IN GOLDA MEIR’S MEMOIRS, she pegged Henry Kissinger as the most forceful personality of the Yom Kippur War. “The main figure turned out to be not President Sadat nor President Assad nor King Faisel nor Ms. Meir,” she wrote, “it was U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, whose efforts for the sake of regional peace can only be defined as superhuman.”1 Certainly, in the final stages of the war and the months following, Kissinger was the prime mover in the political and military theaters. Dayan had known Kissinger for years and entertained mixed feelings about him. He had great respect for Kissinger’s talents but still greater fear of his position within the world’s major superpower, which could press and reward, influence and promise. During the war, Dayan had met briefly with Kissinger when the secretary of state stopped off in Jerusalem on his way back from Moscow, and he gained the impression that Kissinger would robustly facilitate negotiations with the Arabs. However, he feared that improved U.S.-Arab relations and the lifting of the oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in response to President Nixon’s delivery of military hardware to Israel during the war would be achieved at Israel’s expense.2 Dayan’s intuition was correct.
After the guns fell silent in late October 1973, Dayan returned to center stage, primarily in the political and diplomatic arena. But with his departure from the Ministry of Defense slated for June 1974, he still had defense responsibilities to assume. Though daily contact with the U.S. administration was left to Ambassador Simcha Dinitz, with the close involvement of Prime Minister Meir, Dayan was engaged in the discussions, which revolved around the IDF’s withdrawal and redeployment farther east in Egypt. Dayan had suggested this redeployment, though now it signified Israel’s acknowledgment of the advantage gained by Egypt in the Yom Kippur War. Subsequently, both banks of the canal would remain sovereign Egyptian territory and President Sadat’s depleted forces would be stationed on lines Israel had held for the previous seven years. Egypt understandably viewed the war as an achievement, both because of its bold launch and because of the terms of its conclusion.
Dayan now argued for his prewar position, claiming that the resumption of international navigation through the Suez Canal and the rehabilitation of its surrounding towns would foster a state of nonbelligerence. In early December, he set out for a United Jewish Appeal convention in New York, but he spent most of his time in talks with the Nixon administration, particularly with Kissinger. With Meir’s permission, Dayan presented his personal ideas on the separation of forces. Without committing the prime minister, he put out feelers aimed at the Egyptians and at his home audience to convince Israelis of the plan’s viability. Kissinger was not enthusiastic but requested another meeting. Over the following days, while bargaining with the Egyptians, he adopted Dayan’s proposal of a separation of forces, even relying on maps Dayan had supplied at their first meeting.
On December 21, 1973, an international conference convened in Geneva under U.S. and Soviet auspices. Dayan did not attend. As per protocol, the foreign minister, Abba Eban, headed the Israeli delegation. The gathering presented additional opportunities for both sides to deliver impassioned declarations, but the practical documents and maps in Kissinger’s briefcase affirmed Dayan’s pivotal role once again.
On December 31, Israel held the elections that had been postponed by war. Although Golda Meir’s Labor Party lost five seats, it still emerged as the largest electoral party, and President Ephraim Katzir granted Meir the mandate to form a coalition government. That same day Meir sent Dayan off for talks with Kissinger, clearly intending to reappoint him minister of defense. On January 4, Dayan formally presented his Egypt plan as government approved to Kissinger in Washington, and this time the secretary of state listened attentively.
Large, uncompromising areas of disagreement continued to divide Egypt and Israel, however, and in January 1974 Kissinger began to shuttle back and forth between Jerusalem and Cairo. Dayan seemed to be his old self again, persuading his colleagues and, if necessary, circumventing them and cutting corners. Sometimes he would yield on minor matters in order to gain essential points. During an informal visit of the U.S. delegation to his home, he spread a map on his bed, took a pencil, and without consulting his colleagues redrew the redeployment lines. No one questioned his authority.3
On January 18, 1974, the separation of forces agreement was finalized and signed by IDF Chief of General Staff Elazar and Egypt’s CGS Mohamed Abdel Ghani El-Gamasy, as befit a military agreement. It stated that “in Egyptian and Israeli eyes it would not be a peace treaty. It was only a first step towards a full, just and lasting peace.”4 Five years would pass before this hope would be realized, and Dayan would no longer be a representative of the Labor Party but a minister in the right-of-center Likud government, no longer minister of defense but foreign minister; and it would come only after much frustration, tribulation, and travail.
