1981 in Israel

By October 1980, the Israeli government had concluded that action against Iraq’s Osirak reactor was necessary, although ministers and security officials remained divided over whether to use force.[6][7] Israeli concerns centered on the possibility that the French-built reactor would support an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program.[2] Diplomatic efforts to stop French support for the project preceded the military operation, while Israeli planners considered attacking before nuclear fuel was loaded to reduce the danger of radioactive fallout.[7]

The government’s parliamentary position weakened at the beginning of the year.[8] Finance Minister Yigal Hurwitz resigned on January 11, and his Rafi party withdrew three Knesset votes from the government.[8] The loss effectively eliminated Begin’s working majority and contributed to pressure for early elections.[8] The election that followed therefore took place against a background of parliamentary instability as well as security concerns.[8][9]

The PLO’s buildup in southern Lebanon and the presence of Syrian missile batteries in the Bekaa Valley became important elements of election-period security debate.[9] Israel’s northern communities faced rocket and artillery attacks, while Israeli operations against terrorist targets in Lebanon increased the confrontation with Syrian forces.[3][10] Syria’s deployment of surface-to-air missiles threatened Israel’s ability to monitor PLO forces in Lebanon and intensified the crisis.[10]

Diplomacy with Egypt continued within the Camp David framework, including discussions of Palestinian autonomy and preparations for the planned final Israeli withdrawal from Sinai.[4] These negotiations formed a continuing diplomatic agenda alongside the government’s decisions concerning Iraq, Lebanon, and the Golan Heights.[4]

On January 12, Hamad Abu-Rabia, aged 51 and the first Bedouin to serve in the Knesset, was fatally shot in his car outside Jerusalem’s Holy Land Hotel.[11] He became the first serving Knesset member to be assassinated.[11][12] Abu-Rabia had refused to surrender his seat to political rival Jabr Muadi under a rotation arrangement after a court ruled that such agreements were illegal.[11] He was struck by five bullets, and three of Muadi’s sons were convicted of the killing in 1982, although one conviction was overturned in 1984.[12]

Thousands of Bedouin, Druze, and Jews attended Abu-Rabia’s funeral, and the killing did not produce the intercommunal violence that had been feared.[11] The Knesset held a memorial session on January 19, one week after his murder.[13] Abu-Rabia had served since the Eighth Knesset, participated in several committees, and worked on Bedouin affairs, education, and matters concerning Muslim religious officials in Israel.[13]

The northern border saw violence early in the year.[3] On January 28, Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon wounded six Israelis in Kiryat Shmona.[3] Israeli aircraft attacked targets near Tyre on March 2 following another Katyusha attack on the town.[3] These incidents preceded the more extensive exchanges of fire that affected northern Israel during the summer.[3]

Yoram Aridor succeeded Hurwitz as finance minister in 1981 and introduced measures intended to address rising inflation and reduce consumer prices.[14] These included savings plans offering attractive terms and reductions in taxes on consumer goods and imports, together with plans for gradual reductions in subsidies on basic goods and services.[14] His policy, which he called “the correct economy,” lowered taxes and tariffs on durable goods including color televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, and cars.[15] Reduced import duties helped produce an unusual consumer buying spree during the election period.[9]

On April 28, Israeli jets shot down two Syrian helicopters near Zahla in Lebanon.[3][10] Begin described the action as an effort to prevent Syrian domination of Lebanon.[3] The following day, Syria moved SA-6 surface-to-air missile batteries into the Bekaa Valley, threatening Israel’s ability to monitor PLO forces in Lebanon; Israeli aircraft also attacked targets in southern Lebanon.[3][10]

The election campaign placed Begin’s Likud against Shimon Peres’s Alignment, or Ma’arakh.[16] Personal leadership, social and economic issues, and ethnic divisions featured prominently in the contest, alongside the security questions concerning Lebanon and Iraq.[9][16] The campaign included confrontations and political violence, particularly around Peres’s public appearances.[17] The exchange involving entertainer Dudu Topaz’s campaign speech and Begin’s response became one of its widely remembered episodes.[16]

On June 4, Begin met Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in Egypt as the two governments continued their diplomatic contacts.[4] Three days later, on June 7, Israel carried out Operation Opera against Iraq’s nearly completed Osirak reactor, also known as Tammuz I, approximately ten miles south of Baghdad.[2] Eight F-16s took part in the bombing mission, flying a round trip of about 2,000 miles.[2] Six F-15s accompanied the F-16s, and the aircraft departed from an air base in northern Sinai, crossed Saudi airspace, and dropped approximately ten tons of bombs on the facility.[6]

