- They say the eyepatch doesn't make the man,
but in the case of Moshe Dayan,
it definitely doesn't hurt.
Dayan,
the widely-loved Israeli military hero and politician,
was the original Sabra bad boy.
His lawlessness was both legendary and scandalous,
ranging from numerous romantic affairs
to illegal excavating and looting of ancient artifacts.
But he's best known for his military leadership,
specially during the Six-Day War of 1967
when Israel was fighting for its very existence
against four of its Arab neighbors.
So, who was Moshe Dayan?
What role did he play in this famous war?
And what legacy did he leave?
(upbeat music)
Where did Moshe Dayan,
this character straight out of a Clint Eastwood movie,
come from?
Dayan was born in 1915
in Kibbutz Degania in northern Israel.
He grew up in a strong Zionist environment
and at the first opportunity, when he was just 14,
he joined the Haganah,
an underground illegal Jewish defense force,
helping with surveillance missions and arms smuggling.
This was late in the 1920s
when Palestine was under the British mandate.
Jews had to protect themselves from Arab attacks
and the British apathetic attitude towards these attacks.
A few years later, in the midst of World War II,
the Israelis and the British put their differences aside
and the Haganah joined the ranks of the British Army
in the fight against the Nazis.
In 1941, Dayan's unit crossed into French-occcupied Syria
to pursue Nazi-allied French soldiers.
Dayan climbed onto a roof and pressed binoculars to his eyes
to survey enemy positions
when suddenly a sniper's bullet shattered the lens,
shooting fragments of glass and metal into Dayan's left eye.
From then on, Dayan sported the swashbuckling black eyepatch
that would soon become his trademark.
It took a few years
for Dayan to get used to life with one eye.
He later wrote
that his disability caused him serious psychological pain,
and at first he hated the attention
the eyepatch brought him.
Despite his pain,
he quickly climbed the ranks of the Haganah,
serving as a commander in the Israeli War of Independence
in 1948.
Soon after, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion
appointed Dayan as Military Commander
of the Jewish-controlled areas of Jerusalem.
In 1949, Dayan negotiated a truce between Jordan and Israel.
And in 1953, he was promoted to IDF Chief of Staff.
Despite its victory in the war,
the new country was small and fledgling,
and one of Dayan's early challenges
was to figure out what to do about the fedayeen,
terrorists who crossed over from Jordan and Egypt
to attack Israeli citizens.
His solution brought him fame and acclaim at home.
Unit 101, the first Israeli special ops team,
specialized in nighttime cross-border retaliation raids
aimed to discouraging future attacks.
As Dayan put it, he was trying to end the attacks
by putting a high price on Jewish blood,
a price so high that it would no longer be worthwhile
for the Arabs, the Arab armies, or the Arab states
to pay it.
Amidst controversy surrounding some of its operations,
Unit 101 eventually disbanded.
Still, though, its successes in curbing the terrorism
boosted Dayan's popularity among Israelis.
But what really cemented his reputation
was the 1956 Sinai War
in which he led the IDF to victory.
After the Sinai War,
Dayan retired from the IDF and entered politics.
He was elected to the Israeli Parliament as part of Mapai,
Israel's center-left party
then led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
The dashing war hero struck a chord with Israelis,
and it didn't hurt that he developed a reputation
as a lawless renegade.
Future Prime Minister Shimon Peres
recounted that once he was in the passenger seat
when Dayan was pulled over
for driving more than a 100 miles per hour.
Dayan told the police officer that he only had one eye,
so he could either keep it on the road or on the speedometer
and asked the officer which he'd prefer.
Dayan also had a second career
as an ancient artifact poacher.
He became enamored with archeology early on,
moved by an almost mystic view of his prized relics
and their connection to Israel's ancient past.
Over the years he built up a vast collection
that included sarcophagi, urns, and plaques
that he had pillaged from ancient burial sites.
So, yeah, this one-eyed fighter was literally a pirate.
His digs were illegal and publicly condemned,
but Dayan couldn't care less.
Perhaps his you do you, I'll do me approach
further strengthen his bond with the Israeli public.
No public prosecutor dared to file charges
against the iconic Israeli hero.
And, for what it was worth,
Dayan showed unusual skill in finding artifacts of value.
As a noted Israeli archeologist remarked,
"Mr. Dayan, with his one eye,
"could see more than 10 professional archeologists."
Now, if you asked most people
to name the most famous war in Israel's history,
they often answer without hesitating.
The Six-Day War.
And if you ask them who led Israel to victory,
more often than not they answer Moshe Dayan.
But if you ask them who the prime minister was,
the man leading the country in this time of war,
they come up blank.
Well, in 1967,
as tensions between Egypt and Israel were escalating,
the war was imminent.
The Israeli public needed someone to boost their confidence
and soothe their fears.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, while a great leader,
was not the man for that job.
A week before the outbreak of war,
Eshkol delivered an underwhelming radio address
that made him come across as nervous and hesitant.
