Dayan, Moshe 1915-81
Israeli soldier and politician

Born in Palestine, he founded the Haganah underground militia. He was Chief of Staff of the Israeli army when Israel conquered Gaza and Sinai in the Suez War of 1956. In 1958 he left military service to study at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Dayan was elected to the Knesset as a Labour member in 1959 and made Minister of Agriculture by David Ben-Gurion (1959-64). He left the Labour Party in 1966 to set up the Rafi Party with Ben-Gurion. In 1967, as a member of the opposition, he was appointed Defence Minister, and masterminded the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War. Dayan then cleared Jerusalem of Arab/Jewish barriers and mines, and declared it a free city. He was Defence Minister again from 1969 to 1974, but his reputation was tarnished by Israel's disastrous start to the 1973 (Yom Kippur) War, and he was dropped from the Cabinet. In 1977, as Foreign Minister, he helped secure the historic peace treaty with Egypt. He resigned (1979) from the Begin government, and in 1981 he launched a new centre party, but died the same year. He wrote Diary of the Sinai Campaign (1966) and Living with the Bible (1978).