In the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli public focused on trying to understand how Israel had been taken by surprise at the outbreak of the war and why the military had performed so poorly in the first few days. Barbs were hurled in various directions, but most were aimed at Dayan. In the public’s eyes, the glorified hero in all of Israel’s previous wars, the ultimate military icon who in the preceding eight years had enjoyed worldwide acclaim, had failed. He was widely seen as a fallen god and given most of the blame.
The first volley came on October 24 from within the prime minister’s cabinet. Yaakov-Shimshon Shapira, the opinionated minister of justice, demanded that Meir dismiss Dayan. But Meir once more assured Dayan that he had her full trust and she wanted him to continue as minister of defense. She did, however, bow to the growing public pressure and established a commission of inquiry headed by Supreme Court Justice Shimon Agranat. The commission, a prestigious and impeccable group, comprised two former IDF chiefs of staff, Yigael Yadin and Chaim Laskov, another judge, and the state comptroller.
The commission’s mandate was limited to the period before the war through its first three days, which worked against IDF officers, particularly CGS Elazar, whose early mistakes would be scrutinized while his excellent subsequent management of the war would be excluded. The commission also reviewed Dayan’s performance and that of other ministers, but regarded its authority as confined to examining “the practical responsibility for commission or omission of deeds in which one was personally involved.”5 Commission members considered it beyond their scope to express an opinion on ministerial responsibility, agreeing that the decision of whether a minister should resign was a political rather than a legal issue. It was this same issue, however, that served as the impetus for the protest movement demanding Dayan’s dismissal, regardless of the extent of his personal involvement.
In November 1973, some 150 Israeli prisoners returned from Egyptian captivity and started talking about their experiences and their commanders’ shortcomings in the first days of the war. The families of the more than twenty-five hundred IDF soldiers killed and seven thousand wounded needed little to spark their pain and bitterness into protests. When Meir formed her new government with Dayan still in place as defense minister, public rage reignited. Freshly discharged military reservists organized protest groups.
On February 3, 1974, Motti Ashkenazi, a young officer, sat down opposite the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem holding several signs. One read, “I demand ministerial accountability!” and another, more bluntly, “Dayan—resign!” Ashkenazi’s most personal sign stated, “From Budapest—in protest!”6 The meaning of that sign became clear only days later when it was discovered that Ashkenazi had been a company captain of a reserve brigade on the Bar-Lev Line before the war. He had commanded a solitary post, code-named “Budapest,” which was attacked and surrounded at the war’s outbreak. Although he was wounded, his post held out. Ashkenazi harbored deep misgivings about the conduct of the war and decided to focus his protest against Dayan.
As February wore on, Ashkenazi’s demonstrations gained more supporters. The press reported daily on the swelling numbers, and Ashkenazi became the icon of the protest movement. Dayan agreed to meet with him and later described their conversation as “virtually a monologue” as Ashkenazi condemned a host of figures for a host of reasons. Most vociferously, he reiterated his demand that Dayan immediately resign. Questioning Ashkenazi’s rationale for the demand, Dayan received an impassioned response. “When my soldiers sat crouched in the bunkers of the Budapest post and asked why we were not being rescued, I said to them: ‘Count on Moshe Dayan. He won’t abandon us,’” Ashkenazi told him. “‘You were god to us, Dayan. Now you are not responsible for the political situation that led Egypt to war, you are not responsible for the IDF’s unpreparedness and inferior equipment, you are not responsible for the Intelligence blunder, you are not responsible for the strategic planning of the counteroffensive. In short, you are not responsible for anything. God has abandoned responsibility.’”7
On March 23, various groups organized a mass rally attended by twenty-five thousand people—a considerable turnout for Israel in the 1970s. Dayan was not apathetic. Following a cabinet meeting one day, as he passed the demonstrators a young woman cried out, “Murderer!” “I felt as though I had been stabbed in the heart,” he later recounted. Dayan found significance in the composition of the protesters: mainly young soldiers and bereaved parents. This dynamic gave the movement an uncommon public and emotional weight. “One could not remain indifferent,” he wrote. “In any case, I was certainly affected.”8
On April 1, the Agranat Commission published a preliminary report that identified guilty parties and recommended measures against them. General Eliahu Ze’ira, head of the Intelligence Branch, and another three senior Intelligence officers were ousted. O.C. Southern Command Shmuel Gonen was suspended pending the commission’s completion of its work. CGS Elazar received the harshest blow. The commission found him personally responsible for events on the eve of the war and recommended that he resign from the military.9
The commission did refer to the defense minister but limited its criticism to “personal responsibility”—matters in which Dayan was personally involved. The group decided not to deal with the matter of “ministerial responsibility.” “According to the criteria of reasonable conduct required from the incumbent of the office of Defense Minister, the minister was not obliged to order additional or other means of caution than those recommended to him by the IDF’s GHQ,” the commission concluded.10
The report’s publication intensified the cries for Dayan’s removal. Many saw Elazar’s dismissal as unjust and Dayan’s exoneration as chicanery that discredited the public standing of the commission. Israelis were not interested in details but in the issue the commission had not explored—ministerial accountability. The public sensed that the commission lacked backbone.
