Moshe Dayan died 25 years ago this week, at the age of 66 - ill, almost blind, bitter, and to a great extent ostracized. In the elections for the 10th Knesset in 1981, Dayan suffered a humiliating blow from the voters: His Telem slate received only two Knesset seats. Moreover: Dayan, who in his glory days could easily fill large halls to capacity, was unable to bring more than a few dozen listeners to election meetings.

It was a sad picture then for an observer on the sidelines: Dayan waited for listeners like a shopkeeper waiting for customers during a recession. That may have been the revenge of the gods. Four months after the elections, he died. His last television appearance was held on a symbolic date, October 6, 1981, the day of the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. Everyone who saw him was shocked. He looked deathly ill. Skin and bones. Ten days later he died.

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Among the first generation of sabras who reached leadership positions, Moshe Dayan was the most fascinating and original. Proof of that was his language, which was demonstrated mainly in his eulogies, and not only the famous one for Roi Rutenberg, who was killed in an Egyptian ambush in 1956. After the Six-Day war, during the period of euphoria, poet Yehuda Amichai mentioned that the vast majority of prime ministerial speeches on Remembrance Day for fallen soldiers were ordinary, whereas Dayan's speeches always contained a spark of originality.

When Dayan spoke about death, he was at his best, because all his life he flirted with death. Writer Amos Oz wrote: "Cemeteries are what give him the inspiration for his best speeches, and he rises almost to the level of a poet in his eulogies: from the funeral of Roi Rutenberg to the funeral of Arik Regev ("In the Strong Blue Light," Hebrew, p. 82. Colonel Regev fell in the Jordan Valley in the summer of 1968).

Known for his courage

His sense of nearness to death explains a dominant aspect of his character. He was known for his courage on the battlefield, which was demonstrated particularly when he was chief of staff. His military career was more than meteoric: Within five years (1948-1953) he climbed from battalion commander to chief of staff, and some claimed that prime minister David Ben-Gurion promoted him for political reasons: He was a loyal member of Mapai (the forerunner of the Labor Party), at a time when all the greatest generals were members of Mapam (the United Workers Party, the second-largest political party after Mapai).

When he was appointed to the position it was claimed that he would be a very political chief of staff. Prior to his anticipated appointment, then-foreign minister Moshe Sharett wrote in his diary: "The appointment means causing the general staff to become contentious. The outstanding conspiratorial abilities of the new chief of staff will be a productive source of complications" (October 12, 1953).

Dayan was, in fact, a political chief of staff: An outstanding example was his appearance before members of the Mapai Knesset faction, in order to convince them to oppose the withdrawal of the Israel Defense Forces from Sinai, an appearance that was made with the approval of defense minister Ben-Gurion.

Aside from that aspect, it was Dayan who shook up the army and turned it from an army that lacked daring - symbolized by the traumatic failure at Tel Motila in 1951 against the Syrians - into an aggressive army. Ariel Sharon, who was the commander of Unit 101 at the time, wrote of him that "he was the chief of staff who was the greatest revolutionary the IDF every had. His imagination absorbed and encouraged every daring operational plan. He breathed a spirit of battle into the army. He set the fighting norms and the high standards."

In this context, Sharon cited Dayan's famous words, which were said during the Sinai Campaign after his clash with the chief of the Southern Command, Colonel Asaf Simhoni, who ordered the commander of Brigade 7 to join the battle without permission: "It's better to fight against noble horses than to spur on the reluctant bulls." Today, after the recent war in Lebanon, his words seem very relevant.

As chief of staff he was seen as a model for imitation by two outstanding generals who became prime ministers, a goal that he did not desire. The first was Ariel Sharon. In an article whose name, not coincidentally, was "We don't have to shatter this myth" (Yedioth Ahronoth, October 3, 1991), marking the 10th anniversary of Dayan's death, Sharon wrote: "The high stature of Moshe Dayan as a leader who arose from the people, from the ranks, from the battle campaigns, constantly reminded his rivals of their natural dimensions, and they couldn't forgive him for that, either."

The second was Ehud Barak. As chief of staff he saw himself as Dayan's natural successor: in charisma, in wisdom, in originality and in his unique ability to eulogize. The eulogy for Roi Rutenberg may have provided the inspiration for the eulogy for Major General Nehemia Tamari in January 1994.

