israeli military leader and politician

Moshe Dayan ( Hebrew : משה דיין‎‎ ; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981 ) was an israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces ( 1953–1958 ) during the 1956 Suez Crisis, but chiefly as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967, he became a global fighting symbol of the new submit of Israel. [ 2 ] In the 1930s, Dayan joined the Haganah, the pre-state jewish defensive structure force of Mandatory Palestine. He served in the particular Night Squads under Orde Wingate during the Arab disgust in Palestine and late lost an eye in a raid on Vichy forces in Lebanon during World War II. Dayan was stopping point to David Ben-Gurion and joined him in leaving the Mapai party and setting up the Rafi party in 1965 with Shimon Peres. Dayan became Defence Minister merely before the 1967 Six-Day War. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973, during which Dayan served as Defense Minister, he was blamed for the miss of readiness ; after some fourth dimension he resigned. In 1977, following the election of Menachem Begin as Prime Minister, Dayan was expelled from the Labor Party because he joined the Likud-led politics as Foreign Minister, playing an important part in negotiating the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel .

early biography [edit ]

Moshe Dayan was born on 20 May 1915 in Kibbutz Degania Alef, near the Sea of Galilee in Palestine, in what was then Ottoman Syria within the Ottoman Empire, one of three children born to Shmuel and Devorah Dayan, ukrainian jewish immigrants from Zhashkiv. Kibbutz Degania Alef, with 11 members, was the inaugural kibbutz, and would become part of the State of Israel.

Dayan was the second child born at Degania, after Gideon Baratz ( 1913–1988 ). [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] He was named Moshe after Moshe Barsky, the inaugural extremity of Degania to be killed in an arab attack, who died getting medicine for Dayan ‘s founder. [ 6 ] Soon subsequently, Dayan ‘s parents moved to Nahalal, the first moshav, or farming cooperative, to be established. Dayan attended the agricultural school there. [ citation needed ] Dayan was a jewish atheist. [ 7 ] [ 8 ] He spoke Hebrew, Arabic, and English .

military [edit ]

At the old age of 14, Dayan joined the jewish defense coerce Haganah ( “ Defence ” ). In 1938, he joined the British-organised irregular Supernumerary Police and led a small motorized patrol ( “ MAN ” ). One of his military heroes was the british pro- Zionist intelligence officer Orde Wingate, under whom he served in respective Special Night Squads operations. On 3 October 1939, he was the command teacher for Haganah Leader ‘s courses held at Yavniel when two british Palestine Police officers discovered a measure of illegal rifles. Haganah HQ ordered the camp evacuated. Leading a group of 43 men through Wadi Bira, early the follow dawn, 12 to 15 arabian members of the Transjordan Frontier Force arrested them. Questions were asked about how such a big effect was arrested by a much smaller one. Moshe Carmel, the group ‘s deputy commanding officer, was besides critical of Dayan ‘s willingness to talk to his interrogators in Acre prison. On 30 October 1939, most of the group were sentenced to 10 years in prison. Seven months late, Dayan was replaced as the prisoners ‘ representative after it was discovered that moves were being made to get him an individual excuse. On 16 February 1941, after Chaim Weizmann ‘s treatment in London, they were all released. [ 9 ] Dayan was assigned to a small Australian-led reconnaissance job military unit, which besides included colleague Palmach members and Arab guides, [ 10 ] formed in preparation for the Allied invasion of Syria and Lebanon and attached to the australian 7th Division. Using his family kibbutz of Hanita as a forward base, the unit frequently infiltrated Vichy French Lebanon, wearing traditional Arab dress, on covert surveillance missions .

Eye patch [edit ]

