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CHAPTER 5:
A Very Sharp Eye: Moshe Dayan’s Counterinsurgency
Legacy in Israel
EITAN SHAMIR
ABSTRACT
The paper’s objective is to uncover the thoughts and practices of one of Israel’s most influential
and original soldiers towards counterinsurgency (COIN). Much focus has been directed towards
Moshe Dayan’s role as a leader who shaped the IDF fighting culture and of his central role first
as Chief of Staff in the 1956 campaign and later as Defense Minister during both the 1967 and
1973 Arab –Israeli wars. His activity in regard to these wars belonged to the type of large
conventional wars. However, before, between and during these large conventional wars, the IDF
was engaged with what it called “current security operations”, small military operations against
different types of Arab insurgency and terror.
Through the study of Dayan thoughts and actions towards these types of threats the paper argues
that Dayan represents a different type of a ‘soldier scholar’, one that does not adhere to the
classic representation of a ‘soldier scholar’ in the west, possibly best represented today by the
image of General Petraeus. Dayan's unique patterns of learning and applying in this context are
therefore exposed and analyzed.
The paper follows four periods of learning and acting in Dayan's and shows how Dayan’s
approach has evolved as a response to his experiences and his continuous interpretation of
events. The paper makes the case that Dayan’s policy in the Palestinian territories was
immensely influenced by his personal learning’s in Vietnam.
Introduction
Moshe Dayan’s is considered Israel’s greatest general and by many as one of the best generals
and military minds the world saw in the second half of the 20th century.1 The following paper
explores a somewhat neglected aspect of his famous military career; his ideas and practices
towards counterinsurgency (COIN) campaigns. Indeed much attention has been given to Moshe
Dayan’s role in shaping the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) culture and of course to his central role
first as Chief of Staff in the 1956 campaign and later as Defense Minister during both the 1967
1
Julian Thompson, ‘Foreword’, in: Martin van Creveld, Moshe Dayan, (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004), 11,
14, Richard Simpkin, Race to the swift: Thoughts on Twenty-First Century Warfare (London: Brassey's, 1985),305.
1
and 1973 wars. These were the large conventional clashes the IDF was involved in as part of the
Arab – Israeli war. However, before, between and during these large conventional engagements
the IDF was busy with what it called ‘Current Security Operations’, small military operations
against Arab insurgency.2
One could argue that Moshe Dayan does not truly adhere to the classic definition of a
‘warrior-scholar’, a type of soldier who is often described as one that combines periods of
action followed by a reflection and learning periods. The warrior-scholar is characterized in their
constant attempt to make sense and theorize their personal experience and the experiences of
others and then returns to field with the intent of applying their theory and conceptual
approach to a real case. Probably the best contemporary representation of this model, as Paula
Broadwell analyses in this volume, is US Army General David Petreaus. However this archetype
is less common in IDF history. The model itself stands as a contradiction to the IDF culture and
ethos who’s chief architect was no other than Moshe Dayan himself. The IDF way of learning
mirrors – for better and worse - Dayan’s own image.3
Moshe Dayan was a self-learner and an autodidact. Like most of the Israeli leadership he felt
that his military occupation was born out of necessity and not by choice. As such his attitude
towards the study of war did not stemmed out of professional interest or an intellectual desire
to understand war or aspects of war as an intellectual phenomena, rather it was always driven
by practical needs. It was more about finding solutions to the immediate and concrete issues he
and the nation faced rather than seeking to develop a general concept or theory of war.
Therefore his thought development coincides with the challenges he and the IDF faced.
However that said, Dayan had incredible intellectual abilities. He was curious about people and
places; was open to changing his mind; applied critical thinking; was imaginative; and took
nothing for granted. Most importantly, his views on major strategic issues constantly evolved.
These characteristics led him to Vietnam where he was employed as a journalist. This was his
opportunity to be an outside observer on a complex conflict he was not personally involved in
2
See: Sergio Catignani, Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army, (NY, New York:
Routledge, 2008), 4.
3
See, Eitan Shamir, Transforming Command: The Pursuit of Mission Command in the US, UK and Israelis Armies,
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 180-181.
2
and to develop his thoughts on this type of war, so different from the large conventional wars
he was so familiar with in the IDF. This learning experience came into effect in his thinking after
the Six Day War.
Dayan’s Formal Learning: A Reflective Practitioner
Like many career officers Dayan had formal learning periods, including military courses in the
IDF and Britain. Dayan also attended university as a civilian student. However, these
experiences did not prove to be formidable or defining in Dayan’s thought development.
Following the conclusion of Israel’s War of Independence, Dayan finally found the time to
complete his military education. He spent nine months attending military courses during 1950
and 1951. The first official command course above officers course that Dayan joined was the
six-month IDF Brigade Commander Course, which taught students universal and generic
solutions to tactical problems. Dayan rejected this approach; he sought a way to contextualize
the problems. ‘You can teach this in West Point but not in Israel,’ he said to his instructors in
reference to a defense plan presented by the instructors that left out many of Israel’s border
settlements.4 For his graduation ceremony he produced a caricature in which he compared the
instructors to wise owls and himself to a cunning fox. The poem that came with it suggested
that the owl is a master of formal military knowledge but is lacking the fox’s agility to adapt to
changing circumstances.5
Next Dayan attended a three-month senior commander’s course in Britain which he seemed to
value more, to the extent that he asked to be allowed to stay for another course, a request that
was denied. He learned about the conduct of armored formations, which was new to him. He
mostly appreciated the planning exercise in which he learned methodological thinking. The
course emphasized, wrote Dayan, ‘not the result but rather how to think and plan.’ It was about
asking the right questions and deriving at the basic assumptions that the instructors were
interested in, not providing a school solution’. 6
4
Shabtai Teveth, Moshe Dayan , (Tel Aviv: Shoken, 1972), 350, [Heb]
Ibid. 351-352.
6
Moshe Dayan: Story of my Life, (Tel Aviv: Edanim Publishers, 1976), 104, [Heb].
5
3
Dayan also attended the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1958 for two years and received a
BA in Political Science and Middle East history. Based on his own memoires and other
testimonies, historian Martin van Creveld summarized this period in Dayan’s life:
Dayan dismissed these two years by saying that “they were like a vacation and like
most vacations they did not leave a deep impression.” This contempt for academia
was a byproduct of the fighting spirit he himself had done so much to instill. In 1957
when Ben Gurion suggested that every officer should attend a university as a matter
of right, Dayan rejected the idea. It was a suggestion to be realized only in
1997…until then, the IDF continued to share his own belief that the best way to
study war was to prepare for it and fight it. He spent much of his time in the
university cafeteria …However one professor, the late David Flusser, considered him
the most intelligent of all officers he ever taught. During examination he cheated
like mad not at all abashed and not at all hindered by having just one eye…He didn’t,
however, bother to take his degree. 7
However, it would be wrong to think of Dayan as one who was opposed to learning and gaining
knowledge. It is clear Dayan resented learning in a bureaucratic setting; first and foremost he
saw himself as a practitioner. His trip to Vietnam to closely study the Vietnam War proves his
intellectual curiosity and preference for learning outside the classroom. According to Andrew
Mumford and Bruno Reis, warrior scholars can be grouped into two categories: those who ‘are
more”scholar” than “warrior’’’ and those who ‘are more “warrior” than “scholar.”’ The second
group consists primarily of practitioners who have a systematic analytical approach to warfare,
an interest in military history, and know where to find, develop, and apply the answers. 8 Dayan
certainly fits more with the latter category.