A man who gave in

Early in 1958, after the Sinai Campaign, Dayan concluded his job as a glorified national hero. An example of his image in those days are the words written about him on the eve of his discharge: "The personality of the chief of staff ... was welcomed and beloved by the entire public. Those same qualities that endeared him to the soldiers - personal courage, daring, dynamism - captivated many among the public as well, which is not expert in professional army matters. There is no question of his military leadership skills: Had there been need of proof, the Sinai Campaign revealed it to everyone" (Haaretz, January 27, 1958).

But he was an entirely different figure in the public and political arenas. There is no point in describing him as a coward, but it should be mentioned that he didn't stick to his positions. Even at the height of his career, when he was a popular defense minister, he did not fight over critical issues. For example, the idea he had in 1971 for a unilateral withdrawal from the Suez Canal at the 10th kilometer and opening it to marine traffic. In the face of the opposition from prime minister Golda Meir, to whom Dayan was very loyal, Dayan gave in and abandoned the idea.

Nor did he fight over the appointment of the chief of staff. In 1967 he wanted Ezer Weizman as chief of staff, but appointed Haim Bar-Lev to the position, due to the pressures applied by Yigal Alon and Yisrael Galili. The story repeated itself in 1971 - he appointed David Elazar, although he didn't want him.

This trait was known even to his greatest fans. The editor of Haaretz, Gershom Schocken, whose relations with Dayan were complex and fascinating, wrote on the day of Dayan's death that "on several occasions Moshe Dayan was revealed as not necessarily a strong man. He did not persist in the struggle for withdrawal from the bank of the Suez Canal in 1968. He surrendered to Golda Meir on that same issue in 1971" ("At Moshe Dayan's grave," Haaretz, October 18, 1981).

Another aspect of this were his attempts to evade responsibility. The most egregious and blatant example occurred during the terrible days of the Yom Kippur War. Before the war, Dayan was not "just" the defense minister, he was "Mr. Defense": the ultimate authority in this field. In spite of that, after the outbreak of the fighting Dayan did not make decisions and did not assume responsibility. The heavy burden of running the campaign was divided between Meir and Elazar. Dayan wandered the fronts, issued doomsday prophecies and scattered advice. He himself called it "ministerial advice," as though he were not the responsible minister, but rather a freelance adviser.

His pattern of behavior at the time stemmed not only from a crisis or a trauma. This pattern stemmed from another characteristic evidenced all his life. For example, his desire not to run for prime minister - an incomprehensible wish in our world, in which everyone has to be prime minister. It was convenient for him to have someone assume the ultimate responsibility - Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir or Menachem Begin. He was loyal to all the prime ministers with whom he worked (his relations with Levi Eshkol were a different story), including Meir, with whom he had a shaky relationship before her term as prime minister, but when she was elected to the position, relations between them became more than reasonably good.

Violating rules and norms

Another prominent aspect of his character was his immorality. He was capable of violating rules and norms publicly without batting an eyelash, while many good people remained silent and accepted his behavior. There was the matter of women - at the time the concept of "sexual harassment" was not even in the lexicon. In 1959 he had an affair with Hadassah, the young wife of senior officer Dov Yirmiya.

The sense of humiliation led Yirmiya to write the following scathing remarks to Dayan: "You low and cursed adulterer ... you scoundrel. You used the weakness of an unfortunate woman and drew her to an abyss from which she will not emerge ... May you be cursed forever." Yirmiya wrote a hurt and angry letter to Ben-Gurion, who replied that Dayan was not a hypocrite, and "that he has not fulfilled and will not fulfill the role of a preacher on intimate matters," but in the public sphere Dayan did things "as an emissary of the people ... Not only with great skill but with dedication ... In battle he went first, ahead of his soldiers." Therefore Ben-Gurion suggested that Yirmiya distinguish between the private and the public spheres and pay attention mainly to the "public interest" (from: Shalom Cohen, "Haolam Hazeh," pp. 103-107).

There was also the matter of the theft of antiquities. Dayan stole them with the full assistance of IDF units and without trying to conceal his activities. When the issue came up for discussion, members of the government who were involved remained silent and did not act. One of them was Yigael Yadin, who was the minister of education and culture, and another was Meir Shamgar, who was the attorney general. From that point of view, Dayan can be seen as the prototype of public corruption. If he is allowed, so are others.

For better or for worse, Moshe Dayan is a son of our country, whose actions and image are still relevant. A full biography, which has yet to be written, should shed a ray of light not only on an important and enigmatic person, but also on an entire generation as well, the first generation of sons, "the first generation of the redemption."

The writer is the chairman of the department of Land of Israel Studies at Haifa University.