Moshe Dayan

Nomination of the Nobel Peace Prize

Kristophe WIDELL
1/16/2012

Contents:
Intro: 2 Timeline: 2 Context, Cause and Actions: 3 Source Analysis: 4-5 Conclusion: 5 Works Cited: 6

Intro
Moshe Dayan was a famous Israeli military leader and politician. At the age of 14 he joined the Jewish militia called the Haganah. It was known by his family at that point that he was destined for greatness later demonstrated by his appointment of the fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, while in this position he became a fighting symbol to the world of the new State of Israel. He went on to become Defense Minister and later Foreign Minister of Israel.

Timeline
1947 Appointed to Haganah General Staff working on Arab affairs. It is here where he developed his war like tendencies. 1948 On the orders of then Prime Minister Ben-Gurion was appointed Military Commander of Jewish areas. It was then he held talks with the Jordanian Military Commander debating a cease fire. 1949 Held talks with the King of Jordan to search for an agreement to a longer peace treaty. 1953 Was appointed Chief of Staff, it is here were his mind set changes into an aggressive and violent one. Implementing changes to the Israeli Army. 1967 Six Day War. His appointment of defence minister greatly contributed to the Israelis success. 1981 Having helped win them, the Telem party won two seats in the elections, but Dayan suffered a major heart attack and passed away.

Context, Causes & Actions

Dayan was a mere 14 years old when he first had sight of action, it was when he joined newly formed Jewish militia called the Haganah. Later on in his life Dayan was appointed Military Commander of jewish areas in Jerusalem. While serving for this position he had launched two attacks both of which were failures and he didnt have better luck the next time around as he was in charge of two battalions whose mission was to capture and occupy the area around the Government House whose mission failed once again. In the autumn of 1948 Dayan had set out to begin negotiations with Abdullah el Tell about the possibility of a cease fire in Jerusalem. The next year he had met with the King of Jordan face to face for the two of them to agree on a longer peace agreement. Moshe Dayan wished for peace for his country, clearly shown in his relentless tries in negotiations with the Jordanians. It was after this time period we see a change in Dayan's main focus for his country. In 1953 Moshe Dayan was appointed Chief of Staff and upon taking command of this post he revamped the countries polices very quickly, focusing mainly on Israel's army which included aspects such as: strengthened combat units; raising the Intelligence and Training branches of the Israeli Army, starting a military academy for soldiers of the rank higher than Major, developed a youth wing for military training known as GADNA, emphasized strike forces such as the Air Force; Armour and on training of the Commando battalions. It is here we can see how his use of power has changed, especially in his initializing of GADNA we can see he placed his trust in the belief that the Israelis would have to fight for their freedom and that the younger generation, preparing them for this future was the key of success. It can thought he changed his direct tact when his previous missions to secure peace failed he had no alternative but to turn directly to the face of war and violence to solve how his people were being attacked. Being a firm supporter of Zionism also helps push him to the idea that the only way he can get the things his country and his people need is through violence. Zionism is the movement in which everything is put forward to founding and evolving the Motherland for the Jewish people in Jerusalem. Tugging at the end of his mind of every decision was a little bit of Zionism. He did everything he could for Israel, for her people and it is this that pushed his methods further towards violence.

Source Analysis
Source 1 = "Moshe Dayan Quotes." Famous Quotes. Web. 10 Jan. 2012.

<http://www.famousquotes.com/show/1136476/>.
"We came to this country which was already populated by Arabs, and we are establishing a Hebrew, that is a Jewish state here. In considerable areas of the country we bought lands from the Arabs. Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist; not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahalal arose in the place of Mahalul, Gevat in the place of Jibta, Sarid in the place of Haneifs and Kefar Yehoshua in the place of Tell Shaman. There is no one place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population. " Moshe Dayan had personally released this statement to the Israeli media. So this is the original speech and not having been tampered with. The purpose of the speech he created is to the Arab people that the land belongs to the Israelis. Having bought of the land the Arabs should have nothing to do with it anymore. He goes on to say that because nobody even knew there were villages there once upon a time the Arabs should not have a problem with the Jewish population having settled there and grown successful in that area. That is the purpose of this speech, to tell the people of Israel that they own the right to the occupied land and that they have done nothing wrong. The release of this speech is an important one because it shows just how the Arabs were and on some extent still are behaving towards the Israelis. From this we could learn that the Arabs have always had a thing against the Israelis, that much is clear but the Dayan obsessing over already bough land is useless and just an excuse for the Arabs to create a problem. The limitations of the speech is that it is being spoken by an Israeli and of course from one speech we could never get the perspective of the Arab side, this then lessens the value of this source also.

Source 2 = 1953, October. "Moshe Dayan." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 13 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan>.
"I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plough someplace where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was. " This second source is given to us by an Israeli journalist who spoke with Dayan in the year 1976. The interview took place in israel and Dayan is telling the journalist that 80 percent of the border clashed with Syria were caused by the Israelis. The purpose for this was to tell the world the truth about some of the events that had taken place prior to the Six Day War. Seeing how this was meant for the entire world to listen to and hear the can be no debate about whether there could be factors that are untrue and dishonest, which this interview is proving to the contrary. This wouldnt be very useful to a historian as the most they would be able to do with this is speculate whether Dayan had regrets about some of the actions that had taken place. From this we can learn that Dayan either had second thoughts about what had happened or he just needed or wanted the world to know exactly what happened.

This is quite a valuable source because the interview dates back to when Dayan had direct contact with the Government and when he had a position there himself and there can be no hint of biased accounts as in this interview he has no motive to do that. There are very few limitations with this source if any, as previously stated this is an interview after Dayan had stepped down from his position and he had no motive to be biased or to lie, which then makes this source very reliable. The source that would be more useful to a historian would be the second one, because from this we have already identified Dayan's friendly-ness to violence and this source then goes on a different track, showing that Dayan had changed his mind set from 1949 to 1976 being a little more political with his approach than with a military approach he had back when he was Chief of Staff.

Conclusion
Moshe Dayan had without a doubt supported Israel in trying to become its own state, its own country, but his methods were almost strictly "war based" with him preferring to attack and hinder the oppositions own progress to help further their own. But with these tactics he had helped the state of Israel to become united, to become one under one cause, to be an independent country with hassle from the Arabs. One could say they chose this reason to nominate Dayan for a Nobel Peace Prize, but with his methods firmly set to the conquest and violence type in his prime and his softer but more political approach as he grew older I believe Dayan were outdated and could have been nominated for the Peace Prize if it were a hundred years ago.

W C
orks

ited

Bisharat., George. "Moshe Dayan-A Brief Biography & Quotes." Palestine Remembered. Web. 11 Jan. 2012. <http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Famous-Zionist-Quotes/Story649.html>. "Moshe Dayan Quotes." Famous Quotes. Web. 10 Jan. 2012. <http://www.famousquotes.com/show/1136476/>. "Moshe Dayan." Jewish Library. Web. 14 Jan. 2012. <www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Dayan.htm>. "Six-Day War." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 13 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_day_war>. "Yom Kippur War." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 11 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War>. Zionism & Israel. Web. 12 Jan. 2012. <http://www.zionism-israel.com/>.

1953, October. "Moshe Dayan." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 13 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan>.