Meir’s own Labor Party ratcheted up pressure on the prime minister to dismiss Dayan, claiming that his presence threatened party integrity. She did not feel capable of continuing in her current role and informed the party leadership on April 10 that she was unable to bear the responsibility of the premiership. “Five years are enough,” Meir said; “the burden is too heavy.”11 Under Israeli law, when a prime minister resigns, the cabinet must also resign but remain as a caretaker government until a new coalition is established. It took Yitzhak Rabin, the new candidate for prime minister, nearly two months to form a coalition. On June 4, Meir and Dayan went home.
In the month before leaving the Defense Ministry, Dayan faced one last frustrating and tragic experience. Palestinian terror organizations had stepped up their violence, adopting a new tactic of taking schools hostage, hoping to free their comrades imprisoned in Israeli jails. On May 15, a group from Lebanon attacked a school across Israel’s northern border in the small town of Ma’alot-Tarshiha. They held some hundred pupils and teachers hostage and demanded the release of twenty of their own jailed members. Against Dayan’s better judgment, the government decided to meet their demands. But there were delays caused by disagreement over the exchange arrangements. The terrorists had issued an ultimatum for 6 P.M., threatening to blow up the building with the hostages inside, and time was running out. CGS Motta Gur ordered the IDF soldiers surrounding the building to break in. Though three terrorists were killed, the operation did not go well: twenty-one students died and sixty-eight were wounded.
Only weeks away from leaving office, Dayan was unable to influence events. The new CGS headed the rescue attempts and was unreceptive to Dayan’s suggestions. Dayan was at the scene but could do nothing. When he approached the building, he could make out the faces of the children and terrorists through the window. “I crawled to a house, a few dozen meters from the school building,” he recalled. “The frightened children peered out of every window in hope: now, now, the soldiers will break through and save us. The terrorists, young and mustached, paced back and forth, their machine guns in hand and ready, if attacked, to shoot the children dead.”
Several times, terrorists spotted Dayan in his position. One even aimed his gun at the minister of defense, but a girl positioned behind the terrorist motioned to Dayan to withdraw. He did so but not before seeing how sad and tired her eyes were, “like children look before they fall asleep.” He was consumed with frustration—and exhausted. He was no longer the omnipotent Israeli hero. The sight that greeted him inside the school when he entered behind the soldiers did not make things any easier. He recognized the girl who had motioned to him, wounded. She opened her eyes momentarily, recognized him and burst into tears. “It was terrible. Terrible.”12
On June 4, Rabin’s new government was sworn in. Dayan described his first day out of office: “After seven years in the Defense Ministry I was an ordinary citizen again. The phone didn’t ring at night and I didn’t rush off to the office in the morning.”13 Instead, he sought archaeological recreation at the upright walls of the Beersheba riverbed, a destination familiar to him from previous visits. That winter’s abundant rainfall promised new finds, and at a bend in the wadi he spotted a cave opening. He tied a rope to the fender of his car, lowered himself to the cave, and crawled inside, where he discovered traces of cave dwellers dating back six thousand years.
“In this cave, a family lived two thousand years before our Patriarch, Abraham,” he later wrote. “They couldn’t read or write. Sometimes, they drew on rocks. They decorated their pottery with red lines—dark, warm red. This was their home, here they lived, wandering back and forth through the Negev and Sinai. Knowing every wadi, every hill. This was their country, their homeland. They must have loved it. When attacked, they fought for it and for their lives. Now I’ve crawled into their home. I’m sitting near the hearth. The fire is out now, but I don’t need to close my eyes to revive it. To see the hissing embers and the woman stooped over them, setting a pot on the fire for her family. My family.”14 He was speaking about a family that had lived in the country thousands of years before him. Even Abraham was no longer important, just the hills and valleys of this land for which he, too, was prepared to give his life.