The mission required careful management of the aircraft’s limited range.[2] Fuel tanks were topped off immediately before takeoff, and the pilots flew slowly to conserve fuel.[2] Ilan Ramon, who later became Israel’s first astronaut, carried out much of the logistical planning and flew the last aircraft in the formation.[2] The aircraft flew low through Jordanian, Saudi, and Iraqi airspace; Jordan’s King Hussein saw them and attempted to warn Iraq, but communication problems apparently prevented his warning from reaching its intended recipient.[7]

The reactor was destroyed in an attack lasting one minute and twenty seconds.[7] The aircraft returned to base after approximately two hours and forty minutes.[6] Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed.[2] The Israeli government said that the operation was intended to prevent an enemy state from obtaining nuclear weapons.[2] Begin described the raid as “literally a lifesaving operation,” while Yitzhak Rabin praised it.[2]

The strike took place only weeks before the election and became part of the campaign.[9][6] Peres criticized Begin over the timing and public announcement of the operation, while Begin maintained that Peres had opposed the bombing itself.[6] In a letter, Peres had urged Begin not to proceed “in the present circumstances”; he later explained that his objection concerned the timing before French elections.[6] Begin interpreted public approval of the operation as support for a more active defense posture in Lebanon.[9]

On June 19, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 487, strongly condemning the attack as a violation of the UN Charter and norms of international conduct.[18] The resolution called on Israel to refrain from similar operations and to place its nuclear facilities under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.[18] It also stated that the attack threatened the safeguards regime, noted Iraq’s participation in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and recorded that safeguards had been satisfactorily applied to Iraqi nuclear activities.[18]

The election for the Tenth Knesset took place on June 30.[1] Of 2,490,014 eligible voters, 1,954,609 voted; the count included 17,243 invalid ballots and 1,937,366 valid votes.[1] Turnout was 78.5 percent.[1] Likud received 718,941 votes, or 37.1 percent, and won 48 seats, while the Labor Alignment received 708,536 votes, or 36.6 percent, and won 47 seats.[1] Thirty-one parties contested the election, and ten gained representation.[1]

Both major parties increased their representation compared with 1977.[19] Likud rose from 43 seats to 48, while Labor recovered from 32 seats to 47, gaining fifteen seats without overtaking Likud.[9][19] The National Religious Party, which had traditionally secured ten to twelve seats, fell to six.[19] Begin subsequently formed a narrow 61-seat coalition with the National Religious Party, Agudat Yisrael, and Tami, led by Aharon Abuhatzeira.[17] This gave the government the minimum majority in the 120-member Knesset.[17]

Fighting between Israel and PLO terrorist organizations in Lebanon intensified in July.[10] On July 15, three Israelis were killed in Nahariyah and seventeen people were wounded in Kiryat Shmona.[3] Across ten days of shelling, six Israelis were killed and sixty-five wounded, with extensive damage to homes, factories, and public buildings.[3]

The Reagan administration feared that the escalation would lead to an Israeli invasion of Lebanon.[10] American envoy Philip Habib negotiated a de facto ceasefire between Israel and the PLO, and Israel accepted his proposal on July 24.[3][10] Ariel Sharon became defense minister after the election, while the confrontation in Lebanon remained unresolved.[17][10]

Begin and Sadat met again in Alexandria on August 25–26.[4] Official autonomy negotiations resumed in Giza on September 23–24 as the governments sought to advance the Camp David process.[4] Sadat was assassinated in Cairo on October 6; Israeli leaders eulogized him, and Hosni Mubarak succeeded him as Egyptian president.[3] On October 27, Israel and Egypt signed a series of agreements after three days of normalization discussions led by Sharon and Egyptian Foreign Minister Kamal Hassan Ali.[3]

Moshe Dayan died of a heart attack in a Tel Aviv hospital on October 16, aged 66.[20] He had served as IDF chief of staff and defense minister before becoming foreign minister under Begin in 1977.[20] His diplomatic career included a key role in the Egypt-Israel peace negotiations that produced the 1979 treaty.[20]

On November 30, Sharon and US Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger signed a memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation in Washington.[21] The agreement framed cooperation as defensive and directed toward deterring threats from the Soviet Union or Soviet-controlled forces introduced into the region.[21] It provided for consultations, joint military exercises, readiness activities, working groups, and possible cooperation in research, development, and defense trade.[21] Arab states and the Soviet Union criticized the agreement.[21]

