Dayan admits Israel attacked Syria in land grab By Prof. Tanya Reinhart, translated from Yediot Aharonot, 6 May 1997 In June, it would be 30 years to the war of 1967 - the war that brought about the occupation. Governments have changed from Labor to Likud and back several times since then, and what has changed?
Yediot Aharonot of April 27 has published an 1976 interview with Moshe Dayan (which was not previously published). Dayan, who was the defense minister in 1967, explains there what led, then, to the decision to attack Syria. In the collective consciousness of the period, Syria was conceived as a serious threat to the security of Israel, and a constant initiator of aggression towards the residents of northern Israel. But according to Dayan, this is 'bull-shit' - Syria was not a threat to Israel before 67. Just drop it - he says as an answer to a question about the northern residences - I know how at least 80% of all the incidents with Syria started. We were sending a tractor to the demilitarized zone and we knew that the Syrians will shoot. If they did not shoot, we would instruct the tractor to go deeper, till the Syrians finally got upset and start shooting. Then we employed artillery, and later also the air-force... I did that... and Itzhak Rabin did that, when he was there (as commander of the Northern front, in the early sixties).
And what has led Israel to provoke Syria? According to Dayan, this was the greediness for the land - the idea that it is possible to grab a piece of land and keep it, until the enemy will get tired and give it to us. The Syrian land was, as he says, particularly tempting, since, unlike Gaza and the West bank it was not heavily populated.
The 67 war has brought the big chance to grab the land, and along with the land, the water of the of the Jordan Riverheads. Dayan insists that the decision to attack Syria was not motivated by security reasons: You do not attack the enemy because he is a bastard, but because he threatens you, and the Syrians in the fourth day of the war were not threatening us. He adds that the initiative of Colonel David Elazar to open the Syrian front was assisted by a delegation sent to prime-minister Eshkol by the Northern kibbutz's, who did not even try to hide their greediness to that land.
In 1973, the Israeli society has paid, for the first time, a heavy price for the occupation - in the 'Yom Kippur' war. The interview with Dayan was held three years after the defeat, and in that atmosphere, he explains that the decision to attack Syria was a mistake that will disable, in the future, peace with Syria.
One could infer from Dayan's words that he would have, perhaps, supported, withdrawal from the Golan heights, but Rabin, his partner to the road of the Labor, has never changed his skin. At the first period of his term as prime-minister, many believed that he is seeking an agreement with Syria. But behind the halo of our saviour the peace-maker, there was the same land-greedy commander who sent the tractors to provoke the Syrians in the early sixties.
In the tradition of all his predecessors, Rabin used the tactics of dragging negotiations: He agreed to discuss everything (the location of inspection points, the dates of opening embassies) except for the one issue that Syria was interested in - which lands Israel is willing to give up in the Golan. While Rabin's one hand was spreading rumors about secret agreements, to pacify public opinion, his other hand was pouring unprecedented budgets for developing the Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights. Apartments previously frozen were sold to anyone interested, and huge amounts of money were invested in developing foundation work and industry. All Netanyahu had to do is pick the fruits.
Thirty years after, the land-greedy are still stealing and appropriating it wherever possible - in the Golan heights, as in the West Bank. What we are left with are the words of Yifat Kastiel, whose twin sister was murdered recently in Wadi Kelet: They fight here all the time over pieces of land. But what importance could the land have, when the people who live here are so miserable?
Professor Reinhart teaches Linguistics at Tel Aviv University and is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Committee On the Middle East (COME).
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