Moshe Dayan - Early life, World War II, Military commander, Politician, Six Day War (1967)

Israeli general and statesman, born in Deganya, Palestine. During the 1930s he joined the illegal Jewish defence organization, Haganah, and was imprisoned by the British (1939–41), then released to fight with the Allies in World War 2 (when he lost his left eye, thereafter wearing his distinctive black eye patch). He became chief-of-staff (1953–8), joined the Knesset as a Labour member in 1959, but left the Labour Party in 1966 to set up the Rafi Party with Ben-Gurion. He won acclaim as defence minister in 1967 when Israeli forces defeated Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six Day War, and he himself became a symbol of Israeli dash and courage. As foreign minister, he participated in negotiations over a peace treaty with Egypt (1977). He resigned from the Begin government in 1979, and launched a new centre party in 1981.

Early life

Moshe Dayan was born in a kibbutz ("collective farm"), Degania Alef ("Degania A"), Israel, near the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee). He was greatly influenced by the military teachings of the English Zionist officer Orde Wingate when Dayan was a sergeant prior to World War II.

World War II

He was arrested by the British ten years later in 1939 (when the Haganah was outlawed), but released after two years in February 1941 as part of the Haganah's renewed cooperation with the British during World War II.

Military commander

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Dayan occupied various positions of importance, first as the commander over the defensive effort in the Jordan valley;

After the 1948 war, Dayan began to rise rapidly through the ranks.

Politician

In 1959, a year after he retired from the IDF, Dayan joined Mapai, the leftist block in Israeli politics, then led by David Ben-Gurion. however when tensions began to rise in early 1967, Eshkol decided to hand over the position of Minister of Defense to the charismatic and popular Dayan in order to raise public morale and widen his government's coalition base by establishing a unity government.

Six Day War (1967)

Although Dayan did not take part in most of the planning before the Six-Day War of June 1967, his appointment as Defense Minister contributed to the Israeli success. Following the war, Dayan, whose traits did not include particular modesty, invested in PR efforts to take credit for much of the fighting for himself. During the years following the war Dayan enjoyed enormous popularity in Israel and was widely viewed as a potential future Prime Minister. At this time Dayan was the leader of the hawkish camp within the Labor government, opposing return to anything like Israel's pre-1967 borders.

In a 1976 interview by Israeli journalist Rami Tal, Dayan claimed that 80 percent of the cross-border clashes between Israel and Syria in the years before the war were a result of Israeli provocation.

Yom Kippur War (1973)

After Golda Meir became Prime Minister in 1969 following the death of Levi Eshkol, Dayan remained Minister of Defense. As the highest-ranking official responsible for military planning, and in particular for examining the intelligence apparatus, it is of little doubt that Dayan, who became the symbol of victorious complacency following the Six-Day War, bears a part of responsibility for the Israeli leadership having missed the signs for the upcoming war. In the hours preceding the war, Dayan opted for not carrying out a full mobilization or carrying out a preemptive strike against the Egyptians and the Syrians;

Following the heavy defeats of the first two days, Dayan's views experienced a radical turn;

Dayan suggested hysterical options during the beginning of the war, including a plan to withdraw to the Mitleh mountians in Sinai and a complete withdrawal from the Golan hights in order to carry a battle over the Jordan, abandoning the core strategic principles of Israeli war doctrine, which says that war must be taken over to the depth of the enemy territory as soon as possible. The Chief of staff, David Elazar, objected to these plans and this proved correct, as Israel counterattacked, breaking between the Egyptian lines and crossing the Suez canal in the Sinai front, encircling the 3rd Egyptian army, and as Israel counterattacked on the Syrian front, successfully repelling the Jordanian and Iraqi expeditionary forces and shelling the outskirts of Damascus, ending the war on more preferrable terms for Israel.

To Dayan's credit, he had managed to recover his self-control and direct Israel's fighting during the rest of the war. Although the Agranat Committee Report published after the war did not lay substantial responsibility on the political layer to which Moshe Dayan belonged, a wave of public protests led to both his and Golda Meir's resignations.

Serves as Foreign Minister in the Likud Government

According to those who knew him, the war deeply depressed Dayan. Dayan withdrew in 1980 (joined by Ezer Weizman who then defected to Labor), because of his disagreement with Begin over whether the Palestinian territories were an Israeli internal matter (the Camp David treaty included provisions for future negotiations with the Palestinians; Begin, who didn't like the idea, did not put Dayan in charge of the negotiation team.)

Death

In 1981, Dayan formed a new party, Telem, which advocated unilateral separation from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

His legacy

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Moshe Dayan

Dayan was very complicated and controversial; Ariel Sharon noted about Dayan:

Dayan combined a kibbutznik's secular identity and pragmatism with a deep love and appreciation for the Jewish people and the land of Israel --but not a religious identification. To the more religious Jews, this decision by Dayan represents a deeply profound lost opportunity to address the building of the Third Temple and for many in the religious Zionist community, this remains the biggest and darkest part of Dayan's legacy.

Dayan was also an author and an amateur archaeologist, the latter hobby leading to some controversy as his amassing of historical artifacts, often with the help of his soldiers, broke a number of laws.

His daughter, Yael Dayan is a novelist and followed him into politics and has been a member of several Israeli leftist parties over the years.

His son, Assi Dayan, is an actor and a movie director.

Military Offices
Preceded by: Mordechai Maklef	Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces 1953-1958	Succeeded by: Chaim Laskov
Preceded by: Levi Eshkol	Defense Minister of Israel 1967-1974	Succeeded by: Shimon Peres

Books by Dayan

Diary of the Sinai Campaign, 1965.