On December 14, the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law by 63 votes to 21, applying Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration to the territory.[5] The law took effect that day and replaced the military authority that had governed the area since 1967 with Israeli civilian law and administration.[5][22] It assigned implementation to the interior minister, who could issue regulations in consultation with the justice minister.[23]

Begin attended the vote in a wheelchair after being discharged from hospital following surgery for a broken hip.[22] The legislation passed through three readings on the same day following a government decision.[24] Labor boycotted the hastily arranged one-day debate, although eight of its members crossed party lines to support the measure.[22] A public petition calling for the Golan’s annexation had attracted one million signatures.[24]

In explaining the timing, Begin referred to Syrian President Hafez Assad’s statement that Syria would not recognize Israel for one hundred years, even if the PLO did so.[22] On December 20, Begin defended the law in a discussion with US Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis, arguing that Resolution 242 envisaged negotiations over agreed borders and that Syria had rejected negotiations and recognition.[22]

Israeli sport also recorded a major achievement during the year: Maccabi Tel Aviv won the European basketball championship.[25] Miki Berkovich scored the winning basket, assisted by Moti Aroesti, in an 80–79 victory.[25]

On December 17, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 497 in response to the Golan Heights Law.[26] It declared Israel’s application of its laws, jurisdiction, and administration to the territory “null and void and without international legal effect,” demanded that Israel rescind the decision, and stated that the Fourth Geneva Convention continued to apply.[26] The Golan decision also diverted attention from the Israeli-Egyptian autonomy negotiations taking place within the Camp David framework.[4]

The United States suspended implementation of the strategic-cooperation memorandum on December 18, less than three weeks after it had been signed.[27] The suspension was a response to Israel’s Golan Heights action.[27] American-Israeli dialogue on strategic cooperation resumed in 1983, and most of the memorandum’s provisions were subsequently implemented.[27]

The July ceasefire postponed rather than resolved the conflict, which escalated into the First Lebanon War in 1982.[10] After the election, Begin and Sharon also pursued a harder line toward Arabs in the territories.[9]

Aridor’s tax and tariff reductions had initially increased purchasing and tax receipts, but revenue shortfalls emerged after the election.[15] Budget deficits, falling foreign-currency reserves, and rising inflation became central features of the policy’s aftermath.[15] Aridor later cited a fall in inflation from 133 percent in 1980 to 102 percent in 1981, while the Bank of Israel warned about the danger posed by declining reserves.[15] Inflation subsequently rose to 132 percent in 1982 and 191 percent in 1983.[15]

The fiscal and monetary easing introduced before the election was not restrained afterward and, alongside other pressures, contributed to the worsening economic crisis.[19] By 1983, the crisis had become severe enough to force Aridor’s resignation.[19] Thus, policies associated with the election-year consumer boom also formed part of the background to the later economic emergency.[15][19]

Likud’s return to government after the closely fought election reinforced the political transformation that had begun with its 1977 victory.[19] The 1981 outcome established a durable pattern of competition between two large blocs rather than a return to Labor’s longstanding dominance.[19] Labor’s substantial recovery in seats, Likud’s continued leadership, and the government’s dependence on a bare parliamentary majority together defined the political balance that followed.[9][17]

Operation Opera remained associated with Begin’s determination to prevent a hostile state from acquiring nuclear weapons, an approach later described as the Begin Doctrine.[2] Its operational history also linked a long-range Israeli air-force achievement with Ilan Ramon’s later prominence as Israel’s first astronaut.[2]

The principal debates surrounding the operation concerned the reactor’s potential, the timing of military action, and its international legality.[2][18] Israeli intelligence assessed that the reactor could produce Hiroshima-sized bombs within five years of becoming operational, while French authorities and some experts disputed that it could be used to develop weapons.[2] Other Israeli estimates ranged from one or two years to five or ten years before Iraq could obtain a bomb.[7] Opponents within the Israeli cabinet warned that a strike could provoke reprisals, international condemnation, regional escalation, and damage to peace with Egypt.[7] Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin initially opposed the operation but changed his position after receiving information about the expected delivery of enriched uranium fuel rods.[7]

The Lebanon ceasefire likewise left an important difference of interpretation: Israel understood it as requiring an end to PLO terrorism against Israel, while the PLO understood it as barring attacks launched from Lebanon.[28] The Golan Heights Law raised a separate legal and diplomatic dispute, since its text applied Israeli law and administration without expressly declaring sovereignty, while Begin rejected its characterization as annexation and the Security Council rejected its international legal effect.[5][26] These disputes formed a lasting part of the year’s diplomatic and security legacy.[28][26]