Moshe Dayan commanding a company of jewish Supernumerary Police, Hanita, March 1938 On 7 June 1941, the night before the invasion of the Syria–Lebanon Campaign, Dayan ‘s unit crossed the edge and secured two bridges over the Litani River. During the time, Dayan served under the instruction of British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson. [ 11 ] When they were not relieved as expected, at 04:00 on 8 June, the unit perceived that it was exposed to possible assail and—on its own initiative—assaulted a nearby Vichy patrol station, capturing it. A few hours late, as Dayan was on the ceiling of the build using binoculars to scan Vichy French positions on the other side of the river, the binoculars were struck by a french plunder bullet fired by a sniper from several hundred yards away, propelling metallic and glass fragments into his left eye and causing severe damage. Six hours passed before he could be evacuated, and he would have died if not for Bernard Dov Protter, who took care of him until they were evacuated. Dayan lost the eye. In addition, the damage to the extraocular muscles was such that Dayan could not be fitted with a glass eye, and he was compelled to adopt the black eye bandage that became his trademark. [ 11 ] Letters from this time revealed that despite losing his exit eye and suffering serious injuries to the area where the eye was located, Dayan calm pleaded with Wilson to be reenlisted in battle. [ 11 ] He besides underwent eye surgery in 1947 at a hospital in Paris, which proved to be unsuccessful. [ 11 ] In the years immediately following, the disability caused him some psychological pain. [ 12 ] Dayan wrote in his autobiography : “ I reflected with considerable misgivings on my future as a cripple without a skill, trade, or profession to provide for my family. ” He added that he was “ fix to make any campaign and stand any miserable, if merely I could get rid of my black eyepatch. The attention it drew was intolerable to me. I preferred to shut myself up at home, doing anything, preferably than encounter the reactions of people wherever I went. ” [ 13 ]

military career [edit ]

In 1947, Dayan was appointed to the Haganah General Staff working on Arab affairs, in particular recruit agents to gain information about irregular arabian forces in Palestine. [ 14 ] On 14 April 1948, his brother, Zorik, was killed in fighting. On 22 April, Dayan was put in charge of abandon Arab place in newly conquered Haifa. To put a break to the out-of-control loot, he ordered that anything that could be used by the army be stored in Haganah warehouses and the rest be distributed amongst jewish agricultural settlements. [ 15 ] On 18 May, Dayan was given dominate of the Jordan Valley sector. In a nine-hour battle, his troops stopped the syrian progress south of the Sea of Galilee. [ 16 ]

89th battalion [edit ]

In June, he became the first gear commander of the 89th Battalion, share of Sadeh ‘s Armoured Brigade. His methods of recruiting volunteers from early army units, such as the Golani and Kiryati Brigades, provoked complaints from their commanders. [ 17 ] On 20 June 1948, two men from one of his companies were killed in a confrontation with Irgun members trying to bring weapons ashore from the Altalena at Kfar Vitkin. During Operation Danny, he led his battalion in a brief raid through Lod in which nine of his men were killed. His battalion was then transferred to the south, where they captured Karatiya, close to Faluja on 15 July. His secession of his troops after only two hours leaving a Givati Company to face an egyptian counterattack led to Givati Commander Shimon Avidan to demand that Dayan be disciplined for breach of discipline. Chief of Staff Yigael Yadin instructed the military lawyer general to proceed, but the casing was dismissed. [ 18 ]

jerusalem [edit ]

On 23 July 1948, on David Ben-Gurion ‘s imperativeness over general Staff confrontation, Dayan was appointed military commanding officer of Jewish-controlled areas of Jerusalem. [ 19 ] In this post, he launched two military offensives. Both were night-time operations and both failed. On 17 August, he sent two companies to attempt to occupy the hillsides around Government House, but they retreated suffering casualties. [ 20 ] On the night of 20 October 1948, to coincide with the end of Operation Yoav far south, Operation Wine Press was launched. Its objective was to capture Bethlehem via Beit Jala. Six companies set out but were pinned down by machine-gun displace in the wadi below Beit Jala and were forced to withdraw. [ 21 ] Following the 17 September 1948 assassination of Count Folke Bernadotte, it was complete 20 hours before he imposed a curfew over jewish Jerusalem and began arresting members of Lehi, the belowground organization believed to be responsible. One rationality for this delay was the want to bring patriotic troops from Tel Aviv into the city. [ 22 ] On 20 October 1948, Dayan commanded the 800-strong Etzioni Brigade during the doomed Operation Yeqev, in which the objectives were to join the Harel Brigade in the capture of the batch range overlooking Beit Jala. [ 23 ] The deputation was called-off because of ill-conceived seafaring, and Ben Gurion ‘s concern of upsetting the christian populace at Israel ‘s capture of Christian sites. A ceasefire went into impression on the 22nd of October. [ 24 ] In the fall of 1948, he was involved in negotiations with Abdullah elevated railway Tell, the jordanian military commanding officer of East Jerusalem, over a durable armistice for the Jerusalem sphere. In 1949, he had at least five face-to-face meetings with King Abdullah of Jordan over the Armistice Agreement and the search for a long-run peace agreement. [ 25 ] Following a February 1949 incident, he was courtmartialed for disobeying an order from his superior, major-general Zvi Ayalon OC Central Command. A military court found him guilty and briefly demoted him from lieutenant colonel to major. This did not prevent him from attending the armistice negotiations on Rhodes. On 29 June 1949, he was appointed head of all Israeli delegations to the Mixed Armistice Commission meetings. In September 1949, despite being involved in these negotiations, Dayan recommended to Ben-Gurion that the army should be used to open the road to Jerusalem and gain entree to the Western Wall and Mount Scopus. [ 26 ] [ 27 ]

