Moshe Dayan

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Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan ( Hebrew משה דיין; born on May 20, 1915 in Kibbutz Degania ; died October 16, 1981 in Tel Aviv ) was an Israeli general and politician . As Israel's Foreign Minister , he led the negotiations on the Camp David Agreement .

Early years

Moshe Dajan was born in Kibbutz Degania "Alef" (Deganja "A") near the Sea of ​​Galilee in Palestine , which at that time still belonged to the Ottoman Empire . His father was the writer and politician Shmuel Dajan , his mother's name was Devorah. Dajan's parents had emigrated to Palestine from the Russian Ukraine . The Hebrew word dayan means judge. Dajan joined the Hagana ( Hebrew "defense") at the age of 14 . 1939-1941 he was imprisoned for illegal activity against the British in the Central Prison of Acre in Akko .

Military and political career

Second World War

In June 1941, Dajan commanded a Palmach unit under the command of the 7th Australian Infantry Division. The Allies advanced as part of the Syrian-Lebanese campaign together with General Charles de Gaulle established free French forces from Palestine in the Vichy regime occupied Lebanon one, who thus became for the first base of "Free France" in the Mediterranean in 1943 before Israel would become the first independent democratic state in the Middle East and a founding member of the United Nations. During this operation, Dayan lost his left eye. A bullet hit the binoculars he was using; Glass and metal splinters wounded his eye, which could not be saved despite subsequent treatment. It was also not possible to wear a glass eye. Later he always covered the empty eye socket with a black eye patch , which became his most famous feature. On the recommendation of an Australian officer, he received the " Distinguished Service Order ", one of the highest honors in the British Empire .

Israeli War of Independence and Sinai Campaign

After the establishment of the State of Israel, Dajan fought in various important positions in the Israeli War of Independence . At first he was in command of the defense efforts in the Jordan Valley, and later he was given command of various military units on the central front. He later took over the leadership of the Israeli delegation to the peace negotiations in Rhodes . In 1954, after completing a general staff course in England , Dajan became Chief of Staff and Commander-in-Chief of the Israel Defense Forces (until 1958). In this function he commanded the Sinai campaign .

Career as a politician and in the Six Day War

In August 1966 Dayan was with US troops in the Vietnam War.

In 1959, a year after Dajan left the Israeli army, he became a member of the social democratic Mapai , which at that time was led by David Ben Gurion . From 1959 to 1964 he was Minister of Agriculture in Levi Eschkol's cabinet , a political opponent within his own party. During a visit to Vietnam that was not supported by the Israeli government , after his return in 1967 he said: "The Americans win everything here - except the war."

Dajan was in close contact with Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, and along with Shimon Peres and others of the "boys" became one of his main supporters. This is especially true of the period when Ben Gurion founded the Rafi party . In the wake of the tensions between Israel and the Arab world in May and June 1967, after massive pressure from the people of Eshkol, Dayan was appointed Minister of Defense. Eshkol had previously held this post himself, although he had never served in the army.

As defense minister, Dajan gained a high reputation in Israel and a high profile in the world mainly through his services during the Six Day War . Although he had not been involved in the military defensive measures prior to the Six Day War (which was the responsibility of Ezer Weizmann and Jitzhak Rabin ), he became one because of his charismatic demeanor, which motivated the soldiers on the front, and because of his short-term changes to the plan assigned an important role.

Yom Kippur War

Moshe Dayan with Golda Meïr in July 1969.

Dajan remained Minister of Defense even under Eschkol's successor, Golda Meïr . He had to give up his office in 1974 because of the almost lost Yom Kippur War in October 1973. The "Hero of the Six Day War" bore much of the responsibility for the fact that the Israeli leadership had not recognized or ignored the signs of the looming war in advance. In the autumn of 1973, Dajan voted not to mobilize completely and not to wage a preventive strike against the Egyptian and Syrian armies , because, based on the experience of 1967, he assumed that Israel would win a war with ease even if the Arabs already attacked. Above all, he wanted to prevent Israel, which had started the war six years earlier, from appearing as an aggressor before the world public.