Moreover, Dayan’s mode of learning as a practitioner fits the definition of a ‘reflective
practitioner,’ a definition that was coined and developed by the organizational psychologist
7
8
Martin van Creveld , Moshe Dayan, (London: Weidenfeld and Nocoloson, 2004), 100-101.
See Chapter 1, Andrew Mumford and Bruno Reis, ‘Constructing and Deconstructing Warrior-Scholars’.
4
Donald Schon. In his book The Reflective Practitioner,, Schon explains that reflective practice is
‘the capacity to reflect on action so as to engage in a process of continuous learning’ and that it
involves ‘paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday
actions, by examining practice reflectively and reflexively. This leads to developmental insight.’
Important to this discussion, Schon notes that reflective practice ‘can be an important
tool…where individuals learning from their own professional experiences, rather than from
formal teaching or knowledge.’ According to Schon, the practitioner ‘reflects on the
phenomenon before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his
behavior. He carries out an experiment which serves to generate both a new understanding of
the phenomenon and a change in the situation. To do this we do not closely follow established
ideas and techniques - textbook schemes. We have to think things through, for every case is
unique. However, we can draw on what has gone before.’ This paper argues that Dayan’s mode
of learning adheres to this type of learning.9 Most of Dayan’s learning and new ideas were
developed by the cycle of his own actions and reactions, and formed by his never-ending
curiosity and creativity to learn from each situation and experience.
Dayan and the Contemporary Counter-Insurgency Debate
In western military intellectual circles the issue of coping with non-state rivals has been defined
around the concept of counter-insurgency (COIN). COIN theory suggests that the conventional
Clausewitzian Trinity (government, population and the military10) is fundamentally altered as
insurgents act to overthrow the government while relying on the population's support for cover
and legitimacy. Therefore the classic symmetry between government versus government and
military versus military is violated.11 In classical wars, winning a war is achieved by a sequential
process that includes forcing the rival's government to surrender after neutralizing its military.
The situation is less clear in COIN where there is a blurring of government, military and
population. The scholarly literature today offers two schools of thought regarding the best way
9
Donald. A. Schon, The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action, (US: Basic Books, 1983), 68.
Carl von Clausewitz: On War, Michael Howard & Peter Paret (trs), Beatrice Heuser (ed) (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 30f.
11
Martin van Creveld, The Transformation of War, (New York, NY: Free Press, 1991), 57-62.
10
5
to cope with insurgencies.12 The first could be characterized as enemy centric, this approach
suggests that COIN is not fundamentally different from conventional wars, thus the purpose
and main effort of the campaign should focus on neutralizing the military wing by directly
locating and engaging them. ‘A war is war is a war’ as one American officer once stated.13
The second approach is known as population centric. This approach focuses its main effort on
gaining the support of the population and by so doing depriving the insurgents of their main
livelihood. The debates over the best approach for the involvement of the US led coalition in
Iraq, and NATO in Afghanistan, were mostly carried out in the context of these two approaches.
Many opined that the US military focus was too much on killing the enemy rather than on
gaining the population support or winning ‘hearts and minds’14. In the process the civilians
suffered as a result of the fighting and therefore increased their support for the insurgents. One
such proponent was John Nagl who called for ‘nation building rather than the destruction of the
enemy army’.15 Nagl was one of the key authors of the joint US Army and Marines FM 3-24
COIN that advocated focusing on the population's needs while warning against
‘overemphasizing killing and capturing the enemy rather than securing and engaging the
populace’.16 The debates continue as some analysts remain convinced that the main effort
should be directed towards annihilating the insurgents. One such critic is the Australian Army
Brigadier General Justin Kelly who said provocatively ‘we should be doing more killings and
fewer good deeds’17
Moshe Dayan came upon COIN throughout his career. His approach towards COIN evolved and
changed over time between these two approaches according to the historical context but also,
as a result of a long personal process of lessons and reflection. As a young soldier he learned to
12
See: Colin Khal, ‘COIN of the Realm’, Foreign Affairs, , Vol.86, No.6, (Nov/Dec 2007), 472-474. John Nagl,
Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2002), 27-28. Mark Moyer, A Question of Command, COIN from Civil war to Iraq, (New Haven, US:
Yale UP, 2009), 2-4.
13
Harry G. Summers, ‘A War is War is a War’ in Loren B. Thompson ed., Low Intensity Conflict: The Pattern of
warfare in the Modern World (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989).
14
On the ‘hearts and minds’ see a critical discussion in: Robert Egnell, ‘Wining “Hearts and Minds”? A critical
Analysis of Counterinsurgency Operations in Afghanistan’, Civil Wars, Vol.13, No. 3 (September 2010), 282-303.
15
Nagl, 223.
16
Department of the Army, FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 Counterinsurgency, (Washington DC, 2006), 51.
17
Justin Kelly, ‘How to Win in Afghanistan: Time to move on from Hearts and Minds: Annihilation in COIN’,
Quadrant, Vol. LIII: 4, (April, 2009).
6
believe in the utility of employing hard measures directed against the population and
emphasized retaliation for the purpose of deterrence. Under the circumstances these measures
often achieved their objectives. Later on as a senior commander, he understood the limitations
of employing only kinetic force in such conflicts. Finally, as a defense minister, he opted for a
novel approach that aimed to develop the population and neutralized their anti Israeli
sentiment following the Israeli occupation.
Four Periods of Learning
Dayan’s learning path can be divided into four major periods. The first under the British
Mandate, between 1936-1948, included Dayan’s early experiences and education in combat
where he learned the tools of the trade under Charles Orde Wingate and Yitschak Sadeh.18
During that period he was either fighting Arab insurgencies or was an insurgent himself, fighting
alongside the Palmach against British rule in Palestine. In the second period, 1953-1958,
following the end of the Independence War and the establishment of the state of Israel, Dayan
found himself as the IDF Chief of Staff. His main challenge was Arab infiltrators across the
border from Egypt and Jordan. In response, Dayan developed the concept of the punitive raid as
the main instrument of policy. In the third period, Dayan came across COIN in a passive role. In
1966, a few years after he embarked in a political career, he took a career pause and decided to
go to Vietnam as an observer. The experience proved to be formative. His experiences from
that period served as a source of influence for the policy Dayan developed in the immediate
aftermath of the Six Day War (1967) in which under Dayan as the Defense Minister the IDF won
its greatest military victory over the combined armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria and in the
process occupied territories inhabited by more than one million Palestinians.19 In this new
reality, Dayan’s policy was very different from anything he had been associated with in the past.