southerly Command [edit ]

On 25 October 1949, he was promoted to major general and appointed commanding officer of the Southern Command. Most of the staff officers resigned in protest of his replacement of Yigal Allon. [ 28 ] The major problem in the south of the country was Palestinians crossing the border, “ infiltrate ”, from the Gaza Strip, Sinai, and the Hebron hills. Dayan was an preach of a “ harsh ” policy along the boundary line. In Jerusalem, he had given instructions that infiltrators killed in no-man’s-land or the arab side of the margin should be moved to the Israeli side before UN inspections. [ 29 ] Allon had already introduced a 7 kilometer “ free-fire ” zone along the southerly borders. [ 30 ] In the jump of 1950, Dayan authorized the Israeli Air Force to strafe shepherds and their herds in the Beit Govrin area. There were besides strafing attacks on bedouin camps in the Gaza sphere. [ 31 ] In early 1950, 700 bedouin, ‘ Azame, were expelled from the South Hebron area. In September 1950, several thousand more were driven from the demilitarized zone at Al-Ajua [ 32 ] During 1950, the remaining population of al-Majdal were transferred to the Gaza Strip [ 33 ] [ 34 ] In a ill-famed incident on 31 May 1950, the united states army forced 120 Arabs across the jordanian margin at ‘Arava. “ Two or three twelve ” died of hunger before reaching safety. [ 35 ] During 1950, Dayan besides developed a policy of punitive cross-border reprisal raids in answer to fedayeen attacks on Israelis. IDF squads were sent into the Gaza strip to lay mines. [ 36 ] The first retaliation raid on a village occurred 20 March 1950 when six Arabs were killed at Khirbet Jamrura. [ 37 ] On 18 June 1950, Dayan explained his think to the Mapai faction in the Knesset :

[ Retaliation is ] the lone method that [ has ] proved effective, not justified or moral but effective, when arabian plants mines on our side. If we try to search for that Arab, it has no value. But if we harass the nearby village … then the population there comes out against the [ infiltrators ] … and the egyptian Government and the Transjordanian government are [ drive ] to prevent such incidents, because their prestige is [ at stake ], as the Jews have opened fire, and they are unready to begin a war … The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective … There are no early effective methods. [ 38 ]

On 8 March 1951, 18 were killed at Idna. On 20 October 1951, two battalion 79 ( 7th Brigade ) companies destroyed several houses and an ice factory in eastern Gaza City ; dozens were killed and injured. On 6 January 1952, an armored infantry company from the same battalion attacked a Bedouin camp, Nabahim, near Bureij refugee clique killing 15. [ 39 ] Glubb Pasha wrote that the objective of this raw scheme seemed to “ be merely to kill Arabs promiscuously ”. Dayan saw it as an “ eye for an eye ”. [ 40 ] He was a stopping point friend of Amos Yarkoni, an arab officeholder in the Israel Defense Forces, At the time, the Military Commander commented that “ if Moshe Dayan could be the Ramatkal (Chief of General Staff) without an eye, we can have a Battalion Commander with a prosthetic hand “. [ 41 ] At the end on 1951, Dayan attended a course at the british Army ‘s Senior Officers ‘ School in Devizes, England. In May 1952, he was appointed operational air force officer of the Northern Command. [ 42 ]

Chief of Staff [edit ]