After the heavy defeats of the Israelis in the first two days of the war, Dajan changed his mind radically, lost his composure and was on the verge of declaring the "fall of the third temple" at a press conference, but he was fortunate enough to be helped by Meir prevented. In the course of the fighting he was able to regain his self-control and also the authority to issue instructions over the Israeli troops, which finally managed to turn the tide and repel the Arab attacks. Although the Agranat Commission's report did not see the main responsibility for the crisis with political leaders (among whom Dajan is to be counted), public protests eventually led to his and Meir's resignation.

Minister in the Begins Likud cabinet

Dajan's grave in Nahalal Cemetery

Dajan left the Mapai (Labor Party), which had been his political home for 15 years, and became a member of the conservative Likud . From 1977 to 1979 Dajan was foreign minister under Menachem Begin and in this office he played an important role in drawing up the 1979 peace agreement with Egypt ( Camp David I ). He resigned from this office in protest and a. back against the government's settlement policy. In 1981, Dajan founded the Telem party, which advocated a unilateral separation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip . The party won two seats in the 10th Knesset (elections of June 30, 1981), but Dajan died shortly after of complications from cancer. He was buried in the moshav Nahalal .

personality

Dajan was a complicated and contradicting personality who is still controversial today. He had few close friends, and his intellectual brilliance and charisma were often paired with cynicism and a lack of tact. Ariel Sharon , who often accused him of fickleness and apathy, wrote of Dayan:

“He woke up [every morning] with a hundred ideas. 95 of them were dangerous, 3 others were bad, but the last two were brilliant. "

Dajan combined the secular identity of a kibbutznik with a lot of pragmatism. It was he who entrusted the Temple Mount to a waqf (a foundation established under Muslim law), although in his writings he always emphasized the Jewish heritage in " Eretz Israel " . He was the author of several books and was known as an amateur archaeologist . He came into conflict with the law several times for carrying out illegal excavations with the support of his soldiers. His archaeological collection was sold to the state after his death.

His daughter Jael Dajan is a writer and followed him into politics as a member of various left-wing parties. She was a parliamentarian in the Knesset and on the Tel Aviv City Council . His son Assi Dajan was a film director.

Quotes

  • “Over the past 100 years our people have been in a process of building the country, building the nation, expanding and bringing in more Jews and building more settlements to expand the borders here. No Jew should say that this process is over. No Jew should say that we have reached the end of the street. ”( During the last 100 years our people have been in a process of building up the country and the nation, of expansion, of getting additional Jews and additional settlements in order to expand the borders here. Let no Jew say that the process has ended. Let no Jew say that we are near the end of the road. )
  • “There is no more Palestine. Done ... ”( There is no more Palestine. Finished ... ).
  • “All you need is a (Lebanese) officer. One captain would be enough, you just have to win him over or buy him with money to get him to proclaim himself the savior of the Maronite Christian population. Then the Israeli army marches into Lebanon, occupies the necessary areas, installs a Christian regime that allies itself with Israel. The areas south of the Litani River will be annexed by Israel, and everything else will work out for us. "
  • “If you want peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. "

Works

  • The mission of my life. Report on the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations 1977–1979. Bertelsmann, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-570-01373-1 .
  • The story of my life Molden-Verlag, Vienna - Munich 1978, ISBN 3-217-00834-0 .
  • Living with the Bible. Archeology in the Holy Land. Molden-Verlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-217-01218-6 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Moshe Dayan  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Segev: 1967 - Israel's second birth , Munich, 2007 p. 29
  2. ↑ (Source: Interview in Ma'ariv on July 7, 1968)
  3. ↑ (Source: Interview in TIME Magazine , July 30, 1973)
  4. ↑ (Source: The Iron Wall, Avi Shlaim, London 2000, p. 133; discussion with Ben-Gurion of May 16, 1955, trans. )
predecessor Office successor
Mordecai Maklef Chief of Staff of Tzahal
1953-1958 		Chaim Laskow
personal data
SURNAME Dayan, Moshe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Israeli general and politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Kibbutz Degania
DATE OF DEATH October 16, 1981
Place of death Tel Aviv