18
Major General Orde Charles Wingate was a British Army officer and creator of special military units in
Palestine in the 1930s and in World War II. Yitzhak Sadeh, an ex Red Army officer who immigrated to Palestine was
the commander of the Palmach, one of the founders of the Israel Defense Forces at the time of the establishment
of the State of Israel. Both taught future IDF commanders the importance of initiative, offensiveness and guile.
19
Shlomo Gazit, The Stick and the Carrot, The Israeli Administration in Judea and Samaria, (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan,
1985), 341-342. [Heb]
7
It was a policy that promoted maximum economic and political freedom for the occupied
population, a policy that Dayan termed as an ‘open bridges policy’.
Dayan’s Apprenticeship
Moshe Dayan was born in 1915 Palestine, and grew up in Nahalal, a Jewish rural settlement in
the north of the country, surrounded by Arab villages and an Arab population. As a boy he used
to wander into these villages and meet the villagers and sometimes fight with the local boys.
During this time he learned to appreciate the Arab customs and traditions. He therefore did not
hate or fear the Arabs. This point is critical to understand his later thoughts and actions.20
Dayan’s first military involvement began during the Arab Revolt. The revolt broke out in April
1936, and included various forms of resistance to the British rule: strikes, riots in cities and
guerrilla warfare in the countryside.21 The British response was harsh and included measures
such as arrests, road-blocks, fences to protect installations, mounted patrols, ambushes as well
as the use of torture and the blowing up of suspect houses.22 However British reinforcements
sent to Palestine were not familiar enough with the language or culture. Therefore the Jewish
main military underground, the Haganah, 23 proposed its assistance in guides and translators in
the hope that this experience would provide training to its own men. It was under these
circumstances that Moshe Dayan – who knew some English and Arabic - found himself as a
guide for British units who patrolled the main oil pipeline running from Iraq to Haifa port. This
pipeline was a major target for Arab insurgents who learned the routines of British patrols and
knew how to evade them in order to sabotage the oil-pipes. From this experience Dayan
learned the limitations of a regular force:
The Arabs would have sabotaged the oil pipeline (transferring oil from Iraq to
Haifa) before or after the arrival of the patrol. During these eight months with
20
Ibid., 37.
Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, A History of the Zionist – Arab Conflict, 1881-2001, (Tel-Aviv: Am - Oved, 2004),
142-143.[Heb]
22
Ibid., 147-149.
23
Haganah (Hebrew: ‘The Defense’) was a Jewish paramilitary organization during the British Mandate of
Palestine from 1920 to 1948, politically associated with the Labor movement led by David Ben Gurion who later
became Israel’s first Prime Minister while the Haganah became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.
21
8
the British regiment I witnessed the helplessness of a regular army that operates
under strict routine against an insurgency that knew the territory, moved on foot
and was embedded in the local population where they could choose the time and
place for action. It was clear to me that the only way to combat these meant to
take the initiative. They must be attacked at their own bases of operation, and
ambushed as they move.24
The next year, 1937, he found himself as a squad commander as part of the Jewish defense
auxiliary force. In this period he was immensely influenced by Yitzhak Sadeh. Sadeh, a
decorated former Russian Army officer in the First World War and the Russian Civil war, was
known for his unorthodox thinking and solutions. Most of all he was famous for his ‘beyond the
fence’ doctrine that called for taking the fight into the enemy territory and advocated initiative
over passivity.25 In 1937 Dayan was sent to a sergeants’ course run by the British Army. There
he discovered the British emphasis on discipline including such minor matters as polishing one’s
shoes which he found not very useful for the kind of conflict he was preparing himself for.26
Next he participated in the Haganah platoon commanders’ course where his preference for
unconventional and risky methods constantly challenged the conventional wisdom of his
instructors.27 In the summer of 1938 Dayan met Captain Orde Wingate from the British Army, a
veteran of the Sudan insurgency and a passionate pro-Zionist who became known to the Jews
as ‘The Friend’. Wingate established the SNS (Special Night Squads), mobile units with the aim
of using unconventional guerrilla tactics against the Arab insurgents in the North. Wingate
chose Dayan as his guide. It was from Wingate that Dayan learned leading from the front and
personal example, selecting an ambush and owning the night. Wingate methods were harsh
and sometimes even cruel. On occasion he would interrogate insurgents by killing every tenth
man, in the brutal tradition of Roman decimation, and the rest would talk.28
However,
Wingate’s spirit and methods to a large degree fitted today’s description of Special Operations.
24
Moshe Dayan: Story of my Life, (Tel Aviv: Edanim Publishers, 1976), 36, [Heb].
Martin van Creveld , Moshe Dayan, (London: Weidenfeld and Nocoloson, 2004), 44.
26
Shabtai Teveth, Moshe Dayan , (Tel Aviv: Shoken, 1972),161,[Heb].
27
Ibid., 161.
28
Creveld , Dayan, 46
25
9
His influence on Dayan and the IDF could not be exaggerated. As Israel’s first Prime Minister
David Ben Gurion admitted: ‘Wingate’s methods were adopted into the IDF’.29
Following the end of Arab revolt, Dayan switched roles and operated as an insurgent, this time
against the British rulers of Palestine. His Haganah squad was caught whilst practicing with
illegal weapons and were jailed in prison where Dayan himself was interrogated and tortured.30
While in prison he emerged as a natural leader among his fellow prisoners. Meanwhile he
sought contact with his fellow Arab prisoners so he could better learn their ways. After his
release in 1942 he even attended the wedding of a sister of one of the Arabs who served time in
prison with him.31 Although sentenced to ten years, he and others were liberated much earlier
as World War II broke out. The British were setting up a Jewish guerrilla force to fight the Nazis
in case they would have to evacuate from Palestine – this force was the shock companies of
Palmach. Sadeh who was in charge appointed Dayan together with another promising
commander, Yigal Alon, as company commanders. Meanwhile the British used him again as a
guide for raiding French Lebanon - in one of these raids he lost his left eye and acquired his
famous eye patch that became his famous characteristic ever after.32 In the years between
World War II and before the Jewish War of Independence he was busy setting up intelligence
networks. Among his achievements was his ability to convince, bribe, or both, a few Druze and
Bedouin villages to stay outside the fight or even to support the Jewish cause. Soon afterwards
he was assigned as a commander of a battalion and trained it as a rapid raiding party according
to the guidelines he received from US Army World War II veteran, Jewish officer Abraham
Baum.33 In this capacity he led some daring operations that remain controversial to this day.34
Following the end of the War of Independence, Dayan attended a few commanders’ courses in
the IDF and in the British Army to complete his formal military training. These experiences
prepared him to face the next challenge first as the Commander of the South and Northern
Command and then as Chief of Staff.
