Nobel Peace Prize · 1978
Menachem Begin
A former Soviet prisoner and underground commander who, as Israel's prime minister, made Israel's first peace with an Arab state.
The Nobel citation: “for jointly having negotiated peace between Egypt and Israel in 1978”
- Born
- August 16, 1913, Brest Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus)
- Died
- March 9, 1992, Tel Aviv, Israel
- Shared with
- Anwar al-Sadat
Peace prize
1978
Shared with 1 other laureate.
Age that year
65years
Born in 1913.
Sources cited
31
Fact-checked September 24, 2026.
- His first act as Israel's prime minister in 1977 was to give refuge to 66 Vietnamese boat people, recalling Jewish refugees the world turned away before World War II.
- Soviet secret police arrested him in 1940 and sentenced him to eight years in a labor camp in Russia's far north. The Nazis murdered his parents and his brother.
- As Irgun commander he had a £10,000 British price on his head, yet he lived openly in Tel Aviv under false names, at one point posing as a rabbi.
- The 1978 Peace Prize ceremony was moved to Oslo's medieval Akershus fortress because of violent protests against him.
- The treaty he signed with Egypt in 1979 was the first between Israel and an Arab country, and the two nations have not fought a war since.
The breakthrough
Making peace with Egypt: from Sadat's visit to the 1979 treaty
Begin's prize was for making peace with Egypt, a country Israel had fought in four major wars in thirty years. In November 1977, Egypt's President Anwar Sadat said he was ready to come to Jerusalem and speak to Israel's parliament. Begin quickly sent a formal invitation, and on 19 November Sadat landed in Israel. The hard part came next. Egypt wanted Israel to give back all the land it had captured in 1967 and to settle the future of the Palestinians. Israel wanted full peace and security. In September 1978, US President Jimmy Carter brought both leaders to Camp David, the presidential retreat, for 13 tense days. They signed two frameworks: one for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and one for Palestinian self-government in the West Bank and Gaza. The treaty itself, signed at the White House on 26 March 1979, rested on a trade often called land for peace. Israel would hand back the whole Sinai Peninsula, which it had captured in 1967, and remove its settlements there. Egypt would recognize Israel and make a full peace. Think of two neighbors after a long feud: one returns the field it took, and the other signs a promise to live side by side in peace. For Begin, who had long campaigned to keep captured land, giving up Sinai was a real sacrifice, and several leaders of his own party refused to back it.[3],[4],[5],[9],[10],[15],[20]
“here I stand in humility and with pride as a son of the Jewish people, as one of the generation of the Holocaust and Redemption.”
What it meant for humanity
For three decades after Israel's founding, Egypt was its biggest and most powerful enemy, and the two countries had fought four major wars. The treaty Begin signed with Anwar Sadat in 1979 ended that. It was the first peace treaty between Israel and any Arab country. Egypt recovered the Sinai Peninsula, and Israel gained a quiet southern border. Since then the two countries have not fought a war, even through the 1982 Lebanon War, the Palestinian uprising of 2000 to 2005 and the 2011 attack on Israel's embassy in Cairo. The peace has often been called cold, because ordinary Egyptians and Israelis have had little contact. Still, the two governments cooperate on security, trade and energy, including a natural gas deal worth about $15 billion. The treaty also showed that Arab-Israeli peace was possible, and other Arab states later followed Egypt's lead. Begin's record included other acts that helped people in need. His first decision as prime minister was to give a home to 66 Vietnamese boat people who had been picked up at sea by an Israeli ship after other countries refused them. He said Jews could never forget a ship of Jewish refugees that was turned away from port to port before World War II. His government also stepped up efforts to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel, work that led to the 1984-85 rescue airlift known as Operation Moses. At home, his 1977 election victory ended nearly thirty years of rule by one political camp and gave a stronger voice to Mizrahi Jews, immigrants from Arab and Muslim lands who had felt treated as second-class citizens.
