Dayan the soldier, the man , the legend by Shabtai Teveth 1973 372 pg

Moshe Dayan 1915 to 1981 - died at the age of 66

Moshe’s parents lived at Nahalal and Ruth’s parents in Jerusalem were all educated people had a great influence on her as well. Her mother's sister Ruema married Ezer Weitzman.

Dayan as a teenager on Nahalal was a member of the Hagana which at the time was to protect the Jewish settlement against the Arabs in the area. He got to know the local Arabs and had a very good childhood friend amongst them.

In the early part of the 20C Jewish settlers in Israel settled on land bought up by the JNF and found themselves surrounded by impoverished Arabs and Bedouin, very quickly they learned that they had to set up organizations like Hashomer to protect themselves from thieves and marauders. Some settlements had people able to negotiate mutual agreements with the surrounding Arab clans and protect themselves. Dayan got to know the neighbors well, speak Arabic and how to deal with their mentality.

When the British had trouble with the Arabs blowing up the Iraq, Haifa oil pipeline Orde Wingate was brought in and he needed scouts who knew the area well ,he taught them the craft of guarding and attacking marauders. Most settlement were established on land in positions that were considered strategic like the borders so even though they were agricultural they from the beginning had a defense function. Wingate was sent out to Palestine because the Iraq Petroleum company. As he never had sufficient soldiers he got help from the settlements or unofficial Hagana. (extrnumera forces) Settlements were set up in one day and by the evening were able to defend themselves against Arab attackers. Later under the British white paper settlements were set up to absorb immigrants during the night so by morning they were a fait accomple. When Orde Wingate came to the area Dayan was one of the youth who learned from Wingate the art of field craft maps, night fighting laying ambushes and general guerilla warfare. Once the Arab's rioted the British decided that nobody should poses arms and were looking for slicks. Dayan was leading a group to move a slick when they were arrested and spent almost 2 years in Akko prison. Even in prison he took charge of the situation and represented the other as he spoke English and Arabic. He also dealt with the Lehi in prison. The Hagana was having exercises at Shimron was warned that the British were coming and Yigal Allon took a group with weapons to get away while Dayan with a larger group of 42 was arrested by a British led patrol of Arab soldiers. In prison Dayan broke the rules and instead of being tortured explained that they were Hagana and not Lehi. They were sentence to 5 years in prison where Dayan showed his leadership ability, besides them there was Lehi ,common criminal and Arab Kassimists who today is the equivalent of Hamas. Dayan got to know these people. It was through Haim Weitzman’s influence that they were released. When the British saw the danger of Rommel in Africa they released the prisoners and many joined the volunteered force the British Army with the intention of gaining military training, His brother Zorik and sister Aviva joined up with the British army Dayan joined the Palmach which was a home guard. After he was released he did not volunteer to join the British Army like most his age he was at this stage married to Rachel and had 2 children so he farmed on the moshav. The British needed scouts or guides to go into Lebanon against the Vichy French , Dayan went with a Palmach group to capture bridges to block them before the French realized that the British were invading. When the British wanted to move into French Vichy territory Dayan lead a group to open the way they captured a bridge by the French had blown up a more southerly bridge to block them, they then captured a police station and Dayan was on the roof trying to identify where a sniper was shooting from when he got a bullet through his binocular. Years later he had a number of bone transplants into his eye but they were unsuccessful and he had to wear the black patch which became his trademark. While he was recovering from his wound in Jerusalem the British hired him to be an Arab agent Because Dayan knew the Arabs in the area well he set up an intelligence dealing with the Arabs in the Galilee. In the war in 48 he fought against Kuagie Syrian fighters, amongst these there were Druse Mercenaries. After his brother Yorik had died he approached the Druse and they thought he wanted revenge but instead he convinced them to fight for Israel. Dayan's battalion number 98 were made up of people who wanted to fight under him they left other units to join him there were even Lehi people. The even took equipment where they could get it like Author Koestler's jeep Degania The Syrians had wanted to attack Israel through Lebanon but the Lebanese's refused and they attacked south of the Kinneret. The different units of defenders were disorganized and Dayan was sent and he arrived with old artillery pieces they called Napoleonchic’s. Dayan brought a lot of infantrymen onto the tel hill and told them to fire from there This was the first time Israel had used artillery .and the Syrian weren’t expecting this. One of the shell exploded the Syrian ammunition dump in Samakh plus the tanks that came into Degania (some say Molotovs stopped them) Then Dayan sent volunteers' across the Kineret with explosives to attack the Syrian at night. ) Basically the Syrians ran out of ammunition and retreated. The Degania battle was significant in that it was just after the loss of the Gush. British observer who noted this realized that the Israelis would gain the upper hand and win the war. When Dayan went to David Marcuse's funeral at WestPoint he met a Jewish Colonel Baum explained to Dayan that if you charge with an Armored Column and surprise your enemy you can defeat him by firing continuously and they can hardly fire back. This is what he did in both Lod and Ramle. Later on in the capture of Faluja in the Negev from the Egyptian. Here they charged the Egyptian position and airfield and kept going till they had shelter in a wadi only to find that they wadi had no exit as they understood from the map. With the help of one of his staff who was an engineer they dug a slope in the wall and got out with their better vehicles and all the weapons. In Jerusalem they lived in the Abkarius Bey house that was abandoned by the owner, these properties were taken over by the Custodian of Absentee Property. Moshe Dayan was the person in contact with the Mustafa Tal of Jordanian army to keep the peace and he had discreet meeting with King Abdulla. Later on Ben Gurion appointed him in charge of Jerusalem here he had direct liaison with Mustafa Tel who would take him secretly to meet King Abdulla to negotiate and they had a direct phone between themselves to keep the peace. MT did not like the way the Jordanians kowtowed to the British