Dayan served as a member of the Knesset for the next three years, but he devoted little time to the position. He seemed to have reached the end of his political career and settled in to writing his memoirs. He recruited Neora Matalon and Re’aya Aloni, his former secretary at the Defense Ministry, to help him produce his autobiography, Milestones, an undertaking that took about a year and a half to complete. Matalon collated the plentiful material from the IDF Archive, the safety-deposit box he had kept with Ben-Gurion’s approval at the Bank of Israel, and a concealed drawer at home. According to Matalon, Dayan made sure to write about two episodes personally: his share in the victory of the Six Day War and his role in the failure of the Yom Kippur War. The other chapters he merely edited, adding reflections and occasionally semi-lyrical passages.
He met with Matalon and Aloni every day to review their drafts and discuss ongoing work. “The Moshe who now sat opposite us was a sad man,” Matalon wrote of these editorial meetings. “His physical presence had shrunk compared with the figure I remembered as CGS or Minister of Agriculture.” When the work was complete, and Dayan placed the final pages before his former assistants, there was a sense of relief but also of regret. “This billy-goat will yield no more milk,” he told them.15
But he was wrong. After a short break, he started writing Living with the Bible, this time without editorial assistance. For this book, he required no archives or sources, merely the antiquities he had amassed, his personal memories, and, of course, the Bible. The book is a rove among biblical episodes, Land of Israel scenery, and personal memory. In rich, simple, modern Hebrew he reintroduces the reader to the biblical heroes, patriarchs, judges, and kings of the Jewish people. Emerging from the prose is his lifelong interpretation of the concept of “homeland.” To him, the Land of Israel remained the land of the Bible from the mountains of Gilead and Moab to the Great Sea. His perception of the homeland was never marred by the presence of other peoples and religions in this space. It included Arab peasants and Bedouin nomads, who were also part of his home. The book’s closing words expose the depths of his life’s experience. He writes of how, as minister of defense, he roamed the territory with officers, discussing military and political matters. In the evening, however, when he flew home by helicopter, all rational considerations melted away. “Below, one land was visible. With no division between Jews and Arabs, one land strewn with towns and villages, fields and gardens. A land bordered in the east by the Jordan River, in the west by the Great Sea. In the North, it was crowned by the snow-capped Mount Hermon; in the South the arid desert closed in on it. The Land of Israel.”16
“He was at peace with himself, attaining a measure of serenity previously missing,” Rachel Dayan said, describing the period from 1974 to 1977 when writing books consumed much of her husband’s energy. “He spent a lot of time at home and apart from writing, worked on his archaeology collection. He sat in the garden for hours, gluing shards together.”
Once, when she suggested going out to a film, he refused. She knew that when he was married to Ruth, they had gone to films on Saturday nights with neighbors. Rachel asked him why he would not go. “Now I have no reason to go out,” he replied. “I find it pleasant here.”17
The three years of Dayan’s absence from the political summit were stormy, both politically and militarily. Yitzhak Rabin, the IDF chief of staff during the Six Day War, was now prime minister; Yigal Allon was foreign minister and deputy prime minister; and Shimon Peres was serving as minister of defense. After another round of shuttling between Cairo and Jerusalem, Henry Kissinger was able to broker another interim Israeli-Egyptian agreement in September 1975: the IDF withdrew farther and were now east of the mountain passes. Egypt’s rehabilitation of the canal towns and the reopening of the Suez Canal to international and Israeli navigation reinforced, as Dayan had expected, the sense that Egypt preferred calm to war.
The struggle against Palestinian terrorism continued apace and found one of its most dramatic victories in the astonishing rescue at Entebbe airport in Uganda of more than a hundred Israeli passengers and crew members aboard an Air France plane hijacked by German and Palestinian terrorists. In 1974, a movement of young religious Jews arose in Israel that urged settlement of the occupied territories. Gush Emunim (The Bloc of the Faithful) began building settlements in Arab areas without official permission. At the end of 1976, a government crisis erupted after a ceremony welcoming the arrival of new fighter planes from the United States was held on the Sabbath. The religious party, a member of the government coalition, cast a vote of No Confidence in the coalition, leading to Rabin’s resignation. Elections were set for May 17, 1977.
Dayan played no part in any of these events. Peres visited him and occasionally sent Naphtali Lavie, the Ministry of Defense spokesman, to update him on developments.18 Peres also ensured that Dayan would again hold a respectable position on the party candidate list for the upcoming elections. Ultimately, however, Dayan remained estranged and alienated. Israeli politics galloped ahead without him.