- The 1979 treaty was the first between Israel and an Arab country. Egypt and Israel have not fought a war since, and neither side has abandoned the treaty despite repeated crises.[15]
- Israel handed the Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt in 1982 and removed the settlements it had built there, in exchange for recognition and peace.[15],[20]
- In 1977 Begin gave refuge in Israel to 66 Vietnamese boat people rescued by an Israeli merchant ship, telling President Carter it was natural for a people who remembered a ship of Jewish refugees turned away before the war.[9],[13]
- After Begin took office in 1977, Israel stepped up secret efforts to bring Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Thousands came via Sudan, and the Operation Moses airlift brought about 8,000 more in 1984-85, after he had left office.[14],[30],[31]
- He gave his Nobel Prize money to a student scholarship fund named in honor of his wife, Aliza Begin.[10]
Impact in numbers
Begin's lasting contribution is a peace that has held for more than 45 years between two countries that had fought four major wars in three decades. It turned Israel's most powerful neighbor from an enemy into a treaty partner, and it proved that peace between Israel and Arab states could be made and kept. We do not put a number on that benefit. No one can count the dead of wars that never happened, and splitting the credit among Begin, Sadat and Carter would be guesswork. Harms are different, because the dead were counted. We record the deaths of the 1982 Lebanon War and the Irgun's King David Hotel bombing below, and credit Begin with a deliberately modest share, since many others also bore responsibility. His legacy is mixed: the leader who returned Sinai also expanded settlements in the West Bank and began a war in Lebanon that killed thousands.
Peace
Each number is the laureate’s credited share of a real-world outcome, cumulative to 2025. The whole outcome, the share of credit, and the reasoning are shown so you can check the arithmetic. Outcomes shared with other laureates are counted once on the impact page.
- HarmMedium confidenceDirectModeledPeace
People killed in Lebanon in Israel's 1982 invasion, fighters and civilians, incl. Sabra and Shatila at the high end
860–1,989
deaths caused, credited share
That is 10% of 8,600–19,885 deaths caused since 1982.
How this number was built
Counts vary widely, so the range is wide. Low 8,600: independent estimates of about 2,400 PLO fighters and 5,000-8,000 civilians killed (military analyst Richard Gabriel) plus about 1,200 Syrian soldiers (Kenneth Pollack), taking the low civilian figure. High 19,885 = 19,085 killed according to Lebanese authorities + 800, the upper Israeli military intelligence estimate for Sabra and Shatila cited by the Kahan Commission. The An-Nahar count of 17,825 dead from 6 June to 25 August (Christian Science Monitor) falls inside the range. About 330 Israeli soldiers killed are excluded. Share 0.1: Begin's cabinet authorized the invasion and he led the government, but the army under Defense Minister Sharon pushed far beyond the zone the cabinet approved, the Phalangists carried out the massacre, and not every death was caused by Israeli forces.[12],[16],[17],[20],[29]
Sources: Menachem Begin Heritage Center; Government of Israel, via Jewish Virtual Library; The Christian Science Monitor; Wikipedia; Wikipedia
- HarmHigh confidenceDirectSourced totalPeace
People killed in the Irgun's 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem
36
deaths caused, credited share
That is 40% of 91 deaths caused since 1946.
How this number was built
The bombing of the British Mandate headquarters in the King David Hotel on 22 July 1946 killed 91 people, a toll that the Begin Heritage Center and independent accounts agree on. Begin, as Irgun commander, ordered the attack. The Haganah had first approved it and then withdrawn approval, Irgun operatives planned and carried it out, and whether the Irgun's telephone warnings were adequate is disputed. Share 0.4 credits Begin as the commander who ordered it. We make no numeric claim for Deir Yassin or other Irgun attacks, where the sources we used do not document his personal role or the toll as clearly.[8],[14],[20],[25]
Sources: Menachem Begin Heritage Center; Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise); Wikipedia; Wikipedia
The double edge
Begin's road to peace ran through violence. From the end of 1943 he commanded the Irgun, an underground force that, in the Nobel Foundation's own summary, used terror against both the British authorities and Palestine's Arab population. In 1946 the Irgun bombed the British headquarters in Jerusalem's King David Hotel, killing 91 people, and in 1947 Begin ordered two captured British sergeants hanged in reprisal for the execution of Irgun fighters. In April 1948, Irgun and Lehi fighters attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin and killed about 100 to 110 villagers, including women and children. Begin praised the attack and later denied it was a massacre; news of the killings drove many Palestinians to flee. As prime minister, Begin rapidly expanded Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and the Palestinian self-rule promised at Camp David never came about. In 1982 his government invaded Lebanon. Lebanese counts put the dead at about 18,000 by late August, fighters and civilians together; some independent estimates are about half that. In September, Israel's Lebanese Christian allies massacred hundreds of people in the Sabra and Shatila camps, and an Israeli inquiry found that Begin bore some responsibility for failing to involve himself.