29
Reuven Gal, A Portrait of The Israeli Soldier (New York, NY: Greenwood, 1986), 5.
Creveld, Dayan, 49.
31
Ibid., 50.
32
Teveth, 214-216.
33
Creveld, Dayan, 59-61
34
Morris, Righteous Victims, 229-230.
30
10
From his apprenticeship period Dayan had learned a few important lessons: the vital role of
initiative and aggressiveness, the centrality of human intelligence (HUMINT) and more
specifically understanding and knowing the local population. As a result of the latter, Dayan
developed a preference for what in today’s modern management terms we would describe as
‘management by walking around’, a leadership style that was in constant search for being as
close as possible to the reality of the field where you can look at people in the eye rather than
the comfortable but sterile environment of the office. Last but not least, from his experience
with Wingate during the Arab revolt Dayan believed that a good way to deal with insurgencies is
through deterrence – punishing and intimidating the population that harbors the insurgents.
The Retaliation Period, 1953-56
Moshe Dayan was the Chief of Staff between December 1953 and January 1958. Prior to this
appointment he served as the head of Southern command and the Chief of the General Staff. In
these roles he enjoyed the full backing of David Ben Gurion who felt admiration and fondness
for the man who truly epitomized the new Jewish ‘Sabre’ and not less important who’s political
affiliation did not pose a threat.35 One of the main challenges the IDF faced in the period
following the War of Independence was the question of securing the borders from infiltrators.
The period which followed the end of the 1948 war saw an attempt by Palestinians refugees to
return to their fields in order to harvest them, however, this innocent intention was
accompanied by infiltrators with other motives. Arab gangs came for revenge or simply for the
prospect of good plunder and looting which often also resulted in loss of life. Dayan regarded
the Arabs as ‘fifth columnists’ and supported hard line methods in arresting infiltrators: ‘…the
infiltrators are not naïve’, he claimed.36 The IDF of the 1950s did not posses the means to close
the border hermetically in a way that would provide security for the population and property.
Dayan’s early experience prepared him for an offensive campaign in order to meet this
challenge. He opted for commando operations, deep raids behind enemy lines using surprise
and guile. In effect he formulated the policy and security concept which lay behind the
35
Creveld, Dayan, 70.
Ze’ev Drory, Israel’s Reprisal Policy, 1953-1956, The Dynamic of Military Retaliation, (London: Frank Cass, 2005),
65.
36
11
retaliatory actions.37 ‘We must determine the rules of what is and is not allowed in our relations
with the Arab countries, and we must be careful not to be acquiescent and acceptant of strikes
against us, even if they are only of nuisance value’ he stated.38
Dayan recognized the Palestinian refugee problem and separated it from the political and
security issues between the fledgling Israeli state and it neighboring Arabs – Egypt, Jordan and
Syria. He saw the conflict with Syria as territorial but understood that the leaders of the Arab
state were exploiting the results of the War of Independence and the Palestinian problem to
continue to struggle and fight.39 Dayan held Arab governments responsible for seizing and
punishing infiltrators. Hence he saw the security task of the Israeli government as compelling
the Arab governments to enforce this responsibility, to fight against the gangs and extremist
nationalist and religious groups in their midst: ‘The motivation which will bring the Arab
governments and powers to do this, and the residents to understand this, must be tangible, real
and certain – retaliatory operations by the Israeli military and a fear of them’.40 In short, Dayan
did not believe in diplomatic means to calm the situation and therefore it was the IDFs job to
provide the solution. He articulated his view in one of his most famous speeches, which came to
be known as the ‘Roi Rotenberg speech’. Rotenberg was a young man who lived in a border
settlement next to Gaza and was brutally murdered by Arab infiltrators. In his funeral Dayan
delivered the following eulogy:
Yesterday at dawn Roy was murdered…. Let us not today cast blame on the
murderers. What can we say against their terrible hatred of us? For eight years
now, they have sat in the refugee camps of Gaza, and have watched how, before
their very eyes we have turned their land and villages, where they and their
forefathers previously dwelled, into our home. It is not among the Arabs of Gaza,
but in our own midst that we must seek Roy’s blood. How did we shut our eyes
and refuse to look squarely at our fate and see, in all its brutality, the fate of our
37
Ibid., 66.
Ibid.,65
39
Ibid.,65
40
Ibid.,65
38
12
generation? ….Beyond the furrow of the border surges a sea of hatred and
revenge; revenge that looks towards the day when the calm will blunt our
alertness, the day when we shall listen to the ambassadors of malign hypocrisy
who call upon us to lay down our arms….Because we swore a thousand times
that our blood will not be spilled lightly – and yet again yesterday we were
tempted, we listened, and we believed. Let us take stock today with ourselves.
We are a generation of settlement and without the steel helmet and the gun’s
muzzle we will not be able to plant a tree and build a house. Let us not fear to
look squarely at the hatred that consumes and fills the lives of hundreds of Arabs
who live around us. Let us not drop our gaze, lest our arms be weakened. That is
the fate of our generation. This is our choice – to be ready and armed, tough and
hard – or else the sword shall fall from our hands and our lives will be cut
short….41
The speech expresses two key characteristics of Dayan, his extraordinary ability to empathize
with his enemy’s motives while at the same time stating his belief in the necessity for an
uncompromising, tough armed struggle. At that period Dayan did not believe in the utility of a
political process to calm the situation, instead believing that the only way to secure the Jewish
presence was through retaliation and deterrence.
The retaliatory period could be divided into two different sub periods, each reflecting a
different policy approach. During the first period of retaliatory policy, operations were aimed
directly at the population of the villages that allegedly encouraged and harbored raiders. During
this phase Dayan supported and approved operations against the civilian population in order to
extort a painful price and to punish collectively the village from which the perpetrators came.42
This period ended with the debacle of ‘Operation Qibya’ (1953) that caused the death of scores
of civilians that were buried in their houses as a consequence of their demolition. This horrible
episode led to a turning point with regard to the character and objectives of IDF operations.
41
42
Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 396.
Drory, Israel’s Reprisal Policy, 67.
