Eye opening and chilling interview from February 1972 with Moshe Dayan, Israeli Minister of Defense at the time, where he confesses his plans for Israel to build settlements in the West Bank and along the Jordan River, while denying Palestinians the right to do the same.
His description of his vision for the future of Israel includes permanently occupying the West Bank and denying Palestinians the right to their own state, basically guaranteeing a permanent form of apartheid. He describes the settlements overlooking Hebron as something that the Palestinians did not oppose, a lie that the interviewer calls him out for.
For some context, at the time, Israel had occupied the West Bank, Egypt’s Sinai and Syria’s Golan Heights for five years, following the 1967 War. The rest of the interview focused mostly around Israel’s occupation of the Sinai, which Moshe Dyan saw as a buffer in Egypt, which he wanted to partially occupy permanently. He wanted Israel to take the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm El Sheikh, make it part of Israel forever, and connect it with Israel through a continuous strip of land along the strait of Aqaba (on the eastern part of Sinai).
At the time, Israel was at the height of its confidence, having defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in 1967, and considered itself practically invincible, particularly following unprecedented advanced weapons sales by the US, as well the US guarantees of unconditional protection.
One year later, Egypt and Syria would launch the 1973 October 6th War, retaining large parts of the Sinai, which struck a blow to Israel’s morale and eventually forced it to accept conceding the entire Sinai to Egypt in return for a peace deal, negotiated by Jimmy Carter, something that many Arabs considered a betrayal of Palestinians.
Moshe Dayan was fired from his position of Minister of Defence the following year in 1974, partially for failing to predict and defend against the Egyptians’ successful attack in 1973. Syria’s Golan Heights (and Palestine’s West Bank obviously) remain occupied to this day.
Categories: Arab World, Gaza, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, War, War crimes