major embarrassment for Begin's government.[4] Operation Litani also consolidated the enclave controlled by Major Saad Haddad, a Lebanese army defector who, with Israeli assistance, formed the militia known as Free Lebanon.[11]

In April 1978, the Knesset elected Labor politician Yitzhak Navon as Israel's fifth president.[4] Navon became the country's first president of Sephardi origin. His election followed the governing Likud coalition's inability to elect its preferred candidate, and contemporary Israeli observers viewed him as a unifying symbolic figure during a period of political controversy and change.[4]

In early 1978, Prime Minister Begin convened senior ministers and security officials to discuss Iraq's rapidly advancing nuclear program.[15] Participants included Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin, Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, Mossad chief Yitzhak Hofi, and Military Intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit. The officials named in the account opposed an Israeli military strike at that stage.[15] These deliberations preceded debates that continued until Israel struck Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981.

The Camp David Summit was held from September 5 through September 17, 1978, at the U.S. presidential retreat in Maryland.[16] It brought together President Jimmy Carter, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, President Anwar al-Sadat, and their delegations after a negotiating deadlock had stalled the peace process. Carter sought an Egyptian-Israeli agreement, Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, and a framework for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza.[16]

The negotiations were difficult, and Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance met separately with the Israeli and Egyptian delegations while American drafts were revised numerous times.[16] Begin and Sadat remained largely isolated from the wider world during the summit.[17] On September 17, the two leaders signed the resulting frameworks at the White House, with Carter witnessing the ceremony.[18]

The Camp David Accords produced two framework documents rather than a formal peace treaty. They were titled "A Framework for Peace in the Middle East" and "A Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel."[19][20] The frameworks based a peaceful settlement on United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.[1]

The Egypt-Israel framework provided for full Egyptian sovereignty to the internationally recognized border, Israeli withdrawal from Sinai, and limitations on Egyptian and Israeli military forces.[18][19] It guaranteed navigation by Israeli ships through the Gulf of Suez and Suez Canal and recognized the Strait of Tiran and Gulf of Aqaba as international waterways.[18] Egypt and Israel were to negotiate a peace treaty within three months, with an interim Israeli withdrawal east of a line from east of al-Arish to Ras Muhammad within three to nine months after the treaty.[18]

Normal relations following the treaty and interim withdrawal were to include diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations, the termination of economic boycotts and barriers to movement, and legal protection for each country's citizens.[18] In practical terms, Israel accepted withdrawal from Sinai while Egypt accepted recognition and normal relations with Israel. The fate of Israeli settlements in Sinai was submitted to the Knesset.[21]

The regional framework called for a transitional period of no more than five years in the West Bank—known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria—and the Gaza Strip.[20] It envisioned an elected self-governing authority replacing Israel's military government and civilian administration, followed by Israeli force redeployment to specified security locations. Negotiations involving Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and representatives of the inhabitants were to determine the authority's powers and the territories' final status and boundaries.[20]

The Knesset approved the Camp David Accords in September 1978 by a large majority.[22] A major Knesset debate on the agreements followed on September 25.[17]

The negotiations exposed a fundamental distinction in the Israeli position: the government accepted withdrawal from Sinai but rejected an analogous withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, instead favoring a five-year autonomy arrangement.[16] The Knesset's large majority in favor of the accords reflected broad, though not universal, support for the Egyptian-Israeli component.[22]

A mass Israeli peace movement also emerged in 1978. Earlier peace activity had largely been confined to the Communist Party and Matzpen, whose agendas were broadly rejected by the Jewish-Israeli public.[23] Peace Now, founded that year by veterans of the Yom Kippur War, organized around the argument that territorial compromise and a successful peace process could provide genuine security.[22][23] Later Israeli peace movements expanded their attention to anti-militarism, electoral politics, and broader cultural change.[23]

On December 8, 1978, former Prime Minister Golda Meir died at age 80.[5] Israel's first female prime minister, she had led the country during the Yom Kippur War and was buried on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem.[5]

Two days later, the Nobel Peace Prize was conferred jointly on Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat for the agreement that formed the foundation of peace between Israel and Egypt.[6] Begin became Israel's first statesman to receive the Nobel Prize.[24] He donated the prize money—approximately $100,000—in his and his wife's names to a scholarship fund for students.[24]

At the Oslo ceremony, Begin began his remarks by honoring Meir, who had died two days earlier. The audience, which included members of Norway's royal family and government, stood for a minute of silence in her memory.[6]

Israel won the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 1978, with Izhar Cohen and Alphabeta performing "A-Ba-Ni-Bi" in Paris.[25][26] The song was written by Ehud Manor and composed by Nurit Hirsh.[26] The victory became a prominent cultural milestone in Israel's Eurovision history.[26]

The Camp David framework led to the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, signed in Washington on March 26, 1979—the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab neighbor.[6][27] The treaty ended the state of war, provided for Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, and established normal diplomatic relations.[6]

The accords established detailed mechanisms for withdrawal, security arrangements, navigation, recognition, and normal relations between Israel and Egypt.[18] Their separate regional framework proposed elected Palestinian self-government and later final-status negotiations, but those provisions were not implemented as envisioned.[16][20]

Operation Litani left unresolved the security challenge it had sought to address. UNIFIL's deployment did not remove the PLO's bases in southern Lebanon, and the withdrawal under American pressure damaged Begin's security credentials.[4] The operation strengthened Major Saad Haddad's enclave, while Israel's relationships with Lebanese Christian militias—including the Phalange, which received Israeli equipment and training—became increasingly consequential before the 1982 Lebanon War.[4][11]

Navon's election as Israel's first president of Sephardi origin reflected the country's changing social and political composition.[4] Peace Now's founding introduced a mass civil-society movement organized around the relationship between territorial compromise, peace, and security.[22][23]

Begin's Nobel Prize, Meir's death, the Coastal Road massacre, Operation Litani, the Camp David Accords, and Israel's first Eurovision victory made 1978 a consequential year in which tragedy, diplomacy, military action, political change, and cultural achievement intersected.

Approved sources report different casualty totals for the Coastal Road massacre. The Israel Ministry of Defense Archives records 38 Israeli civilians killed, including 13 children, whereas the Library of Congress records 37 deaths.[2][4] The sources agree that more than seventy people were wounded. Accounts also differ over the precise dates assigned to Operation Litani: one chronology dates it from March 14 through March 21, while Ynet describes a six-day campaign beginning on March 15.[28][14]

The Camp David provisions concerning Palestinian self-government were frameworks for later negotiations rather than a final-status settlement. The summit did not resolve the status of Israeli settlements, the extent of Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, the powers of the proposed self-governing authority, or the territories' final political status.[16] Palestinian representatives rejected the accords and did not participate in the subsequent autonomy negotiations, while Arab governments declined to follow Egypt's diplomatic initiative.[16][29] The broader regional framework consequently did not take effect as envisioned.