OK, the war was over,
there was no pressure on Israel to immediately
evacuate the territories
and slowly it became an 'enlightened occupation',
as they called it. In other words,
we did not bother the Palestinians.
Dayan was a strange man.
He was not a wise person
who had a good broad perspective of the situation,
but he was clever.
He was quite clever in the short-term.
I always thought it was a characteristic of the Sabra people in general;
they are smart in small things
but lacked vision and imagination regarding the big problems.
Dayan invented something that did not exist in history:
open bridges.
We signed on armistice agreements,
one after the other with all the countries that we had been at war with,
but not peace, only a truce.
And there was a regime of official occupation
of the West Bank.
The first governor was Chaim Herzog,
The father of [Isaac Herzog], who was a really, really smart person.
The genius was the uncle,
the brother of Chaim Herzog.
The brother of Chaim Herzog was Yaakov Herzog,
who was a really, really smart person.
He was Director-General of the Prime Minister's office.
Let's go back. Chaim Herzog was the governor,
he was located at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem.
There was no relationship,
the armistice came after the war,
the war, after the war and before peace; it was a kind of short intermediate stage.
But in a situation of truce
the hostility remains.
And here Moshe Dayan devised a new idea:
an open bridge,
free movement between the West Bank to the country of the enemy, Jordan.
Only a person who had never in his life read a book about history
could come up with such an idea.
He had Sabra-like thinking which was terribly simple:
we conquered, we are holding areas for the time being,
let's not bother the population;
htey can do whatever they want.
Listening to the enemy radio is also something unthinkable.
For example, during the war, the Germans executed
anyone who listened to BBC radio.
'To trade, bring goods from abroad, to sell abroad, to listen to any radio they want.
What we need, for security reasons we have,
all the rest, let them do whatever they want'.
Then the [Allenby] bridge was opened.
and it reduced the pressure.
It was one of the smartest things that Israel ever did,
but with very poor results,
because it allowed the occupation to live forever!