13
Dayan upheld the principle of the ‘purity of arms’ as a guiding value for the IDF.43 He felt that
both for reasons of public opinion and morale the tactical and the operational objectives should
change. Therefore from 1953 the retaliatory raids took on a different form. In turn military
operations became a systematic part of the policy of the Israeli state. It became the means to
enforce compliance by Arab neighbors.44 It sought to pressure the Jordanian and the Egyptians
regimes to subject their citizens to strict control, especially the refugees and to impose a
ceasefire. This new type of raid was aimed to influence the leadership and decision makers and
therefore was larger in scope and intensity. The objectives chosen were no longer suspected
villages but army and police posts. ‘Israel has learned’ said Dayan, ‘that even when the Arabs hit
civilian population we must aim at military targets’.45 These operations did not stop the
infiltrations completely, but were able to curb them. Without them it would have been
impossible to travel on the highways, to establish settlements and to live a normal life not only
along Israel’s borders but also in the center of the country.46 However the reprisal operations
brought about a rise in the level of armed violence and friction with official armed contingents
of the Arab states as a result of the changed Israeli targets.47 One might even say that
paradoxically, the tactical shift, targeting the military rather than the population, ignited a spiral
of escalating violence that eventually led to the Suez War in 1956.48
To view the retaliatory operations only as a reaction to stop Arab infiltration would probably be
too narrow. As a number of researchers suggested, these tactics served a number of objectives.
One such hidden motive was the state of weakness in which Dayan found the IDF in the years
following the Independence war. For various reasons the IDF performance had been on the
decline in the years after the Independence War.49 Dayan saw the retaliatory operations as a
vehicle to improve combat prowess and morale of the IDF. In addition he sought to uplift
domestic morale and public opinion. At a certain point the aim was also used to bring about a
43
Dayan, Story, 115.
Benny Morris, Israel’s Border Wars,1949-1956:Arab Infiltrators, Israeli Retaliation and the Countdown to the Suez
War,(Tel Aviv: Am - Oved, 1997) , 291, 448. [Heb]
45
Dayan, Story, 115.
46
Morris, Israel’s Border Wars 443.
47
Drory, 45
48
Morris, Israel’s Border Wars, 291.
49
Ibid, 268-269.
44
14
confrontation with one or more Arab states, to escalate to a point of opening a war which was
not desirable to the Arab regimes.50 Another view suggests that this approach meant ‘applying
military activism below the threshold of international criticism’ while avoiding escalation to all
out war.51 According to this view the escalation that led to the Sinai War 1956, signifies a failure
of the approach, as Dayan admitted himself, although it was also his strategic aim to reshape
Israel’s security situation fundamentally by means of this war. 52 The 1956 campaign against in
Sinai brought a stop of the infiltration from Egypt despite the failures on the diplomatic level
and the force retreat of IDF. The balance of deterrence was restored just as Dayan predicted.
Observer in Vietnam, 1966
Following his retirement from the IDF in 1958 Dayan embarked on a political career. In 1966
Dayan felt his career was at a standstill, so he decided to accept the offer made by Israel’s
leading daily newspaper Ma’ariv to cover the Vietnam War as a war correspondent. Dayan
explained his decision: ‘…almost no one here [Israeli leaders] had seen or participated in a war
of such a scale…I want to see and learn about the war in Vietnam and its possible consequences
in our region.’53 Dayan who knew nothing about Vietnam decided to prepare himself. First he
flew to France, where he had many acquaintances from the time of the Israeli–French alliance
of the mid-1950s; some of them had served in, and witnessed the defeat in the First Indochina
War. Most of the generals he met felt that the American approach of using a lot of force against
an invisible enemy was ineffective.54 Next, in England, he met Field Marshal Lord Montgomery
of Alamein who explained to him that the Americans’ biggest problem was that they did not
have a clear objective.55
50
Drory, 46.
Shimon Naveh, ‘Operational Art and the IDF: A Critical Study of a Command Culture’, Center for Strategic and
Budgetary Assessment (CSBA), (September 2007), 58.
52
Ya’akov Erez and Ilan Kfir, Conversations with Moshe Dayan, (Israel: Masada, 1981), 36-38.[Heb]
53
Teveth, Dayan, 550.
54
Moshe Dayan, Vietnam Diary, (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1977), 7-17. [Heb]
55
Ibid.,8-20.
51
15
From Britain, Dayan flew to the United States. Like many other visitors, he was impressed by its
tremendous power and advanced technology. At his first meeting at the Pentagon he was
subjected to a flood of statistics as to numbers of enemies killed and captured. This was meant
to prove that the situation was well under control and that large parts of the territory of South
Vietnam, as well as its population, were now safe against terrorist attack. As he noted,
however, even a few elementary questions revealed that things were far from simple. The
question of population safety aroused his suspicion. Although his hosts gave him data that
showed positive trends, with the majority of the population living in American protected areas,
Dayan’s sharp observation quickly noticed that the colours on the map did not reflect the reality
on the ground. Even where there was a general American presence, whenever American troops
were not in the vicinity the enemy quickly re-established control over the population.56 His
suspicion was validated when he met Robert McNamara, who admitted that the Americans had
a problem in securing the safety of the population in the South.57
Later when he was in Vietnam he found out that his opinion was correct. Dayan understood the
South Vietnamese terror in the South as a message to the southern population that they would
only be safe if they expelled the Americans. In the whole of South Vietnam there was not a
single road that was really safe from the Viet Cong. Nor was there anything to prevent the
enemy from returning even to those places that had been most thoroughly ‘cleansed’ and
‘pacified’. In the US he also met Walt Rostow, the deputy head of the National Security Council,
and Maxwell Taylor, the former chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, then acting as a special adviser
to President Johnson. Rostow, a Harvard economist, explained to him that the developing
world’s desire for economic growth would drive the peoples of Asia towards the United States.
Dayan, a veteran of the Israeli Arab conflict, who had experienced Arab determination to get rid
of their Western overlords even at heavy economic cost, doubted it.58
56
Ibid., 26-29.
Ibid., 39-40.
58
Ibid., 29-34.
57
16
Concluding the visit in Washington Dayan realized that no one could tell him how they were
going to win the war. Dayan summed up the problem that the Americans are facing: ‘In regular
wars the measure of progress towards victory is clear – it is mostly geographic – territorial. One
needs to get to Paris or Berlin etc, occupy the enemy capital, to bring its government to sign a
surrender agreement. In this case the Americans are aware they could not pass line 17, could
not bomb civilian population etc, and how would this finish? How would this end? How could
they reach a decision? How could they measure progress? ‘59
On 25 July, 1966, Dayan arrived in Saigon, was issued an American uniform and was ready for
the field. Meeting with South Vietnamese local contacts he heard that the Viet Cong were much
stronger than allowed for in American assessments. Dayan spent most of August visiting various
units throughout South Vietnam. First he joined a Marine company’s patrols led by First
Lieutenant Charles Krulak.
