Moshe Dayan's Widow Ruth: Zionist Dream Has Run Its Course

[oberliner]

Elegantly dressed and perfectly made up, Ruth Dayan, 95, receives me with a wide smile in her Tel Aviv home overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The charismatic, alert, and extremely intelligent Dayan is the widow of Moshe Dayan, legendary chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces and a key leader in the war of independence in 1948. Indeed, Moshe Dayan was transformed into a symbol of national strength during the Six-Day War in 1967, when Israel took control of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. The Israelis felt invincible with this imposing figure at the helm. Having lost his eye in battle, he chose to wear a black eye patch, which became his trademark. In the years since his death, Ruth has continued to act as one of Israel’s most outspoken elder statesmen.

Sixty-three years after the founders began to build a democratic, secure, prosperous state, Israel is still struggling: there is no peace deal in place with the Palestinians, tensions between Arabs and Israelis grow by the day, and the violence drags on. Under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, Israel has been racked with political divisions. The government has moved to the right politically in order to keep a majority in Parliament. Yet over the summer, liberal Israelis set up tent cities protesting the massive income inequality and high cost of living that are plaguing the nation. Moshe Dayan is very much seen as one of the “founding fathers” of Israel. And there is a nostalgic turn today, mainly among the middle-class Ashkenazi who see him and his brethren as symbols of collective sacrifice and communal bonds.

Dayan is rich with memories of the Israel of then and gets furious when I ask her to compare it with the Israel of now: “We built this country inch by inch, and we lost so many lives. We built public and social institutions, schools, factories. What’s going on today is awful. They’re ruining this country. I am a proud Israeli. I’ve lived through every war, endured every moment of suffering, but I never stopped believing in peace. I lost friends and family members. I’m a peacemaker, but the current Israeli government does not know how to make peace. We move from war to war, and this will never stop. I think Zionism has run its course.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/moshe-dayan-s-widow-ruth-zionist-dream-has-run-its-course.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Thanks

[holdencaufield]

2. Wait...

A 95-year old person who thinks things were better in the old days?! Where did they find such a rare and unusual specimen?!

[Violet_Crumble]

3. What a shame you didn't bother reading the article. It was really good...

If you'd read it, you'd have realised that there's nothing at all rare and unusual about her observations.

[azurnoir]

4. are these the old days you seem to deride?

from the article

She sighs, and adjusts herself before continuing. “I long for the old Israel, where I traveled alone to Gaza the day after we won the 1956 war. Moshe was already a war hero, known to Israelis and Arabs alike. When I met the Palestinian mayor, I introduced myself as Ruth Dayan. The mayor almost had a heart attack.” She giggles. “His aides fled the scene. He cautiously asked me what my business was, and I replied that I wanted to see their rugs. He was astonished. ‘Rugs?’ he asked me. I was the head of Maskit at the time, a chain of arts-and-crafts stores. We were employing Bulgarian immigrants, and I wanted to include Arabs. I hired Arabs all over the country to make rugs and other merchandise. It was about living together, working together, creating a bridge. Today we use foreign labor to work in Israel because Palestinians are not allowed. And this continuous expansion of the settlements everywhere—I cannot accept it. I cannot tolerate this deterioration in the territories and the roadblocks everywhere. And that horrible wall! It’s not right.”

the pity is for many Zionism has seems to have come to mean expansionism

[holdencaufield]

5. Expansionism?

Since 1967, Israel has given back land acquired from invading nations equal to an area larger than that of present day Israel in exchange for peace that didn't come. You can argue all day long that Israel wasn't or isn't entitled to land acquired in wars where she was invaded. But, you can't with any veracity say giving land away is the act of a people bent on expansionism.

If I were Mrs Dayan, I too would long for the day when wars lasted weeks or months and the Israeli Army of citizen soldiers could march home triumphant after a once a decade attack and then get back to their daily jobs. But that is not the enemy Israel faces today.

Today, Israel faces daily attacks by an enemy who isn't going to negotiate or even surrender without total devastation which, of course, they know Israel will never attempt.