First in War, First in Peace

By Marguerite Johnson

Moshe Dayan: 1915-1981

"My policies often change, sometimes radically. But so do circumstances. I like to think of myself as one of those people who adapt themselves to changing circumstances, who react to the changes, and who sometimes help to create them."

--Moshe Dayan

For millions of people around the world, he was, quite simply, the living symbol of Israel. With his distinctive black eye patch and round boyish face, he was instantly recognizable in any country, in any kind of uniform, even in disguise, which he donned from time to time in the service of his nation's diplomacy. Soldier, statesman and swashbuckling hero of Israel's wars with its Arab neighbors, Moshe Dayan occupied center stage in Israel for more than 30 years. By the time he died last week of a heart attack at 66, Dayan had largely outgrown his image as a warrior and become an impassioned advocate of peace.

Dayan was full of admitted contradictions, a political maverick, immensely charming but fiercely independent and often gloomily distant. His first wife Ruth once remarked that "it's very difficult to be his wife, but it's wonderful to be on the sidelines watching him. He doesn't ^ like anything that's conventional, and he must do everything to perfection." Fearless to the point of folly on the battlefield, he initiated the tradition of Israeli officers personally leading their troops into battle. His extraordinary courage and enormous stature inevitably made him a lightning rod for Israel's triumphs and tragedies. No Israeli political figure soared to such heights of public esteem as did Dayan in the wake of Israel's blitzkrieg victory in the 1967 Six-Day War--or to such depths of public scorn, as he did after the nearly catastrophic October War of 1973.

Unlike most other Israeli leaders of his time, Dayan had his roots in the region: he was born, the first child in the first Jewish kibbutz in Palestine, to Russian immigrant parents in 1915. He developed a deep and lasting love for the land, its history, artifacts and villages, which he wrote about in a 1978 book, Living with the Bible. Because of his Arabist interests, he was sometimes disparaged by his colleagues as "that Arab." But to Dayan's credit, he came to appreciate the concerns of his adversaries more than most Israel officials. His conviction that Jew and Arab must learn to live together and his personal involvement in the post-1967 military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip gave him a sympathetic ear for Palestinian claims. As Henry Kissinger observed last week, "I always thought he would be the one who would make peace, because he was the one who understood the Arabs."

Dayan embarked on his meteoric career in the military during World War II, when he served with British forces. After Israel gained independence in 1948, he became a protege of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. By 1953, Dayan had risen to chief of staff and soon transformed the ragtag Israeli defense force into one of the most aggressive armies in the world. He gave priority to the development of Israel's air force, and his recognition of the effectiveness of fast-moving armor led to the Israelis' rapid advances in the 1956 Sinai campaign. Dayan was justifiably hailed for his brilliant planning.

Of all his triumphs, none equaled the deceptively easy seizure of huge chunks of

Arab territory in the six days of 1967. Over the next few years, Israeli hubris encouraged the notion that the country was invincible. Dayan as Defense Minister repeatedly boasted that the Arabs would never attack, and Israelis believed him. When Egypt did attack on Oct. 6,1973, Israel was caught totally by surprise, suffering heavy casualties in the early days of the war. Although Israel emerged creditably from its initial debacle, Dayan was not merely blamed but pilloried for the country's lack of preparedness. A commission investigating the causes of the war later exonerated him, but the perception persisted that he had let the country down.

Dayan resigned in 1974 to write his memoirs and pursue his lifelong passion for archaeology and collecting antiquities. But in 1977, Prime Minister Menachem Begin asked Dayan to join the newly elected Likud coalition as Foreign Minister. Colleagues in Dayan's Labor Party were derisive, but Dayan accepted. The post enabled him to become one of the chief Israeli architects of the Camp David accords, though he became angered by Begin's plan to assert Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and resigned in 1979.

Determined to have another go at influencing the peace process, Dayan this year formed a new party, Telem, which advocated unilateral Israeli military disengagement from the occupied territories. Dayan hoped to capture enough seats in last June's parliamentary elections to give him an effective voice in the negotiations. It was not to be; the party won only two seats.

If Dayan's eye patch was a badge of bravery (he lost the eye in a 1941 Allied reconnaissance mission in Syria), it was also a constant reminder of private pain. For years he suffered from severe headaches as a result of the injury. Two years ago he was operated on for cancer of the colon. Yet until his death he remained alert, enthusiastic, a familiar if lonely figure in the halls of the Knesset.

"Dayan was a great realist but also a man who had a poetic soul," said Labor Party Leader Shimon Peres, a longtime political colleague. "He had a vision that saw things nobody else saw, and he enchanted other people in a way nobody could quite understand." Said Prime Minister Begin: "He was one of our greatest fighters of the ages." He was also that rarest of heroes, a soldier who could wage peace as fiercely as he waged war.

--By Marguerite Johnson.

Reported by David Aikman/ Jerusalem

With reporting by DAVID AIKMAN

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