 Moshe Dayan (Hebrew: משה דיין, born 20 May
1915, died 16 October 1981) was an Israeli
military leader and politician. The fourth Chief
of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces
(1953–1958), he became a fighting symbol to the
world of the new State of Israel.
Early life
Moshe Dayan was born on Kibbutz Degania Alef
near the shores of Lake Kinneret (Sea of
Galilee) in pre-Mandate Palestine. His parents
were Shmuel and Devorah, Jewish immigrants from
Ukraine. He was the second child to be born on
the kibbutz (after Gideon Baratz). At the age of
14, he joined the newly formed Jewish militia
known as the Haganah. One of his military heroes
was the British Zionist officer Orde Wingate,
whom he served as second-in-command.
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 Haganah cooperation with the British
during World War II.
Dayan was assigned to a small Australian-Palmach-Arab
reconnaissance task force,[1] formed in
preparation for the Allied invasion of Syria and
Lebanon and attached to the Australian 7th
Division. Using his home kibbutz of Hanita as a
forward base, the unit frequently infiltrated
Vichy French Lebanon, wearing traditional Arab
dress, on covert surveillance missions.
On June 7, the night before the invasion, the
unit crossed the border and secured two bridges
over the Litani River. When they were not
relieved as expected, at 04:00 on June 8, the
unit perceived that it was exposed to possible
attack and — on its own initiative — assaulted a
nearby Vichy police station, capturing it in a
firefight. A few hours later, as Dayan was using
binoculars they were struck by a French bullet,
propelling metal and glass fragments into his
left eye and causing it severe damage. Six hours
passed before he could be evacuated and Dayan
lost the eye. In addition, the damage to the
extraocular muscles was such that Dayan could
not be fitted with a glass eye, and he was
forced to adopt the black eyepatch that became
his trademark. On the recommendation of an
Australian officer, he received the
Distinguished Service Order, one of the British
Commonwealth's highest military honours (and is
a medal which is awarded to junior officers only
in exceptional circumstances).
In the years immediately following, the
disability caused him some psychological
pain.[2] Dayan wrote in his biography: "I
reflected with considerable misgivings on my
future as a cripple without a skill, trade, or
profession to provide for my family." He added
that he was "ready to make any effort and stand
any suffering, if only I could get rid of my
black eye patch. The attention it drew was
intolerable to me. I preferred to shut myself up
at home, doing anything, rather than encounter
the reactions of people wherever I went."
Military commander
During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Dayan occupied
various important positions, first as the
commander of the defense in the Jordan valley;
he was then given command over a number of
military units on the central front. He was
extremely well-liked by Israel's founding Prime
Minister, David Ben-Gurion and became his
protégé, together with Shimon Peres (a future
Prime Minister and President).
After the war, Dayan began to rise rapidly
through the ranks. From 1953 to 1958, he was the
Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces. In
this capacity, he personally commanded the
Israeli forces fighting in the Sinai during the
1956 Suez Crisis. It was during Dayan's tenure
as Chief of Staff that he delivered his famous
eulogy of Roi Rutenberg, a young Israeli killed
in 1956. |
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