The class 1952 was a fourth dimension of economic crisis for the new state. Faced with demands of a 20 % cut in budget and the empty of 6,000 IDF members, Yigael Yadin resigned as chief of staff in November 1952, and was replaced by Mordechai Maklef. In December 1952, Dayan was promoted to foreman of the Operations ( G ) Branch, the second most elder general Staff post. [ 43 ] One of Dayan ‘s actions in this post was to commence work on the duct amuse water from the River Jordan, September 1953. [ 44 ] During 1953, Prime Minister and Defence Minister David Ben-Gurion began to make preparations for his retirement. His option for defense minister was Pinhas Lavon, who became acting MoD in the fall of 1953. Lavon and Maklef were ineffective to work together and Maklef resigned. Dayan was immediately appointed CoS on 7 December 1953. [ 45 ] This appointment was Ben-Gurion ‘s last act as prime minister before his refilling by acting Prime Minister Moshe Sharett. On taking dominate, based on Ben-Gurion ‘s three-year defense program, Dayan carried out a major reorganization of the Israeli army, which, among others, included : [ 46 ]

  • Strengthened combat units at the expense of the administrative “tail”.
  • Raising the Intelligence and Training Branches of the Israeli Army.
  • Surrendering the activities of stores and procurement to the civilian Defence Ministry.
  • Revamping the mobilisation scheme and ensuring earmarking for adequate equipment.
  • Starting a military academy for officers of the rank of major and above.
  • Emphasised strike forces (Air Force, Armour) and on training of commando battalions.
  • Developed GADNA, a youth wing for military training.

In May 1955, Dayan attended a meet convened by Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion raised the exit of a potential invasion of Iraq into Syria, and how this could be used to bring about variety in Lebanon. Dayan proposed that : [ 47 ]

All that is required is to find an military officer, even a captain would do, to win his center or buy him with money to get him to agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population. then the Israeli united states army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary district, and create a christian regimen that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southerly will be wholly annex to Israel, and everything will fall into position .

Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, shocked by the officers ‘ nonchalance to neighbouring Lebanon, turned down the design as divorced from world .

Cross-border operations [edit ]

In July 1953, whilst on the General staff, Dayan was party to the setting up of Unit 101, which was to specialise in night-time cross-border retaliation raids. [ 48 ] He was initially opposed to setting up such a group because he argued it would undermine his attempts to prepare the IDF for an nauseating war. [ 49 ] Unit 101 ‘s first official operation was to attack, on 28 August 1953, the Bureij Refugee Camp, during which they killed 20 refugees and suffered 2 wounded. [ 50 ] By October 1953, Dayan was closely involved with 101. He was one of the independent architects of the attack on Qibya, on the nox of 14/15 October 1953, in reply to the kill of 3 israeli civilians in the Yehud fire on 12 October. The general Staff order stated “ temporarily to conquer the village of Qibya – with the bearing of blowing up houses and hitting the inhabitants ”. The Central Command Operation Instructions were more specific : “ carry out destruction and maximal killings. ” One hundred and thirty IDF soldiers, of whom a third base came from Unit 101, carried out the operation. They carried 70 kilogram of explosives, blew up 45 houses, and killed 69 people. The air force officer who led the attack, Ariel Sharon former said that he had “ thought the houses were empty ”. [ 51 ] The external criticism over the killed civilians led to a change of tactics. It was the last large-scale IDF fire on civilian buildings. In the future, targets were to be the Arab Legion, the Frontier Police, and the egyptian or syrian Armies. Dayan merged Unit 101 with the Paratroopers Brigade and assigned its command to Sharon. [ 52 ] Dayan had a unmanageable kinship with MoD Lavon. There were issues over outgo priorities and over Lavon ‘s dealings with senior IDF members behind Dayan ‘s back. This ended with Lavon ‘s resignation over who ordered the sabotage operation in Egypt, which led to the test of a number of egyptian Jews, two of whom were executed. Dayan believed in the value of punitive cross-border retaliation raids :

We can not save each water pipe from plosion or each tree from being uprooted. We can not prevent the murder of workers in orange groves or of families in their beds. But we can put a identical high price on their blood, a price then high that it will no long be worthwhile for the Arabs, the arabian armies, for the arabian states to pay it. [ 53 ] [ 54 ]

