Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)

Lexicon of Terms

Operation Kadesh: Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan visits soldiers in the Sinai, 6.11.1956.

Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)

Moshe Dayan was a military man, the fourth Chief of Staff of the IDF, a member of the 4th through the 12th Knessets, and a government minister.

Moshe, the eldest son of Shmuel Dayan (who was a member of the First Knesset), was born in Kibbutz Degania Alef and raised in Nahalal. In his youth he was a guardsman in the fields of Nahalal and he later joined the Hagana. During the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939 he served in the Jewish Police in the Galilee and Jezreel Valley. In the years 1938–1939 he was also a member of the "Field Corps" under the command of Yitzhak Sadeh and the Special Night Platoon commanded by Charles Orde Wingate.

In 1939, Dayan was arrested with 42 other members of the Hagana commanders’ training course and sentenced for illegal possession of weaponry. He was sentenced by the British to ten years of imprisonment and began serving his time in the Acre Prison. He was released in 1941 and joined the Hagana’s combat unit which cooperated with the British army in the conquest of Lebanon from the Vichy regime. In one of these battles he was injured, losing his left eye. The eye patch he used later became his trademark.

After joining the Palmach, Dayan assisted the British intelligence in establishing the broadcasting network for planning secret attacks behind enemy lines, in case Eretz Yisrael would be occupied by Nazi Germany.

As the War of Independence began, Dayan commanded the defense forces of the Jewish settlements in the Jordan Valley. In the spring of 1948 he served as the commander of Battalion 89, which fought in Ramla and Lod, and later faced the Egyptian forces in the south. In August 1948 he was appointed commander of the Jerusalem District and conducted the ceasefire negotiations with the command of the Arab Legion in Jerusalem. In the spring of 1949 he participated in the ceasefire talks held in Rhodes between Israel and Egypt and Jordan.

Dayan was appointed as commander of the Southern Command in October 1949. Simultaneously with his military service, he studied in the British Armed Forces School of Command and Staff. In June 1952 he was appointed as Commander of the Northern Command and in December of that year as Head of the Operations Directorate. A year later he was commissioned as the fourth Chief of Staff of the IDF, remaining in this capacity until January 1958. As Chief of Staff he worked to improve the operational capabilities of the IDF. In 1955, as the terrorist attacks on Israel increased, Dayan initiated acts of retaliation and raids on terrorist cells within Egyptian and Jordanian territory. The IDF’s victory in the Sinai Campaign was accredited to him and added to his heroic image.

Dayan retired from active military service in 1958. In the year following his retirement he studied undergraduate studies in law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Tel Aviv University.

In 1959 he was elected to the Fourth Knesset on behalf of Mapai. David Ben Gurion appointed him as Minister of Agriculture, a position he maintained until 1964. Dayan was supportive of Ben Gurion during the "Lavon Affair" and he resigned from his governmental post following Ben Gurion’s retirement. In July 1965 he split together with Ben Gurion to form Rafi, on behalf of which he was elected to the Sixth Knesset.

In August 1966 Dayan left for Vietnam, which was in the midst of the Vietnam War, and wrote a journal of his experiences later to become published.

Public pressure brought Dayan to return to the government on the eve of the Six Day War. Dayan served as Minister of Defense and his share in the victory of Israel gained him an international reputation. Following the war he established the administration in Gaza Strip, Judea and Samaria. He also incorporated the "open bridges" policy to allow passage of population and merchandise into and from Judea and Samaria. A year after the war he was active in uniting the Rafi, Mapai and Ahdut Ha’avoda parties to form the Alignment.

Dayan continued to serve as Minister of Defense during the Yom Kippur War. The Agranat Commission was established soon thereafter to investigate the circumstances leading to the outbreak of the war and the malfunctions of the military and political commands. It did not find any wrongdoing in Dayan’s function, but public opinion saw him as responsible for Israel’s failure in the war. The Commission’s interim report was published in June 1974 and led Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign from her post. Her successor, Yitzhak Rabin, did not appoint Dayan to his government.

Dayan was elected to the Ninth Knesset in 1977 on behalf of the Alignment, but he split from the party to become Minister of Foreign Affairs in Menahem Begin’s government. He remained a single MK faction throughout this term.

As foreign minister, Dayan was instrumental in preparing for the historical visit of Egyptian President Sadat to Jerusalem in November 1977. In September 1978 he took part in the negotiations for a peace treaty held at Camp David and he remained active in the process until the treaty was signed in March 1979. Following the appointment of Yosef Burg as the Israeli representative in the talks with Egypt on autonomy for the Palestinians, he resigned from the government in October 1979.

Towards the end of the Ninth Knesset’s tenure, in May 1981, Dayan established the Movement for National Renewal, which supported the continuation of the peace process on the basis of the Camp David Accords. The Movement also supported the military presence of Israel in the occupied territories and objected any territorial compromise in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It also objected to autonomy for the Palestinians and championed the continuation of Jewish settlements throughout the State. Despite the lofty expectations, the Movement gained only two seats in the Tenth Knesset.

Dayan passed away in October 1981, four months after the elections, and was buried in Nahalal.