When Moshe was made head of head southern command based in Rehovot he took her on trips to the dessert. At the time there were few road in the Negev to Elath and Beersheva was a small market town. Later they moved back Nahalal when Moshe was in charge of the Northern Command. When Dayan became chief staff he removed all trappings of grandeur from his office and took a small office with a desk covered with a blanket as used out in the fields. Dayan had no patience for the British spit and polish type army and so that there would not be a class of old generals he brought about the retirement age at 40 to be able to bring new young soldiers into the officers corps,

Reprisal Policy The army felt it could not stop every, over border attack so they had a policy of reprisals so that the Arabs would realize that after every attack on Israel, they would suffer. When Dayan was Chief of Staff there was a problem of terrorist attacks from both Jordan and Egypt. Each attack meant that they had to plan reprisals and one reprisal attack on Kalkalia staged from a kibbutz nearby the border. Dayan went to a position close to Kalkalia where he could watch the operation but Jordanian artillery attacked the kibbutz and his driver was hurt. After a reprisal the Jordanians would attack the retreating troops. To deal with the terrorist incursions he organized for the training of a special unit trained to do reprisal missions and Ariel Sharon was the head of this unit 101. Later on he learned that all US officers had had parachute training and he insisted that be the case in Israel and he himself jumped to get his wings and the paratroopers all became an elite force. He worked hard to build up the supply of weapons and it was only from France that they managed to get tanks and 12 Mystere planes. This was in 1955 when Egypt was getting all the weapons she wanted from Czechoslovakia and Russia. The Sinai Campaign we discover was just about all his creation he was Chief of Staff. Jordan had signed a defense pact with Iraq to threaten Israel. While Egyptian terrorism from Gaza was taking a toll on Israel. When the French saw that Nassar had nationalized the Suez Canal both they and Antony Edan saw him as a new dictator that had to be nipped at the bud. At the same time Nasser was sending arms against the rebels in Algeria affecting the French Africa interests. Dayan as Chief of Staff realized the opportunity to take advantage of this to deal with the Egyptian to finally open shipping to Elath. It was all Dayans planning that Israel would march into Sinai giving the impression to the Egyptian that it was a small skirmish so that Egypt would not provoke a full scale war because the French and British would only get involved 36 hours later using the pretext that they wanted to protect the Suez Canal. Israel was worried that Egyptian planes would attack Israeli cities before the French and Brits felt that they had a reason to interfere. According to Dayan he personally was the one who negotiated with the French and convinced Ben Gurion of the opportunity not to be missed. Dayan was looking for a reason to attack Egypt before the Suez crises to prevent Egypt from getting too strong.

1956 Operation Kadesh (Sinai Campaign)had been Dayan's war, from start to finish. He had wanted it , had personally conducted some of its most important battles. He had figured out the best way to start the fighting. He had correctly predicted - and convinced Israel's European allies- that Israel could do the job swiftly and efficiently. He had minimized the importance of armor at first: but he had adapted to the reality of the battlefield. He had displayed an ability to make decisions during wartime that, right or wrong impressed others. He had estimated the fighting ability of the enemy correctly. Little that the Egyptians did surprised him. Ten years after the war Dayan wrote a book on the Sinai Campaign which was considered the best standard work on the subject. In it he revealed many of the failures of the war and was criticized in Israel for that but he felt that the army should deal with its mistakes. At this time Ben Gurion made a statement that if Dayan had been Chief of Staff in 1948, that war would have been better run. This embarrassed Dayan who said that he was not yet ready for that position as he had learned his skills in 1948