Prime Minister Sharett was an advocate of restraint and was not as convinced in the attacks ‘ effectiveness. When seeking approval for operations, Dayan downplayed the scale of the raids to get approval. There were fewer large-scale cross-border raids in 1954. [ 55 ] Between December 1953 and September 1954, at least 48 Arabs were killed in over 18 cross-border raids. Fifteen of the dead were civilians : farmers, shepherds, and a doctor of the church ; two were women. [ 56 ] With Ben-Gurion ‘s rejoinder, this changed. On the night of 28 February 1955, Operation Black Arrow ( Mivtza Hetz Shahor ) was launched against an egyptian Army camp confederacy of Gaza City. The IDF force consisted of 120 paratroops and suffered 14 dead ; 36 egyptian soldiers were killed american samoa well as two palestinian civilians. Ben-Gurion and Dayan had told Sharett that their estimate of egyptian casualties was 10. [ 57 ] On 31 August 1955, despite Sharett ‘s resistance, three paratroop companies attacked the British-built Tegart fort in Khan Yunis. Operation Elkayam directives called for “ killing deoxyadenosine monophosphate many enemy soldiers as potential ”. The patrol place and a number of other buildings were blown-up and 72 egyptian and Palestinians were killed. [ 58 ] [ 59 ]

Armaments [edit ]

between 1955 and 1956, Dayan and Shimon Peres negotiated a series of large weapons contracts with France. On 10 November 1955, an agreement was signed for the delivery of 100 AMX-13 tanks and consort anti-tank weapons. On 24 June 1956, an $ 80 million bargain was agreed involving 72 Dassault Mystère IV jets, 120 AMX-13 tanks, 40 Sherman tanks and 18 105mm artillery. The Mystere were in accession to 53 already on order. At the end of September 1956, a far 100 Sherman tanks, 300 half-tracks, and 300 6×6 trucks were added. [ 60 ] By the beginning of November 1956, the Israeli army had 380 tanks. [ 60 ]

escalation up to the Suez Crisis [edit ]

Following the 1955 elections, Ben-Gurion resumed his double function as flower minister and defense minister. Dayan, who believed in the inevitability of the “ second base Round ”, argued for a preemptive fire on Israel ‘s neighbours, particularly Egypt. [ 61 ] The two leaders thought war with Egypt could be achieved by provoking an egyptian reply to retaliation raids, which could then be used to justify an all-out attack. On 23 October 1955, Ben-Gurion instructed Dayan to prepare plans to capture Sharm aluminum Sheikh. On the night of 27 October 1955, an IDF battalion attacked an egyptian army post at Kuntilla ( Operation Egged ), killing 12 egyptian soldiers. [ 62 ] On 2 November, alabama Sabha, close to the DMZ, was attacked, in Operation Volcano ( Mivtza Ha Ga’ash ), killing 81 egyptian soldiers. [ 63 ] On 11 December, hoping an fire on Syria would provoke an egyptian reception, Operation Olive Leaves /Sea of Galilee ( Mivtza ‘Alei Zayit/Kinneret ) was launched in which a number of syrian positions on the easterly land of the Sea of Galilee were destroyed. forty-eight syrian soldiers were killed adenine well as six civilians. The Egyptians did not react. A Cabinet meet on 15 December 1955 voted against far provocations and ruled that any retaliation attacks must have full Cabinet blessing. [ 64 ] The raids ceased for six months. There was one exception : On 5 April 1956, following two earlier incidents along the border with the Gaza Strip in which four Israeli soldiers were killed, the IDF shelled the center of Gaza City with 120 millimeter mortars. fifty-eight civilians were killed, including 10 children. 4 egyptian soldiers were besides killed. It is not clear up whether Dayan had Ben-Gurion ‘s blessing to shell the city. Egypt responded by resuming fedayeen attacks across the surround, killing 14 Israelis during the menstruation 11–17 April. [ 65 ] During September–October 1956, as plans began to mature for the invasion of the Sinai Peninsula, Dayan ordered a series of large-scale cross-border raids. On the night of 25 September, following a count of incidents including the machine-gunning of large gather at Ramat Rachel in which four Israelis were killed, and the murder of a girl southwest of Jerusalem, the 890th Battalion attacked the Husan police post and nearby Arab Legion positions close to the armistice lines. thirty-seven Legionnaires and National Guardsmen were killed vitamin a well as two civilians. Nine or ten paratroopers were killed, several in a road accident after the assail. [ 66 ]