Thirty-five years later the retired General Krulak, ex-commandant of the Marine Corps, told the
Israeli historian Martin van Creveld that, ‘as they set up camp one evening, Dayan had asked
them what they were doing there. He then offered his opinion that the American strategy was
wrong. They should be “where the people are”, not vainly trying to chase the Viet Cong in the
mountains, where they were not.’60 A few days later Dayan’s wish was granted. Near Da Nang,
he visited another Marine unit engaged in pacification. The Marines were responsible for
security—he noted their excellent discipline—but most of the actual work was done by civilians.
However he was not impressed with their attempts to help the South Vietnamese peasants
improve their standard of living by introducing new agricultural methods, better livestock, and
so on. To General Westmoreland he said that overemphasizing the pacification program and
Americanization of civilian life only creates convenient targets for the Viet Cong guerrilla. Dayan
proposed instead to help indirectly, to create a situation where the Viet Cong would have to
fight against their conquered people and not the Americans.61
59
Ibid., 40
Creveld , Moshe,117.
61
Dayan, Diary, 138.
60
17
While touring the villages Dayan started to form a picture of what the Americans should do.62 If
they really wanted to ‘win hearts and minds’, he wrote in his diary, they had to offer better
long-term solutions to the peasants than those the Viet Cong could offer. The Americans, Dayan
proposed, should create a functioning administration and establish model villages. The way he
saw things, the Vietnamese national character was one that gives primary importance to
extended family needs. Therefore if this requirement could be effectively addressed by the
Americans it might turn the local populace away from the Vietcong.63 Towards the end of his
visit Dayan summed up in his diary his main conclusions; that the Americans, as the French
before them, misunderstood the nature of the problem, that many of the figures published
about the progress of the war turned out to be false, and that the idea that the Vietnamese
people wanted to become Americanized was an illusion. The vast majority wanted only to be
left alone. It was a national struggle but the struggle for hearts and minds was mostly social.
The other side offered a communist ideology; the Americans must offer something better than
refugee camps. He speculated that maybe some form of advanced socialism would have been a
good alternative.64
Growing up in the Israeli Labour Movement at a time when Kibbutzim (an Israeli version of
collective farms) dominated much of the ideals and practices of Israeli society, the social link
was probably more obvious for him. Dayan left Vietnam with the definite impression that
things were not going well. It was not a question of numbers or statistics, he wrote, where US
soldiers were present the situation was under US control, but when they left the area they
control returns to the Viet Cong.65 ‘The Americans are winning everything’, he concluded
soberly, ‘except the war’.66 His first lesson on fighting this kind of war was that:
The most significant operational problem the American forces were facing in
Vietnam was lack of intelligence—the inability to distinguish the enemy from
62
Ibid.,149.
Ibid., 148.
64
Ibid.,137, 142, 148, 151.
65
Ibid.,142.
66
Ibid.,111.
63
18
either the physical surroundings or the civilian population. Had intelligence
been available, the Americans’ enormous superiority in every kind of military
hardware would have enabled them to win the war. In its absence, most of
the blows they delivered—including no fewer than six million tons of
bombs—missed their targets. Their only effect was to disperse the enemy
into the civilian population. Worst of all, lack of accurate intelligence meant
that the Americans kept hitting noncombatants by mistake. They thus drove
huge segments of the population straight into the arms of the Viet Cong;
nothing is more conducive to hatred than the sight of relatives and friends
being killed. 67
The war should be won, Dayan thought, through wining hearts and minds, this should be
done through social justice, treating the refugees and offering an attractive alternative ideology
to communism, an ideology that addressed the people’s needs.68
Open Bridges Policy, 1967-73
During the tense period before the outbreak of the Six Day War, Dayan was called upon to
become the Defense Minister. The government led by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol was perceived
as weak and hesitant by the public. Reluctantly and under the public pressure Eshkol invited
Dayan, the 1956 war hero, to join his government. And so he did, and was perceived as saving
the day for Israel. Following Israel’s decisive victory, Dayan enjoyed enormous popularity and
his personal power was at its peak. One of the new realities Dayan faced in the aftermath of the
war was how to govern the new territories Israel had captured, in particular the West Bank and
the Gaza strip with an estimate of over one million Arab residents. Dayan’s immediate reaction
was to call for restoring normal life for the Palestinians in the occupied territories. In November
1967 he passed a government decision that ordered minimum intervention in the daily life of
the population.
67
68
Creveld, Moshe,120-121.
Ibid.,150.
19
In the long term Dayan wanted parts of the territories to be annexed to Israel, but as long as
there was no fundamental political settlement he believed that mutual existence was possible.
The key to this co-existence was liberalism and minimum intervention. He opted for economic
integration between the Israeli economy and the Palestinian one. This policy later became
known as the ‘Open Bridges Policy’ referring to the bridges over the Jordan River but also as a
metaphor describing the desired relations between the peoples.69 According to his Aide- deCamp, Arie Brown, Dayan’s policy towards the occupied territories were influenced by his
personal experiences under the British Mandate in Palestine, lessons learned from the military
rule imposed on Israeli Arabs (up to 1966) and his period in Vietnam.70 Major General Shlomo
Gazit, who worked closely with Dayan as the Coordinator of Government Activities in
the Territories, argued that his Vietnam experience was the single most important experience
that had shaped his attitude towards the population in the territories.71 Dayan frequently
mentioned the lessons he learned in Vietnam and emphasized the principal condition not to
force the Palestinian population to become ‘Israelised’ (as in Americanized) - not in the cultural
sense, not in the bureaucratic sense nor in any other way which did not involve a direct security
threat.72 As a result of his experience in Southeast Asia he was fully aware of the fundamental
problem: the fact that holding the territories meant imposing occupation of another people –
but yet he thought that he found a formula to go around it. This formula included maximum
freedom in daily life; contact with the rest of the Arab world, open borders, freedom of speech
– however, by the same token, zero tolerance for terror.73
Dayan’s three major principles to govern the territories were: minimum presence of both Israeli
personnel and infrastructure (government buildings, military camps etc); non-intervention
which meant maximum autonomy to run their affairs; and ‘open bridges’, including freedom of
69
Arie Brown, Moshe Dayan and the Six Days War, (Tel Aviv: Yedioth Ahronot , 1997), 114. [Heb]
Brown, 142..
71
Gazit, The Stick, 39-43.
72
Brown, 145.
73
Ibid., 146.