- Major
Irgun bombings and reprisals against the British (1944-1947)
On 22 July 1946 the Irgun, under Begin's command, bombed the wing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel that housed the British administration and military headquarters. The blast killed 91 people, among them Britons, Arabs and Jews. The Irgun said it had phoned warnings; whether they were adequate is still disputed. In 1947, after Britain hanged three Irgun fighters, Begin ordered two captured British sergeants hanged in reprisal.[1],[8],[25]
- Major
The killings at Deir Yassin (April 1948)
On 9 April 1948, Irgun and Lehi fighters attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin near Jerusalem. About 100 to 110 villagers were killed, including women and children. The Jewish Agency expressed its horror and apologized to King Abdullah of Transjordan. It is widely known as the Deir Yassin massacre; Begin, the Irgun's commander, praised the capture at the time and later denied that a massacre took place. News of the killings drove many Palestinians to flee.[18],[19],[20]
- Major
The 1982 Lebanon War and the Sabra and Shatila massacre
Begin's cabinet invaded Lebanon on 6 June 1982 to drive the PLO from the border, but the army pushed on to Beirut. Lebanese counts put the dead at 17,825 by 25 August, fighters and civilians; some independent estimates are about half that. In September the Phalangist militia massacred people in the Sabra and Shatila camps; Israel's Kahan Commission cited counts of 460 to 700-800 dead, found Israel indirectly responsible and faulted Begin's lack of involvement.[12],[16],[17],[20],[29]
- Moderate
Settlement expansion and stalled Palestinian self-rule
Begin's government built dozens of new settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. A UN Security Council commission reported that West Bank settlers, not counting the Jerusalem area, rose from about 3,200 to 17,400 in his first years. Talks on the Palestinian self-government promised at Camp David produced little, partly because Palestinian representatives refused to take part.[5],[20],[22]
- Moderate
Rioting over German reparations (1952)
Begin fiercely opposed taking reparations from West Germany for Nazi crimes. In January 1952 he gave a fiery speech against the government to a crowd of about 15,000 in Jerusalem, which then stoned the Knesset; about 200 rioters and 140 police were injured, and he was barred from the Knesset for months. Decades later, one conspirator's memoir named him as organizer of a 1952 parcel bomb that former Irgun members sent to Chancellor Adenauer.[14],[20]
Against the odds
Begin was born in 1913 in Brest-Litovsk, a city where Jews made up about 40% of the population by the 1930s. As a toddler, World War I forced his family out of their home to wander through the villages of eastern Poland. In the 1930s he studied law in Warsaw while antisemitic nationalist students attacked Jews on campus; he helped organize Jewish students' self-defense, and when money ran out he sometimes slept on a park bench. He was jailed for leading a protest against British limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine. When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, he fled to Vilna. There the Soviet secret police arrested him in 1940 for his Zionist work. After eight months in a cold, hungry prison, he was sentenced to eight years in a labor camp in Russia's far north. Released in 1941 to join a Polish army fighting Germany, he reached Palestine in 1942 and learned that the Germans had murdered his parents, his brother Herzl and a nephew. Most of Brest's roughly 20,000 remaining Jews were murdered in October 1942. In Palestine, Britain kept tight limits on Jewish immigration even as Europe's Jews were being exterminated. Begin spent years in hiding under false names. After independence, David Ben-Gurion refused to bring Begin's party into any coalition, and Begin spent most of the next three decades in opposition.
1914
War
When World War I broke out, the Begin family was forced to abandon its home in Brest-Litovsk and wander through villages in eastern Poland before returning after the war.[6],[14]
1931
Discrimination
At the University of Warsaw in the 1930s, nationalist groups carried out antisemitic riots. Begin was among the organizers of Jewish students' self-defense against the attackers.[11],[23]
1939
Exile
When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Begin fled Warsaw with his wife and fellow Betar leaders to Vilna.[7]
1940
Imprisonment
Arrested by the Soviet secret police (NKVD) on 20 September 1940 and questioned about his Zionist activities, he spent eight months in Vilna's Lukiškės prison and was sentenced to eight years in the Pechora labor camps. He was freed in 1941 under an agreement to form a Polish army.[2],[7]
—
Family killed
His father was among some 5,000 Jewish men of Brest shot or drowned by the Germans in the summer of 1941; his mother, brother Herzl and a nephew were also murdered. Most of the roughly 20,000 Jews left in Brest were killed when the ghetto was liquidated in October 1942.[7],[20],[24]
1944
Other
As Irgun commander he lived underground under false names such as Rabbi Israel Sassover, moving between hiding places while the British police sought him and offered a reward for his arrest.[2],[8]
Jewish background