Following the killing of two workers near Even-Yehuda, Dayan ordered a like attack, Operation Samaria/ Mivtza Shomron, on the Qalqilya police station. The attack took rate on the night of 10 October 1956 and involved several thousand IDF soldiers. During the fight, jordanian troops surrounded a paratroop company. The israeli survivors only escaped under stopping point air-cover from four IAF aircraft. The Israelis suffered 18 killed and 68 wounded ; 70-90 Jordanians were killed. In the consequence, paratroop officers hard criticized Dayan for alleged tactical mistakes. It was the last time the IDF launched a reprisal raid at night. [ 67 ] As Israel Defense Forces Chief of staff, Moshe Dayan personally commanded the israeli forces fighting in the Sinai during the 1956 Suez Crisis. It was during his tenure as chief of staff that Dayan delivered his celebrated encomium of Ro’i Rutenberg, a young Israeli resident of Kibbutz Nahal Oz, killed by egyptian soldiers who ambushed the kibbutz, in 1956. Dayan ‘s words became celebrated quickly and has served as one of the most influential speeches in Israeli history since. In emphatic terms, Dayan condemned the kill and said ,

“Early yesterday morning Roi was murdered. The quiet of the spring morning dazzled him and he did not see those waiting in ambush for him, at the edge of the furrow. Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we declare their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and the villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate. It is not among the Arabs in Gaza, but in our own midst that we must seek Roi’s blood. How did we shut our eyes and refuse to look squarely at our fate, and see, in all its brutality, the destiny of our generation? Have we forgotten that this group of young people dwelling at Nahal Oz is bearing the heavy gates of Gaza on its shoulders? Beyond the furrow of the border, a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling, awaiting the day when serenity will dull our path, for the day when we will heed the ambassadors of malevolent hypocrisy who call upon us to lay down our arms. Roi’s blood is crying out to us and only to us from his torn body. Although we have sworn a thousandfold that our blood shall not flow in vain, yesterday again we were tempted, we listened, we believed.
We will make our reckoning with ourselves today; we are a generation that settles the land and without the steel helmet and the cannon’s maw, we will not be able to plant a tree and build a home. Let us not be deterred from seeing the loathing that is inflaming and filling the lives of the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live around us. Let us not avert our eyes lest our arms weaken. This is the fate of our generation. This is our life’s choice – to be prepared and armed, strong and determined, lest the sword be stricken from our fist and our lives cut down. The young Roi who left Tel Aviv to build his home at the gates of Gaza to be a wall for us was blinded by the light in his heart and he did not see the flash of the sword. The yearning for peace deafened his ears and he did not hear the voice of murder waiting in ambush. The gates of Gaza weighed too heavily on his shoulders and overcame him.”[68]

political career [edit ]

In 1959, a year after he retired from the IDF, Dayan joined Mapai, the Israeli centre-left party, then led by David Ben-Gurion. Until 1964, he was the Minister of Agriculture. In 1965, Dayan joined with the group of Ben-Gurion loyalists who defected from Mapai to form Rafi. Prime Minister Levi Eshkol disliked Dayan. When tensions began to rise in early 1967, however, Eshkol appointed the charismatic and popular Dayan defense minister to raise public morale and bring Rafi into a one government .

Six-Day War ( 1967 ) [edit ]

Moshe Dayan in Vietnam, 1967 Moshe Dayan was covering the Vietnam War to observe modern war up close up after he left political life. In fact, he was on patrol as an perceiver with members of the US Marine Corps. Although Dayan did not take region in most of the plan before the Six-Day War of June 1967, he personally oversaw the capture of East Jerusalem during the 5–7 June fight. [ 69 ] During the years following the war, Dayan enjoyed enormous popularity in Israel and was widely viewed as a electric potential Prime Minister. At this clock, Dayan was the drawing card of the militant camp within the Labor politics, opposing a render to anything like Israel ‘s pre-1967 borders. He once said that he preferred Sharm-al-Sheikh ( an egyptian town on the southern border of the Sinai Peninsula overlooking Israel ‘s transport lane to the Red Sea via the Gulf of Aqaba ) without peace, to peace without Sharm-al-Sheikh. He modified these views late in his career and played an important role in the eventual peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Dayan ‘s contention was denied by Muky Tsur, a longtime leader of the United Kibbutz Movement who said “ For indisputable there were discussions about going up the Golan Heights or not going up the Golan Heights, but the discussions were about security for the kibbutz in Galilee, ” he said. “ I think that Dayan himself did n’t want to go to the Golan Heights. This is something we ‘ve known for many years. But no kibbutz got any land from conquering the Golan Heights. People who went there went on their own. It ‘s cynicism to say the kibbutz wanted bring. ” [ 70 ] About Dayan ‘s comments, Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren has said [ 71 ]

