Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan
Dayan, photographed in 1979
5th Minister of Foreign Affairs
In office 20 June 1977 – 23 October 1979
Prime Minister	Menachem Begin
Preceded by	Yigal Allon
Succeeded by	Yitzhak Shamir
4th Minister of Defense
In office 5 June 1967 – 3 June 1974
Prime Minister	Levi Eshkol Yigal Allon (Acting) Golda Meir
Preceded by	Levi Eshkol
Succeeded by	Shimon Peres
7th Minister of Agriculture
In office 17 December 1959 – 4 November 1964
Prime Minister	David Ben-Gurion Levi Eshkol
Preceded by	Kadish Luz
Succeeded by	Haim Gvati
4th Chief of General Staff
In office 1953–1958
President	Yitzhak Ben-Zvi
Prime Minister	David Ben-Gurion
Preceded by	Kadish Luz
Succeeded by	Haim Gvati
Personal details
Born	(1915-05-20)20 May 1915 Degania Alef, Acre Sanjak, Ottoman Empire
Died	16 October 1981(1981-10-16) (aged 66) Tel Aviv, Israel
Political party	Mapai (1959–1965) Rafi (1965–1968) Labor (1968–1981)
Awards	Distinguished Service Order Legion of Honour
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom (World War II) Israel (from 1948)
Service/branch	Haganah (c. 1929–48) British Army (World War II) Israel Defense Forces (1948–59)
Rank	Rav Aluf (highest rank)
Commands	Chief of General staff Southern Command Northern Command
Battles/wars	Arab Revolt in Palestine World War II 1948 Arab-Israeli War Suez Crisis Six-Day War War of Attrition Yom Kippur War

Moshe Dayan (Hebrew: משה דיין‎‎; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. He was the second child born on the first kibbutz, but he moved with his family in 1921, and he grew up on a moshav. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–58) during the 1956 Suez Crisis, but mainly as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967, he became to the world a fighting symbol of the new state of Israel. In the 1930's he was trained by Orde Wingate to set traps for Palestinian-Arabs fighting the British and lost an eye in a raid on Vichy forces in Lebanon. Dayan was close to David Ben-Gurion and joined him in setting up Rafi in 1965 with Shimon Peres. They eventually rejoined Mapai (the fore-runner of the Israel Labor Party) becoming Defence Minister in the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur war. Dayan was blamed for the lack of preparedness in 1973 and in 1976, following the election of Menachem Begin as Prime Minister, Dayan left the Labor Party and joined the Likud as Foreign Minister, playing an important part in negotiating the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

Moshe Dayan was born on 20 May 1915 on Kibbutz Degania Alef, near the Sea of Galilee in what was then Ottoman Syria or Palestine, within the Ottoman Empire. Dayan's parents, Shmuel and Devorah Dayan, were Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Kibbutz Degania Alef, with 11 members, was the first kibbutz, and would become part of the State of Israel.