Begin was born to Jewish parents, Ze'ev Dov and Hassia Begin, in Brest-Litovsk. His father was secretary of the town's Jewish community and one of its first Zionists. Begin attended a religious Zionist Hebrew school, joined Zionist youth movements, and as a student refused to sit exams on the Sabbath even when punished. He kept a lifelong attachment to traditional Judaism, though he was not strictly Orthodox, and it helped him win religious and Mizrahi voters. He asked for a simple Jewish burial on the Mount of Olives instead of a state funeral.[2],[6],[20],[21],[26]
Key dates
August 16, 1913
Born in Brest-Litovsk, Russian Empire (now Brest, Belarus), to a Jewish family; his father is secretary of the Jewish community.[1],[6]
1935
Earns a law degree at the University of Warsaw, while rising to leadership in the Zionist youth movement Betar.[2],[11]
September 20, 1940
Arrested by the Soviet secret police in Vilna and later sentenced to eight years in a northern Russian labor camp.[7]
1942
Reaches Palestine as a soldier in the Polish army formed from freed prisoners, and learns his parents and brother were murdered by the Nazis.[4],[7]
February 1, 1944
As commander of the Irgun, declares a revolt against British rule in Palestine.[8]
1948
After Israel's independence, founds the Herut party; elected to the first Knesset in 1949, he leads the opposition for most of the next three decades.[2],[14],[28]
June 1977
Becomes Israel's sixth prime minister after his Likud bloc wins the May election, ending nearly thirty years of Labor-led government.[2],[4],[9],[20]
November 19, 1977
Welcomes Egypt's President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem, where Sadat addresses the Knesset.[4],[9]
September 17, 1978
Signs the Camp David Accords with Sadat after 13 days of talks hosted by US President Jimmy Carter.[4],[5],[10]
December 10, 1978
Receives the Nobel Peace Prize, shared with Sadat, at Akershus fortress in Oslo, where the ceremony was moved because of protests.[1],[4]
March 26, 1979
Signs the Egypt-Israel peace treaty with Sadat at the White House.[5],[10]
June 6, 1982
His cabinet launches the invasion of Lebanon, which grows into a long and deadly war.[12],[20]
September 15, 1983
Formally resigns as prime minister, months after his wife Aliza's death, and withdraws from public life.[14],[26],[27]
March 9, 1992
Dies in Tel Aviv; at his request he is buried beside Aliza on the Mount of Olives in a simple Jewish funeral.[1],[26]
Sources
- 1.Menachem Begin – Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
- 2.Menachem Begin – Biographical · NobelPrize.org (from Les Prix Nobel 1978), 1979
- 3.Menachem Begin – Nobel Lecture, 10 December 1978 · NobelPrize.org, 1978
- 4.Award ceremony speech, Nobel Peace Prize 1978 (Aase Lionaes) · NobelPrize.org, 1978
- 5.Camp David Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process · Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State
- 6.Menachem Begin's Childhood · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 7.Soviet Prison Inmate · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 8.Menachem Begin, the Irgun commander appointed · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 9.The Political Transformation · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 10.Peace Agreement with Egypt · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 11.Begin registers to study law at the University of Warsaw · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 12.Peace for Galilee Operation · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 13.Visit of Prime Minister Menahem Begin of Israel: Remarks of the President and the Prime Minister at the Welcoming Ceremony, 19 July 1977 · The American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara, 1977
- 14.Menachem Begin · Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)
- 15.Israel-Egypt peace treaty has stood the test of time over 45 years: expert explains its significance (Ofir Winter, INSS) · The Conversation, 2024
- 16.Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Events at the Refugee Camps in Beirut (Kahan Commission), full text · Government of Israel, via Jewish Virtual Library, 1983
- 17.Lebanon suffers heavy casualties from seven years of civil war and Israel's invasion · The Christian Science Monitor, 1982
- 18.Israel War of Independence: The Capture of Deir Yassin · Jewish Virtual Library
- 19.Deir Yassin massacre · Wikipedia
- 20.Menachem Begin · Wikipedia
- 21.Missing Menachem (Avi Shilon, review of Daniel Gordis, Menachem Begin: The Battle for Israel's Soul) · Jewish Review of Books, 2014
- 22.Israeli settlements in Gaza and the West Bank (Part I) · United Nations, Question of Palestine (UNISPAL)
- 23.Menachem Begin – a Pole "born in Jerusalem" (Jarosław Kociszewski and Philip Earl Steele) · New Eastern Europe, 2021
- 24.Brześć Ghetto · Wikipedia
- 25.King David Hotel bombing · Wikipedia
- 26.Begin dies · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 27.Resignation as Prime Minister · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 28.Establishment of the State · Menachem Begin Heritage Center
- 29.1982 Lebanon War (casualties section) · Wikipedia
- 30.Aliyah from Ethiopia · Wikipedia
- 31.Operation Moses · Wikipedia
Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 11 corrections made. How we check
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