There is an chemical element of accuracy to Dayan ‘s call, but it is crucial to note that Israel regarded the de-militarized zones in the north as partially of their sovereign territory and reserved the correct to cultivate them—a properly that the Syrians systematically resisted with force. Syria besides worked to benefit from the Jordan river before it flowed into Israel, aiming to get use of it as a water beginning ; Syria besides actively support palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel. Israel occasionally exploited incidents in the de-militarized zones to strike at the syrian water diversion plan and to punish the Syrians for their support of terror. Dayan ‘s remarks must besides be taken in context of the fact that he was a member of the opposition at the clock. His position toward the Syrians changed dramatically once he became defense minister. indeed, on June 8, 1967, Dayan bypassed both the Prime Minister and the Chief of staff in ordering the israeli army to attack and capture the Golan .

1973 Yom Kippur War [edit ]

After Golda Meir became prime curate in 1969 following the death of Levi Eshkol, Dayan remained defensive structure minister. He was still in that post when the Yom Kippur War began catastrophically for Israel on 6 October 1973. As the highest-ranking official responsible for military plan, Dayan may bear region of the province for the Israeli leadership having missed the signs for the approaching war. [ 72 ] In the hours preceding the war, Dayan chose not to order a full mobilization or a preemptive strike against the Egyptians and Syrians. [ 72 ] He assumed that Israel would be able to win easily even if the Arabs attacked and, more importantly, did not want Israel to appear as the aggressor, as it would have undoubtedly cost it the invaluable confirm of the United States ( who would former mount a massive airlift to rearm Israel ). Following the heavy defeats of the first two days, Dayan ‘s views changed radically ; he was conclude to announcing ‘the downfall of the “ Third Temple “ ‘ at a news conference, but was forbidden to speak by Meir .
Dayan suggested options at the beginning of the war, including a plan to withdraw to the Mitleh Mountains in Sinai and a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights to carry the struggle over the Jordan, abandoning the core strategic principles of Israeli war doctrine, which says that war must be taken into enemy territory equally soon as possible. headman of Staff David Elazar objected to these plans and was proved correct. Israel broke through the egyptian lines on the Sinai presence, crossed the Suez canal, and encircled the 3rd egyptian Army. Israel besides counterattacked on the syrian presence, repelling the jordanian and Iraqi expeditionary forces and shelling the outskirts of Damascus. The war ended with an israeli victory, but the arab attack destroyed the image of Israeli indomitability and finally led to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the subsequent withdrawal of israeli forces from all egyptian territory .

foreign Minister [edit ]

According to those who knew him, the war deeply depressed Dayan. He went into political eclipse for a time. In 1977, despite having been re-elected to the Knesset for the Alignment, he accepted the put up to become Foreign Minister in the new Likud politics led by Menachem Begin. He was expelled from the Alignment, and as a result, sat as an independent MK. As extraneous curate in Begin ‘s politics, he was instrumental in drawing up the Camp David Accords, a peace agreement with Egypt. Dayan resigned his post in October 1979, because of a disagreement with Begin over whether the palestinian territories were an inner israeli matter ( the Camp David treaty included provisions for future negotiations with the Palestinians ; Begin, who did not like the theme, did not put Dayan in charge of the negotiate team ). In 1981, he founded a new party, Telem .

kin [edit ]

Ruth Dayan, his inaugural wife, divorced Moshe in 1971 after 36 years of marriage due to his numerous adulterous affairs. In the Israeli best-selling book that followed the divorce, Or Did I Dream the Dream?, Ruth Dayan wrote a chapter about “ Moshe ‘s bad taste in women ”. [ 73 ] In 1973, two years after the divorce, Dayan married Rachel Korem in a elementary ceremony performed by Rabbi Mordechai Piron, IDF headman chaplain, at the Pirons ‘ home plate. The wedding was not announced in progress and Piron had to recruit neighbors to complete the 10-man quorum required for a religious ceremony. Dayan humorously told well-wishers that he had no disturb getting a marriage license. “ She is divorced and I am divorced. I am no Cohen ( priest ) and no mamzer ( asshole ) so there was no trouble. ” Neither Dayan ’ s daughter and two sons nor Korem ’ s two daughters attended. [ 74 ] When he died, Dayan left about his stallion estate of the realm to his second wife, Rachel. [ citation needed ] Moshe ‘s and Ruth ‘s daughter, Yael Dayan, a novelist, is best known in Israel for her book, My Father, His Daughter, about her relationship with her forefather. [ 75 ] She followed him into politics and has been a penis of several Israeli leftist parties over the years. She has served in the Knesset and on the Tel Aviv City Council, and was a Tel Aviv-Yafo deputy mayor, creditworthy for social services. One of his sons, Assi Dayan, was an actor and a movie director. [ 76 ] Another son, novelist Ehud Dayan, who was cut out of his church father ‘s will, wrote a bible critical of his don months after he died, mocking his military, writing, and political skills, calling him a womanizer, and accusing him of avarice. In his record, Ehud accused his church father even of making money from his struggle with cancer. He besides lamented having recited Kaddish for his founder “ three times excessively frequently for a valet who never observed half the Ten Commandments “. [ 77 ] [ 78 ]

