Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan (born May 20, 1915, Deganya, Palestine [now in Israel]—died Oct. 16, 1981, Tel Aviv, Israel) was a soldier and statesman who led Israel to dramatic victories over its Arab neighbours and became a symbol of security to his countrymen.

Dayan was born on Israel’s first kibbutz and was raised on the country’s first successful cooperative farm settlement (moshav), Nahalal. He began his military career in 1937, when he learned guerrilla warfare from the British officer Captain Orde Wingate in the special night squadrons. These were organized to fight Arab rebel bands in Palestine, and they formed the nucleus of a Jewish army. Convinced that the Jews would have to fight for their independence, Dayan joined the Haganah, an illegal Jewish defense force, and was arrested and imprisoned (1939–41) by British authorities. After his release he led Palestinian Jewish forces against the Vichy French in Syria, where he lost his left eye in action, thereafter wearing the black patch that became his hallmark.

In Israel’s war of independence in 1948, Dayan was commander of the Jerusalem area, and in 1949 he participated in armistice negotiations between Jordan and Israel. While chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces (1953–58), he planned and led the 1956 invasion of the Sinai Peninsula. That conflict with Egypt established his reputation as a military commander. His memoirs of the action, Diary of the Sinai Campaign, were published in 1966.

In 1959 Dayan was elected to the Knesset (Parliament) as a member of Mapai, a party within the Israel Labour Party coalition, and was appointed minister of agriculture by his long-time mentor, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. He served until 1964, when he resigned during a political conflict between factions led by Ben-Gurion and by the new prime minister, Levi Eshkol.

Dayan was again elected to the Knesset in 1965 as a member of Ben-Gurion’s new splinter party, Rafi (Alliance of Israel’s Workers). On June 1, 1967, when war with Israel’s Arab neighbours was imminent, Dayan was appointed minister of defense. Together with the chief of staff, Yitzhak Rabin, he directed operations during the Six-Day War (June 5–10, 1967), and he later administered the territories occupied by Israel. Dayan gained increasing influence over Israel’s conduct of foreign affairs in the early 1970s, but when Egypt and Syria unexpectedly attacked Israel on Oct. 6, 1973 (Yom Kippur), Dayan was pilloried for the country’s lack of preparedness. When Rabin succeeded Golda Meir as prime minister in June 1974, he dropped Dayan from the Cabinet. Four years later, as foreign minister under Menachem Begin, Dayan became one of the chief architects of the Camp David Accords. Then, angered by Begin’s plan to assert Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank area which was legally still part of Jordan, he resigned in October 1979. In 1981 he formed a new party, Telem, which advocated unilateral Israeli disengagement from the territories occupied in the 1967 wars. Dayan’s autobiography, The Story of My Life, was published in 1976.

After Dayan’s death, controversy arose over his extensive private collection of antiquities, part of which he had accumulated through unauthorized and unscientific digs. The collection was eventually sold by his second wife to the Israel Museum.