Six Days of War and making of the modern Middle East, Michael Oren2002 390pg

When Nasser took over rule of Egypt he was 35 young handsome and there were great hopes for what he would do. By 1965 whatever he had touched had turned sour and Egypt spent $9.2 billion on the Yemen war. Nasser's prestige was low and by closing Tiran and ordering the UN to leave Sinai he got this back. 1967 So the 6 day war was all part of the Cold War. Levi Eshkol did not give the public the feeling that he was decisive in dealing with the mounting Arab buildup while the army was in the "hamtana" (waiting) the public were calling for Dayan to take over the post of Defense which had been held by Ben Gurion when he was PM. Nasser had gained all that he wanted by his warmongering but wasn't yet sure he wanted war. The Russian as part of their tactics during the cold war told the Syrians that Israel was getting ready to attack them. Egypt would now be forced to come to Syria's defense because of the defense pact they had. Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran and thus became a hero of the Arab world meanwhile the United Nations under UThant were asked to remove their peace keepers. Egyptian troops moved into Sinai. . When Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran in 1967 and all the Arab countries joined Egypt against Israel Dayan was not in the government but realized that war was inevitable. He decided to visit all the army bases and assess the situation. Rabin had a problem as he realized that Israel had to take action and could not make headway with Levi Eshkol, who was unable to make a decision. During the "hamtana" Dayan was finally made Minister of Defense and once the Cabinet approved going to war Dayan basically took over running the war. One of the things that Dayan wanted was that Israel kept away from the Suez so that she would not be responsible for it being closed. However it made a good border and was the cause of the 1973 war, The Russians were worried that Israel would attack Syria and that would topple the Baathest regime. He explains why the army is successful and has skilled people in every sphere. The Arabs got sophisticated equipment but were not yet capable of being trained to use it in 1967. Levi Eshkol tried to form a government of National Unity and did all he could to have an alternate to Dayan and Minister of Defense as he was in the opposition party. Meir Amit head of the Mossad was talking to Robert Mc Namara US Secretary of Defense when the news came out that Dayan had been made Minister of Defense. His reaction was "I wish him luck" indicating that the US had accepted that Israel was going to war. Dayan instructions kept quiet the news that Egyptian air force had been destroyed in the first hours. Dayan's policy was to beat the Egyptian and he insisted on not attacking Jordan as he thought that they would give a show attack only. However the army was force to deal with Jordan. Syria kept on bombarding Israeli settlements but Dayan insisted that the army has to finish with its other commitments before it went full force against Syria. The war cabinet meeting Dayan was against attacking Syria. But then he got information that the Syrian army was not as active on the Golan as previously and Nassar phoned Assad and told him to quickly declare a ceasefire as Egypt had lost everything. With this information Dayan said to Elazer attack without even going back to Eshkol. In retrospect after the war it was realized that Eshkol's 3 week delay had been a good thing.Allon concludes that Israel has to have defensible borders even if she doesn't have the moral right to occupy land.

Dayan was on the Suez when they were bombed by Egyptian artillery during the War of Attrition with Sharon. He told Sharon that having the border on Suez was a mistake. Dayan knew that the Arab's would never ever accept Israel as a State and that Israel could only survive by having a strong army and holding territory especially the West Bank.

In 1973 Dayan was Minister of Defense and had worked on getting new weapons and airplanes from the US as the Arabs had a good supply from Russia. We now know that the head of Army Intelligence Eli Ziera had a contact in London who kept him informed on what Egypt was planning this was an Egyptian official who Israel paid a lot of money but it seems that he was purposely put there as a plant to con the mossad. When the Arabs were building up to attack, Israel could have used her air force to a preemptive strike but was warned against this by the Americans. This was a period when the world was suffering badly from the oil shocks, the price of oil had gone up so much that most economies were suffering from stagflation. Israel needed a warning of 24 hours to mobilize. The old Dayan in a situation like this would have been running around to the different bases and seeing for himself what the situation was but Dayan was involved in politics and took the word of the officers in Tel Aviv. In 1973 Dayan speeches were about how strong Israel was and that the Arabs wouldn't attack it even though privately who knew there was a problem. As Minister of Defense he appointed Dado Elazar Chief of Staff when Dayan would have preferred Arik Sharon but politics intervened. When the war broke out in 73 it was Dayan who got Sharon to take command of the south and also knew that the counter attack should only start when the troops were fully organized, so it was against Syrian that had to be dealt with first and then Egypt. Even before the war began at 2pm Yom Kippur Day. Elazar wanted to use the Airforce to do a pre-emptive attack and Dayan was against this. He had also rejected a call up earlier because it was politically not good for his party if it turned out to be an expensive false alarm. It was Elazar who had the quiet confidence that at one time people had turned to Dayan for.