Death and bequest [edit ]

The Telem party won two seats in the 1981 elections, but Dayan died curtly thereafter, in Tel Aviv, from a massive heart attack. He had been in ill-health since 1980, after he was diagnosed with colon cancer late that year. He is buried in Nahalal in the moshav ( a collective village ) where he was raised. Following his death, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson arranged that the yearlong memorial avail of kaddish be recited in honor of Dayan. [ 79 ] Dayan bequeathed his personal belongings to his bodyguard. In 2005, his eye patch was offered for sale on eBay with a starting offer of US $ 75,000. [ 80 ] Dayan was a complex character ; his opinions were never strictly black and white. He had few close friends ; his mental brilliance and charismatic manner were combined with cynicism and miss of restraint. Ariel Sharon noted about Dayan :

He would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous ; three more had to be rejected ; the remaining two, however, were bright. He had courage amounting to insanity, a well as displays of a miss of province. I would not say the like about his civil courage. once Ben Gurion had asked me—what do I think of the decisiveness to appoint Dayan as the Minister of Agriculture in his government. I said that it is important that Dayan sits in every government because of his bright mind—but never as prime minister. Ben Gurion asked : “ why not as prime curate ? ”. I replied then : “ because he does not accept duty ”. [ 81 ]

In 1969, during an address to the students at Technion University in Haifa, Dayan regretted the fact that students are unfamiliar with the arabian villages that once inhabited the land : [ 82 ] “ We came to this state which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing … a jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country we bought the lands from the Arabs. jewish villages were built in the stead of Arab villages. You do not flush know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no long exist ; not merely do the books not exist, the arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat – in the put of Jibta, Sarid – in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua – in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no matchless identify built in this area that did not have a early Arab population. ” [ 83 ] Dayan combined a kibbutznik ‘s laic identity and pragmatism with a deep love and appreciation for the jewish people and the farming of Israel —but not a religious recognition. In one remembrance, having seen rabbi flocking on the Temple Mount shortly after Jerusalem was captured in 1967, he asked, “ What is this ? The Vatican ? ” Dayan late ordered the israeli flag removed from the Dome of the Rock, and gave administrative control of the Temple Mount over to the Waqf, a Muslim council. Dayan believed that the Temple Mount was more authoritative to Judaism as a diachronic quite than holy site. Dayan was an author and described himself as an amateurish archeologist, the latter hobby leading to significant controversy, as his accumulate of historical artifacts, much with the help of his soldiers, seemed to be in gap of a phone number of laws. Some of his activities in this regard, whether illegal excavation, loot of sites or department of commerce of antiquities, have been detailed by R. Kletter from the Israel Antiquities Authority. [ 84 ] American Science Fiction writer Poul Anderson published his fresh Ensign Flandry at the time when Moshe Dayan ‘s international fame and admiration for him in Israel were at their highest. The far-future Galactic Empire described in the book includes a planet called “ Dayan ”, inhabited by Jews. The television series Pandora references a struggle cruiser named the Moshe Dayan in Episode 9 of Season 1 .

Awards and decorations [edit ]

Published works [edit ]

References [edit ]

further reading [edit ]

  • Bar-On, Mordechai. Moshe Dayan: Israel’s Controversial Hero (Yale University Press; 2012) 247 pages
  • Lau-Lavie, Napthali. Moshe Dayan – A Biography, Dodd Mead, 1969, ISBN 978-0-396-05976-9