The bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor, south of Baghdad, indicated Israel’s fear of the growth of Saddam Hussein’s military forces and especially the possibility to construct nuclear weapons. Israel thereby clandestinely supplied arms to Ayatollah Khomeini in the Iran–Iraq War.

This attack resulted in widespread condemnation in the Arab world.

Here Menahem Begin is pleading with President Reagan to open his umbrella to protect Israel through an American veto of any hostile motion at the United Nations. The storm clouds of the UN Security Council have gathered and it is just about to rain heavily.

Ze’ev (Ha’aretz 15 June 1981)

12 Jan

Unemployment rate at 5.4 per cent with 72,000 out of work

12 Jan

MK Hamad Abu Rabia, United Arab List, assassinated in Jerusalem

13 Jan

Knesset votes to strip Aharon Abuhatzeira of his parliamentary immunity

20 Jan

Yoram Aridor appointed minister of finance in place of Yigal Hurwitz

19 Feb

Yosef Mendelevich arrives in Israel after 11 years in Soviet camps

7 Mar

Palestine Liberation Front hang-gliders traverse northern border

25 Mar

Poet, writer and Canaanite movement founder, Yonatan Ratosh, dies aged 72

22 Apr

US administration decides to supply Saudi Arabia with AWACS

29 Apr

Israel attacks Syrian SAM-6 missile sites in Lebanon

1 May

President of Austrian–Israeli Friendship League gunned down in Vienna

8 May

Poet and political ideologue Uri Zvi Greenberg dies in Ramat Gan aged 84

29 May

Israel announces strike on Libyan missile sites in Lebanon

7 June

Israel bombs nuclear facility Osirak near Baghdad with F-15s and F-16s

30 June

Likud gains 48 seats as largest party in election

16 July

Rocket barrage from Lebanon on Kiriat Shemona and Nahariya

17 July

Heavy Israeli air raid on Beirut to destroy delivery of tanks and missiles

21 July

Israeli mother of three killed by rocket fire on Kibbutz Misgav Am

24 July

PLO and Israel agree ceasefire in Lebanon

5 Aug

Begin appoints Ariel Sharon as defence minister

7 Aug

Saudi Crown Prince Fahd proposes eight-point peace plan

11 Aug

Traffic accident near Gaza kills 21, injures 45

18 Aug

Reagan lifts embargo on delivery of military aircraft to Israel

29 Aug

Palestinian attack during barmitzvah ceremony at Vienna synagogue

16 Sept

Supreme Court says Rabbinate’s rulings not binding on state officials

22 Sept

Israel and Egypt agree to resume autonomy negotiations after 18-month interval

27 Sept

International Atomic Energy Agency suspends technical aid to Israel

6 Oct

Anwar Sadat assassinated at military parade in Nasser City

15 Oct

Israel rejects Fahd peace plan

16 Oct

Moshe Dayan dies of a heart attack in Tel Aviv aged 67

20 Oct

Truck bomb explodes outside Antwerp synagogue, killing two

1 Nov

Menahem Milson heads civilian administration on West Bank

5 Nov

Military government closes Bir Zeit University after Balfour Day protests

12 Nov

At the UN Israel calls for a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East

30 Nov

Sharon and Caspar Weinberger sign memorandum of understanding

15 Dec

Knesset votes 63–21 to annex Golan Heights

17 Dec

Three-day strike by 14,000 Golan Heights Druze to protest against annexation

18 Dec

Israel and Egypt agree ferry service between Ashdod and Port Said

18 Dec

USA suspends memo of strategic cooperation due to Golan annexation

The spiralling inflation that had plagued the economy led to the resignation of the finance minister, Yigal Hurwitz, who wished to delay a rise in teachers’ salaries until April 1982. Hurwitz, the leader of the eight-member La’am faction of the Likud, had followed a free market policy of cuts in government subsidies while promulgating a period of austerity. Within days of his resignation, El Al employees staged a national strike amidst widespread labour disputes. Moreover, three La’am members simultaneously left the government coalition and thereby the prospect of early elections loomed. While Begin’s coalition appeared to be crumbling, the NRP opposed early elections because one of its representatives, the religious affairs minister Aharon Abuhatzeira, had been charged with taking bribes, while another, Yosef Burg, had been accused of blocking an investigation into financial irregularities in the Ministry of the Interior.

Begin unexpectedly appointed the chairman of the Herut Executive, Yoram Aridor, as minister of finance rather than a candidate from the Liberal faction of the Likud. Aridor proceeded to remove many of the restraints put in place by his predecessors. This coincided with the announcement that the election would take place in early July, later brought forward to late June. Despite such moves to alleviate the economic hardships, workers at power stations in Ashdod and Haifa went on strike in May. The Central Bureau of Statistics subsequently recorded a 12 per cent rise in living standards due to lower income tax. Spending on consumer goods was 25 per cent higher during the first half of 1981 compared with 1980.

The bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor just outside Baghdad had been in the pipeline for a long time. It had been given urgency when the Camp David Agreement was signed and Iraq attempted to take Egypt’s place as the pre-eminent military power in the political aftermath. The Iran–Iraq War had commenced and there was a good likelihood that Saddam Hussein’s forces would be victorious and emerge as the strongest military force in the Middle East. This persuaded Israel to clandestinely deliver arms to the ayatollahs in unmarked aircraft in exchange for the emigration of Iranian Jews.

There had been an attempt to sabotage the reactor while it was still in France, before delivery to Baghdad. An Egyptian nuclear scientist, Yahya el Mashad, who was deeply involved in the Iraqi programme, was killed in Paris. In July 1980, France delivered enriched uranium to Iraq. A few months later, the Israeli cabinet voted 10–6 to carry out an attack on the Osirak reactor.

Some were worried that such an attack would undermine relations with Egypt. Others believed expert advice that the reactor was unsuitable for manufacturing a bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conference subsequently voted to suspend all technical assistance to Israel.

The Reagan administration condemned the attack on the nuclear reactor, utilising US-made aircraft, as an obstacle to attaining peace in the region. While Washington joined Israel in opposing a resolution at the UN, it also moved to suspend the delivery of four F-16 aircraft to Israel.

The attack on the Osirak reactor occurred three weeks before the Israeli election. The improved economic situation and the attack provided a boost for the Likud which narrowly pipped the Labour Alignment by ten thousand votes to emerge as the largest party with forty-eight seats. Many smaller parties such as the Independent Liberals did not pass the electoral threshold into the Knesset and those that did only achieved single digit representation. The new party, Tehiya, represented the emergence of a far Right in the Knesset – those who dissented from the Camp David Agreement. The NRP lost half its seats due to the defection of Abuhatzeira, while Moshe Dayan’s challenge never materialised as Telem only achieved two seats. Begin formed his second administration in August from mainly Likud and National Religious figures while he continued to cultivate Tehiya and Telem. His most controversial appointment was that of Ariel Sharon as minister of defence. A few weeks before his death, Moshe Dayan strongly advised Begin not to promote Sharon to this position.

The settlers continued to press government ministers to support unrestricted settlement throughout the West Bank and Gaza. Negotiations progressed to agree compensation terms for those who would have to leave their homes, such as in Ophira (Sharm el-Sheikh), in accordance with the Camp David Agreement. This often spilled over into a political dispute regarding any evacuation itself. In November, Begin agreed to meet settlers from Yamit, including one on a stretcher who had been on a liquid diet for forty days in protest against the evacuation plan. The meeting broke up in acrimony.

However, the formal annexation of the thirty settlements on the Golan Heights on a 63–21 vote in the Knesset was greeted with great approval. Begin’s sudden initiative took Labour by surprise such that, while the leadership advocated a boycott of the vote, its Knesset representatives were split on the issue. Damascus stated that the annexation was ‘a declaration of war’ and two-thirds of the Golan’s Druze population staged a three-day strike at the imposition of Israeli civil law. Although Begin believed that the Reagan administration’s attention would probably be distracted by the imposition of martial law in Poland and the crackdown on the Solidarity trade union, the USA suspended a memorandum of strategic cooperation between the two countries, signed only two weeks before. This was not the first clash between the two governments.

There had been concerns when the Reagan administration announced its intention to sell to Saudi Arabia five AWACS surveillance aircraft and to provide upgrades on the combat capability of the F-15 fighters already in the possession of the Riyadh regime. While Washington argued that it would serve Saudi Arabia’s ability to oppose Khomeini’s Iran, Israel believed that it was a threat to its security.

This period was also peppered by the movement of Soviet missiles into strategic positions in Syria and Lebanon and the shelling of towns in northern Israel by Palestinian factions, as well as short hang-gliding flights to cross the border into Israel and take hostages in exchange for imprisoned militants. Israel’s retaliatory military actions such as the shelling of the ports of Sidon and Tyre periodically brought acerbic comments from Washington, followed by bitter rebukes by Begin. The US Special Envoy to the Middle East, Philip Habib, shuttled between the parties and finally achieved a ceasefire. Begin stated that it was not only a question of national interest, but also one of moral duty to support beleaguered Lebanese Christians and to stop Syria from gaining control of the Sannine mountain range. In July, the Israeli air force destroyed bridges between the Litani and Zaharani rivers and bombed the regional headquarters of the DFLP. The build-up of arms supplies from the Syrians – tanks, anti-aircraft missiles, katyushas – worried the Israelis. While the ceasefire and Begin’s visit to Washington in September certainly improved relations, he also strongly rejected the Fahd peace plan which called for a withdrawal from the 1967 borders and a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

In October Anwar Sadat was assassinated by an Islamist gunman. In the weeks before his death, he had urged the Palestinians to establish a government and offered to host Israeli–Palestinian negotiations at El Arish in Sinai. Hosni Mubarak succeeded as president and continued Sadat’s policies with regard to Israel. The Abu Nidal group attacked European Jewish institutions as well as killing PLO diplomats.