On 10 December 1978, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee for their peace agreement forming the foundation of a comprehensive peace agreement between the two countries.
The Nobel Prize was awarded less than a year after Sadat had called for peace between the two countries during his visit to the Israeli Knesset and a few months after Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat signed the Camp David Accords on the grounds of the White House. The agreement ended the state of war between the two countries and made Egypt the first Arab state to achieve diplomatic normalization with Israel.
In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, Prime Minister Begin spoke primarily of the history of the Jewish people and their fight for national liberation, and of the Israel–Egypt peace process. The prime minister began his remarks by paying tribute to former Prime Minister Golda Meir, who had passed away two days before the ceremony, saying, “She strove with all her heart to achieve peace between Israel and her neighbors.” The audience, who included King Olav V, Crown Prince Harald, and the Norwegian prime minister, rose to their feet for a minute of silence for the former Israeli prime minister.
In his remarks, Prime Minister Begin said he longed for the peace treaty to end “hostility and war and begin a new era of understanding and cooperation. Such a treaty can serve as the first indispensable step along the road towards a comprehensive peace in our region.”
Aase Lionaes, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, praised the two leaders, saying, “Never has the Peace Prize expressed a greater or more audacious hope—a hope of peace for the people of Egypt, for the people of Israel, and for all the peoples of the strife-torn and war-ravaged Middle East.”
“May I express the hope that this Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, enacted in our small and wintry country, tucked away near the Arctic Circle, may provide an enduring reminder to the world that it was here that representatives of Egypt and Israel shook hands as they celebrated the greatest of all victories—conciliation and lasting peace based on respect for human rights and human dignity,” Lionaes concluded.
The agreement would be formalized in the 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty. Under its terms, Israel agreed to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt was to formally normalize relations with Israel. Additionally, the leaders established a broad framework for achieving peace in the region.
While Sadat was praised across the globe, his decision was significantly less well received in the Arab world, and Egypt was suspended from the Arab league. Three years after the signing of the peace treaty, in October 1981, Sadat was assassinated in Cairo by radical Islamists. Nevertheless, the peace process between the two countries has endured.
