Moshe Dayan by Mordechai Bar-On

Author:Mordechai Bar-On
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2012-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

10

The Six Day War

ON MAY 15, 1967, the nineteenth anniversary of Israel’s independence, ominous news interrupted preparations for a festive parade in Jerusalem. In violation of the agreements ending the Sinai campaign ten years earlier, Egypt had flagrantly deployed troops in the Sinai Peninsula. The Israel Defense Forces began to call up reserves, and anxiety gripped the public. Should Egypt launch war, Israelis feared, Israel could suffer catastrophic consequences. Dayan was restless. He could not bear the thought of Israel fighting a war without him.

On May 20, he asked Prime Minister Eshkol for authorization to inspect the IDF units assembling in the South. Eshkol granted him permission, and on May 23 he was warmly welcomed at the command post in Beersheba. Eshkol knew that President Nasser had just ordered the Straits of Tiran closed to Israeli shipping, an action that Israel had repeatedly warned would be considered an act of war. Three IDF divisions were on alert in the Negev: the elite Armored Corps under the command of Gen. Israel Tal; another armored division led by Gen. Avraham Yoffe, who in the Sinai campaign had led his brigade to Sharm el-Sheikh; and the paratroopers and their celebrated but controversial commander Gen. Ariel Sharon.

Over the next seven days, Dayan toured all the Southern Command units. He met with commanders, spoke with soldiers, and for the first time kept his own diary, having neither a secretary nor a bureau chief. He knew most of the senior officers well, and they all knew and admired him. On the instructions of the IDF chief of General Staff, Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, the officers showed him their strategic plans, naturally expecting him to share his thoughts. Dayan was reluctant. “I came to see and to hear, not to express opinions,” he said, but soon enough he was unable to withhold his reservations.

He slept in Beersheba, returning to Tel-Aviv intermittently to keep abreast of the political situation. One evening he was spotted on his way to a café and immediately surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd. “Moshe Dayan! Moshe Dayan!” The crowd’s embrace was a local expression of the mounting public anxiety at the end of May, an anxiety that also permeated political ranks. Prime Minister Eshkol was viewed as hesitant and indecisive, and there was talk among the public, the press, and the leadership of replacing him as minister of defense. Dayan’s name surfaced. As a member of Ben-Gurion’s small opposition Rafi Party, he did not believe that he would receive the appointment and asked his brother-in-law Ezer Weizman, then head of GHQ Operations, to re-enlist him into the army.

Eshkol, under heavy pressure to include more people in the decision-making process, called Dayan in for a personal meeting and suggested he join the special ministerial committee on foreign and defense affairs. Dayan refused. He was prepared to make himself available for consultation whenever Eshkol or Rabin desired, but he saw no point in sitting on a committee of seven or nine ministers who did not set policy. He repeated his request to rejoin the IDF, asking to be appointed commander of the Egyptian front.

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