Moshe Dayan

Thursday, September 6, 2012 by Allan Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
For those who have been taught—by Peter Beinart or some other recent chronicler of Israel’s history—that Zionism only began to go awry after 1967, Patrick Tyler’s new book might come as a shock. Israel’s aggressive territorial ambitions didn’t emerge after the Six-Day War, Tyler argues, but antedated that (to his mind) avoidable conflict by more than a decade.

Friday, June 8, 2012 by Allan Arkush | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
On June 1, 1967, when Prime Minister Levi Eshkol yielded to public pressure and turned over the portfolio of defense minister to former IDF chief of staff Moshe Dayan, the mood in Israel changed overnight.

As Nasser was ordering his army to flee the Sinai, King Hussein commanded his to stay put. But within the Old City, only a hundred soldiers remained, the rest having already retreated toward the East Bank.

As the sun rose on June 5th, 1967, squadrons of Egypt's MiG fighter jets took to the skies for their morning patrols. Fearing that an Israeli attack would begin at dawn, their aim was to be ready to meet any Israeli planes.

Forty-five years ago today, on June 4, 1967, Israel and the Jewish world were in suspense. Today, we recall the Six-Day War as a stunning martial victory by the Jewish state; but on the war's eve, this outcome was wholly unforeseeable. Indeed, the odds appeared firmly stacked against Israel.
Editors' Picks
Bye Bye Barak Mitch Ginsburg, Times of Israel. Ehud Barak's surprise retirement from politics has not disappointed everyone. But some commentators are already comparing him to another general-turned-politician, Moshe Dayan.
Dayan’s Lesson Stephen Daisley, Standpoint. The European media may see the rise of Likud as a sign of the Israeli public’s lurch to the Right, but since Dayan and Rabin the Israeli Left has produced no one prepared to act.