70
20
movement between the territories and Arab states.74 Even before the short war ended, Dayan
expressed his vision as to how Israel should treat the additional Palestinian population under its
control. ’We have to treat the Arabs as our equals from the civil and humane point of view,’ he
said in 7 June 1967 (two days after the Six Day War began) to IDF commanders in Gaza. Israel
should ‘minimally intervene in their affairs and not treat them as enemies, unless they act
against us.’75 In another speech at the Armored Corps conference a few months after the war
he said:
…I do not fear the actions of el-Fatah, but I fear a national uprising…I am not
without hope that we can prevent it [a national uprising] if we give them much
freedom, such freedom that fighting us will not be worth it…and we should be
careful not to act as occupiers…only then might we have a chance…76
Dayan assumed that economic prosperity would reduce potential pressure for this type of
national uprising which he feared; the solution to him was improving public services for the
population. Dayan therefore continuously demanded that the government should improve
these services to the occupied population. In the year following the war, Palestinians militants
from Fatach infiltrated the border in small groups in order to mobilize the population against
the Israeli Occupation. These attempts failed largely due to Dayan's policy. Dayan told the
Palestinian leadership that while he did not expect them to fight the infiltrators or even to assist
him in fighting them, he would not tolerate any active collaboration by the local population.77
In the first years following the Israeli occupation, Dayan’s policies generated positive outcomes
as they were swiftly implemented. As a defense minister he saw the territories as a high
priority on his agenda. He would monitor closely the developments among the population and
he was often the first one to note any changes. He set up his own network of informants who
were loyal to him. He was personally involved in the selection of each area governor and
74
Shlomo Gazit, Trapped, (Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 1999), 62. [Heb]
Brown,149.
76
Ibid., 160.
77
Ibid., 124
75
21
administrators in the Israeli administration. He would encourage open debates but once he had
taken a decision, he would make sure everyone complied with the decision to the letter.78 His
working and decision-making approach were characterized by frequent visits and direct talks
with the people. Dayan’s loathing of bureaucracy often led him to bypass procedures and
processes.79 In a few instances local military commanders decided to demolish houses and
expel the population. Dayan reversed the decision, taking the villagers back and helping them
rebuild their houses.80 It was clear to him that as a defense minister he was in charge of every
aspect of life of the population. He did not interfere with the different government ministries
which provided services to the population, but he did monitor their work and often times asked
the government to improve it.81
Dayan established coordination between ministerial committees that published a document
setting out the principles underlying the administration of the territories. These included a
policy of harsh measures against any potential insurgency, however it also included the promise
for a ‘a fair and humane treatment of the population’ which meant respect for places of
worship and clerics, the maintenance of and respect for local family and tribal structures,
avoiding any unnecessary contact between soldiers and the population (especially women) and
finally providing social and medical services.82 Although Dayan supported a harsh punishment of
those who were directly engaged in or supported terror activities, he was against collective
punishment.83 There was, however, a schizophrenic character in Dayan’s management in the
territories. His close association with the population and its problems often led him to deviate
from the policies he himself dictated, often in favor of the population, but in some instances he
ignored actions taken by local Israeli officials that were contradictory to his policies.84 Another
aspect of his policy was the empowerment of local municipalities and their mayors. The idea
was to create a functioning agency that could deliver a whole range of services as a substitute
78
Gazit, Trapped,74-75.
Brown, 143.
80
Ibid,153. The villages were: Amoas, Hova, Dir Ayob, Yalo, Beit Nova.
81
Ibid, 145.
82
Ibid, 162-163.
83
Gazit, Trapped, 64.
84
Gazit, The Stick, 183.
79
22
for a government on a national level.85 Dayan’s ideas towards the Arab population were
published in a series of lectures Dayan gave to different Israeli audiences about a year after the
war. In these lectures he outlined his vision of the future of the occupied territories and their
Arab residents. These lectures were later published in a book that contains a collection of short
essays written by Dayan and discussing his vision in relation to the territories.86
However Dayan had his critics. Broadly speaking they found three major flaws in his policies.
The first was the lack of substantive political rights for the populace. The second was Dayan’s
desire to annex the territories, or large parts of them. The third was concerned with the issue of
economic integration. Dayan’s ideas did not seem to lead to the creation of a strong
independent economy in the territories. The outcome of Dayan’s policy was the creation of a
situation of economic dependency of the territories by Israel. The reasons mentioned above
led them to characterized Dayan’s ideas as ‘neo-colonialism’.87 Shimon Shamir wrote: ‘The
integration involves the establishment in Palestine, by an unspecified date, of an Arab unit that
will have neither political status within the state nor a political life of its own. It seeks to reduce
the inhabitants of this unit into what Dayan himself rejected…. [when] he declared that the
Arabs in the occupied territories could not remain “political invalid”. However he also
acknowledged the strengths of the plans:
One cannot ignore some of the positive aspects of Dayan’s plan. It is clearly
and rationality expounded, it reflects a basically liberal approach and it is
based on policies which have already proven successful in the occupied
territories….economically for the gradual integration of the West
Bank…socially it calls for the cultivation of de facto peaceful relation on the
local level….and culturally it calls for respect for the Arab identity….However
Dayan’s tactics are wrong for Israel… 88
85
Ibid., 203.
Moshe Dayan, New Map New Relations, (Tel Aviv: Ma’ariv Library, 1969). [Heb.]
87
Shimon Shamir, ‘Integration and Its Price’, Ha’aretz, 25 December 1968.
88
Ibid.
86
23
In this debate the critics represented those who believed that the only way to solve the conflict
would be to implement a two state solution - the two communities should separate while Israel
must give all (or most) of the territories in order to create the conditions for a Palestinian state.
Dayan on the other hand refused to give back the territories. He was not fearful of a large Arab
presence and believed that he could find a way to accommodate their needs. Therefore he
encouraged selective Jewish settlements. These opposing views still persist today, more than
forty years after, in Israel’s political scene.
Dayan believed that his policy would serve his long term vision. He believed that by facilitating
open borders and free economic activity between Israel, the occupied territories and Jordan, he
was creating the platform for normal relationships that later on would enable a formal peace
agreement and co-existence.89 Peace would evolve in a bottom up process. The importance was
not only economic but also psychological. With the suicide terror and construction of the
separation barrier in the last decade, the chances of Dayan’s vision becoming reality have
receded. And yet the fact that Israel enjoyed a peaceful rule over the territories for two full
decades,90 stems from the success of Dayan’s policies that included invisibility, normalization
and a policy of discriminated punishment.
Dayan’s Legacy and Impact on the IDF
There is no doubt that Dayan was fundamental in shaping the IDF culture, as his presence
dominated the IDF’s first three decades of existence. A balanced assessment of his contribution
must include the culture he instilled that embraces free spirit, initiative, creativity and guile. The
IDF is the only military that features ‘stratagem’ as its first principle of war.91 His famous phrase
as COS during the Sinai Campaign (1956), ‘better to be engaged in restraining the noble stallion
89
Gazit, Trapped, 68.
1967 – 1987. In 1987 the first intifada (national upraising) broke out.
91
Zvi Lanir, 'The "Principals of War" and Military Thinking', Journal Of Strategic Studies 16:1 (March, 1993), 1 - 17.