The media dubbed his address "The Stammering Speech",
though his faltering performance
was mainly due to last-minute edits to his script
which he hadn't been informed of ahead of time.
Now, Israel already had Dayan fever.
There were rallies where supporters held signs saying
"We want Dayan."
He even had a female fan club
known as The Merry Wives of Windsor,
a reference to a Shakespearean comedy
that nodded at Dayan's own womanizing.
As a member of Knesset put it at the time,
"Dayan is a commander, statesman, the victor of Sinai.
"That is the most important thing at this moment."
Prime Minister Eshkol was a true leader,
one who put his country's wellbeing first.
He realized that public morale needed a big boost
and he knew who could deliver it.
To his credit, Eshkol formed a unity government
and brought Dayan into his cabinet as Defense Minister.
He did so just in time,
a few days before the Six-Day War broke out.
Dayan had his work cut out for him.
Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser
was very vocal about destroying Israel,
and the odds were stacked against the Jewish state.
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan
had more than double the tanks and aircraft than Israel had.
Ben-Gurion, now retired,
reportedly sent a message to the cabinet
saying that Israel couldn't go to war
without a foreign ally,
to which an exasperated Dayan said,
"Then let Ben-Gurion go find us an ally.
"I'm not sure we'll still be alive."
Israel was in panic mode.
Schools shut down, public transportation was halted,
and mass graves were dug in anticipation of the war.
Dayan worked with Yitzhak Rabin, then IDF Chief of Staff,
on a strategy.
Egypt and its allies were expected to attack at any moment.
The Israeli plan was to beat them to it
by carrying out a series of perfectly-timed
secret preemptive strikes.
In the early morning of June 5th,
200 IDF fighter planes took off,
flying only 60 feet above the sea to avoid radar detection,
in complete radio silence,
heading towards Egypt's air bases.
In just 30 minutes, Israel destroyed 204 Egyptian planes
and in another two waves they destroyed 134 more,
virtually wiping out Egypt's air force.
Israeli tanks, which were outnumbered by the Egyptian tanks,
then swept through the Sinai Desert,
defeating Egypt's armored divisions in a few days.
When the dust of war settled less than a week later,
the IDF had tripled Israel's size.
It had seized control of the entire Sinai Peninsula
and the Gaza Strip from Egypt,
the Golan Heights from Syria,
and the West Bank,
including East Jerusalem and the Old City from Jordan.
You've probably seen iconic pictures
from the conquest of the Old City,
but how did it go down?
For the previous 19 years, Jerusalem had been divided.
In 1948, Jordan had occupied the eastern part of the city,
which included the Old City and the Temple Mount.
Per Jordanian rule,
Jews were evicted from the Jewish Quarter,
synagogues were destroyed,
and the ancient cemetery in the Mount of Olives
was vandalized.
Now, capturing the Old City had never been part of the plan.
In fact, Israel had even sent a message to King Hussein
that if Jordan refrained from attacking,
Israel would do the same.
But Jordan had attacked.
And as IDF soldiers battled Jordanian soldiers in Jerusalem,
they found themselves closer and closer to the Old City.
And Moshe Dayan decided to seize this historic opportunity.
Early in the morning of June 7th,
Dayan commanded Israeli paratroopers
to advance on the Old City.
The battle was over by mid morning
when the announcement was made on the radio,
(presenter speaks in foreign language)
"The Temple Mount is in our hands."
For the first time in nearly two decades,
Jews could pray at the Western Wall.
And for the first time in 2,000 years,
Jerusalem was back in sovereign Jewish hands.
Dayan was one of the first Israelis
to set foot on the reclaimed site that day.
And image-conscious and media-savvy as ever,
he made sure to have his photograph taken over and over.
He posed walking down the street,
standing in front of the Western Wall,
rubbing shoulders with soldiers,
and so on.
Dayan went viral
when the photos of him, Rabin, and General Uzi Narkiss
strutting down the Old City streets
quickly spread.
The site had been deemed too dangerous
for Prime Minister Eshkol to visit at first
and he arrived later in the evening.
Eshkol, delighted with the outcome of the war,
was less enthusiastic
about the general acclaims surrounding Dayan.
His Military Secretary was furious too,
claiming that Dayan stole all the glory.
Sure, there are some photos of Eshkol
talking to soldiers in the field in the South and the North,
but what's that compared to Jerusalem?
Dayan rose to iconic status in Israel and abroad
in the months and years that followed the Six-Day War.
He epitomized the image of military heroism for Israel.
Today, despite his later failures in the Yom Kippur War,
Dayan is still best known for the role he played
in bringing Jerusalem back to the Jewish people.
When we think about the Six-Day War,
leaders like Prime Minister Eshkol,
the man making the ultimate decisions,
seemed to remain peripheral.
Even Yitzhak Rabin, the IDF Chief of Staff at the time,
doesn't always share the spotlight.
It's the image of Dayan that is seared into our memories,
and that says a lot about how we think of heroism.
Thanks for watching.
See you guys next week.
(upbeat music)