90
24
than in prodding the reluctant mule’ became a motto to generations of IDF officers. 92 Richard
Simpkin, the British military analyst, wrote that since Dayan’s departure he observed a decline
in the IDF’s performance and the loss of sharpness and ingenuity it was known for. 93
However, Dayan also instilled a legacy of disregard to classroom studies. This has affected and
continues to affect IDF officers until today. The military education system of the IDF is lagging
behind parallel institutions in leading western militaries. Indeed, most of today’s IDF officers are
equipped with university degrees, but most of these degrees are not in military studies and are
seen more as a way to prepare them for their civilian career after retirement.94 During
Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in 2008, the Staff and Command cadets pressured their instructors
to stop the course so they could join their fighting units and gain practical experience in the
field. After a short debate the instructors agreed, signaling that practical experience is the best
form of learning.
95
Dayan himself was full of curiosity and a brilliant student of life; he didn’t
consider that most officers are ordinary, and therefore in need of the structure provided by a
classroom environment.
In recent years Dayan has been reintroduced into the syllabus of senior officer’s educational
courses. Warrior scholars such Brigadier General Shimon Naveh, Brigadier General Dov Tamari
(who headed the IDF Operational Research Institute [OTRI]), – Brigadier General Itai Brun (head
of the Dado Center), and Major General Gershon Hachoen (Commander of the IDF Colleges),
are teaching Dayan’s planning and action as an example model of operational art.
96
In his
manuscript on IDF Operational Art and Culture of Command commissioned for the Office of Net
Assessment in the US defense department, Shimon Naveh describes the Moshe Dayan’s period
as COS as one of the IDF highpoint era of operational art .97 Only in a later period in his life,
after the 1973 October blunder, did he sit down and write down his ideas, writes Naveh, but
nevertheless he was ‘a brilliant thinker and articulate speaker; there is plenty of evidence
92
Edward Luttwak and Dan Horowitz, The Israeli Army (London: Allen Lane, 1975),160.
Simpkin, Race to the swift, 305.
94
For the shortcomings of the IDF educational system see: Martin van Creveld, The Sword and Olive: A Critical
History of The Israeli Defense Forces, (NY: NewYork, Public Affairs 1998), 315-316. On the efforts to reform the IDF
educational system, see: Shamir, Transforming Command, 182 -185.
95
The author was an academic instructor at the IDF Staff and Command Course.
96
The author was a research fellow at the Dado Center.
97
Naveh, Operational Art and the IDF: See Chapter 4, 55-70.
93
25
indicating that he had been unofficially working out in his mind all these operational trends and
strategic lines of logic and even shared some of them with his close associates.’98 He goes on to
quote General Ariel Sharon who famously said on Dayan: ‘He would wake up with a hundred
ideas. Of them, ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two, however,
were brilliant.’99Shimon Naveh himself advocated a contextualized and unconventional
approach to counterinsurgency moving away from mainstream military doctrine. 100
Conclusion
As this paper shows, Moshe Dayan’s continuous learning and exploring of COIN evolved and
changed over the years. At times he could be very tough while during others he was very
considerate. As in other areas in his life, Dayan was never committed to a certain ideology; he
developed his ideas with one criterion in mind: to provide the best solution to the problem.
Growing up between Arabs and near Arabs, he never demonized the other side but also never
romanticized him. As he wrote in his memoires: ‘I never felt hostility towards the Arabs, the
wars we fought were a national matter not a personal one…the hospitality I received in their
homes was occasionally interrupted by battles and killings but was never forgotten’101
Dayan could build close personal relationships with Arabs as he did during the time he spent in
a British jail sharing a common destiny as an outlaw insurgent, however, he could also support a
cruel policy of revenge and punishment directed at the population as done in the period leading
to the operation in Qibya. At the same time he was also quick to learn the moral and practical
faults of this policy.102 He was aware that reprisals had led to an unavoidable escalation
resulting in war - a short violent burst that he had hoped to use in order to create new security
reality on the borders. A few years later he went to Vietnam. Despite his admiration of the
American servicemen and American technology he understood that whoever wins over the
population wins the war. With his sharp instincts he saw clearly that the campaign for hearts
98
Ibid. 57.
Ibid. see reference 118
100
See: Shimon Naveh, ‘Asymetric Conflicts: Operational Criticism of Hegemonic Strategies’, in Haggai Golan and
Shaul Shai, Low Intensity Conflict, (Tel Aviv: Ma’arachot, 2004) , 101-144 [Heb.]
101
Dayan, Story, 493.
102
Ibid., 115, Teveth, 396.
99
26
and minds was a failure, and that the idea that the Vietnamese people wanted to become
Americanized was an illusion. The vast majority wanted only to be left alone. The key for
winning the population was providing their basic needs through good administration and
provision of basic services.
Upon returning to Israel he sought to emulate his approach among the new Palestinian
population under Israeli control. The policy of ‘open bridges’ was meant to provide maximum
economic and political freedom and minimum intervention in daily life. This policy gave Israel
stability for almost two decades. Despite the lack of clear strategy towards the future of the
occupied territories, Dayan managed to design and execute a liberal policy towards the
population in the territories. The solution was limited as he did not hold the one position, that
of a Prime Minister, that would have enabled him to decide on Israel’s long term strategy or
envisage something he thought was so lacking in Vietnam but also with regard to the occupied
territories.103 Moreover Dayan’s political vision as for the Israeli-Palestinian issue was never
fully articulated; he played with different ideas such as autonomy or a confederation with
Jordan and Palestine.104 During his last two years Dayan devoted his time to an attempt to
promote a full Palestinian autonomy. He believed that Israeli military rule was no longer
sustainable. Dayan also felt a sense of urgency to solve the refugee problem. He rejected the
option of a complete disengagement from the territories but also complete annexation; instead
he believed the solution to be found in coexistence created by pragmatic arrangements in daily
life and economic interdependency. 105
He was not the type who writes doctrinal manuals or obtains advanced degrees at prestigious
universities, however he was one who seeks knowledge, constantly learns and adapts, develops
creative ideas and is not bound by tradition. Some of the dilemmas Dayan faced are still
relevant today, in Israel and elsewhere. The verdict is still open on debates such as focusing on
hearts and minds versus harsh retaliation, escalation versus de-escalation and how to tailor
each one to different situations. What might Dayan’s response have been to Israel’s current
policy in the West-Bank and Gaza? Given his approach in his late years as Defense Minister and
103
Gazit, The Stick, 41.
Teveth, 587.
105
Gazit, Trapped,202-203.
104
27
Foreign Minister, he might have seen the security barrier that divides the land and the
populations as a temporary tactical barrier (as was originally intended) and would have
opposed any attempts to separate the populations permanently. For he once noted: ‘...now the
people who sit in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) are Arabs…they are all part of this country.
They do not make a barrier between me and the land’.106
106
Dayan, Story, 493.
28