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19 days as prime minister and one big miss: the rivalry that prevented Miguel Alon from reaching the summit

The 1960s were marked by skirmishes along the borders, but beneath the surface another old rival burned.

Moshe Dayan and his men used all means to prevent Malon from becoming prime minister, and the feeling of missing out still resonates with his associates.

"Israel missed an exemplary figure, he laid the foundations for peace"

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• Yigal Allon

• Moshe Dayan

• Levi Eshkol

• Golda Meir

Eli Ashkenazi

Saturday, 27 February 2021, 09:25

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In the video: Excerpt from the film about Yigal Alon in the series The Greatest of the Jewish People (State Archives)

Malka Ram, a member of Degania B., introduced journalist Yaakov Erez into the small two-room apartment reserved for former Prime Minister Levy Eshkol, even after he had already left the economy of which he was one of the founders.

In the closet were slippers and a bowl bookcase with sugar cubes that he would hold in his mouth while drinking tea.

Ram's eyes were wet with tears.

"I only spoke to him yesterday," she said.

In their telephone conversation, which was conducted in Hebrew and Yiddish, he told her that Syrian radio reported that his "rural residence" in Degania was hit by Katyusha fire in the Jordan Valley.

Eshkol's small apartment in Degania B. was not damaged, but the kibbutz suffered a barrage of Katyushas and the northern region experienced great tension in those days as part of another round of clashes between Israel and its neighbors during the war of attrition.

Eshkol, who served as prime minister and defense minister, preparing the defense establishment for the Six Day War, died unexpectedly on the morning of February 26, 1969. Three and a half weeks earlier he had a heart attack and collapsed while in his office, but "did not want to reveal his closed heart," Yosef wrote. Spicy in Maariv.

He returned to work and hid his health condition.

The day before his death, he still had a busy agenda that included lengthy meetings.

Following Eshkol's death, Yigal Alon was appointed acting prime minister.

As part of his political duties, Alon served as Minister of Absorption and Deputy Prime Minister.

He lived only 20 kilometers from Eshkol's apartment in Degania, and was one of the founders of Kibbutz Ginosar, which is located on the shores of the Sea of ​​Galilee.

But he was not the only candidate to win the premiere.

Another candidate for the post of Prime Minister was Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who was also from the region and was born in Degania A.

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Appointed after Eshkol's death.

Yigal Alon (Photo: Official website, in the National Photo Collection)

Two of the members of the labor movement who were revered figures and symbolized the Sabra generation that fought for the establishment of the state, belonged to factions that had previously resigned from the Mapai mother movement, and returned to the lap with their parties - the Ahdut HaAvodah party was Alon and the List of Workers of Israel (Rafi) There was a dayan that united into a bloc that made up the array.

Since they were young, there has been tension between the two, usually hidden from view, but one that was difficult to hide.

Now they were facing each other in what appeared to be an "inheritance struggle" that they feared very much in the lineup.

"Mapai elders", including Golda Meir, Pinchas Sapir and others, wanted to prevent the war of succession, and may not have seen Alon and Dayan as already mature enough to hold the reins. In their statements, Dayan and Alon made it clear that they were not eager for prime ministerial appointments. There are two camps. Rafi graduates made muscle and made it clear that Dayan is the most preferred candidate.

They were proud of the great public sympathy Dayan had received since the Six Day War, and enjoyed the signing of a petition by the "Movement for Dayan" calling for his appointment.

On the other hand, Ahdut HaAvodah members as well as Mapai members supported Alon. "Why not Yigal?" The question resonated at a conference of the heads of the United Kibbutz.

It will be an organic combination, you will carry the cart together. "

"There was one unbearable guy who spoiled my whole course."

Dayan Valo (Photo: Government Press Office, Saar Yaakov)

The two young men who were photographed on both sides of the Palmach founder - "the old" Yitzhak Sadeh, on the day of the settlement in Kibbutz Hanita in 1938, competed with each other for years. A year earlier with the construction of a wall and tower in Hanita, when he returned from a pickup command course held by the British army. Alon told his friends that "there was one intolerable guy in the course who spoiled the whole course for me." The same guy was Dayan

.

After the war, however, while abroad, David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister and defense minister, fired him as commander-in-chief of the Southern Command. Dayan was appointed commander-in-chief. , Unlike Dayan, who in time will become chief of staff.

On the eve of the Six Day War, when pressure began to emerge from the General Staff and from among the public to appoint a defense minister, Alon, then the Labor minister, was a natural candidate for the position. They also saw this as an opportunity for reconciliation with Ben-Gurion's Rafi party, of which Dayan was a member. Alon was pushed aside again

. Mordechai Brown, in his book on Dayan, writes that the Defense Minister asked Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yosef Geva, the director general of Alon's office, to inform his minister that he does not aspire to be prime minister at all, and that Alon must not be afraid of him.

"Do not believe this cunning," Alon told Geva.

More on Walla!

NEWS

"Let them shout that we are ascending Damascus": the decision on the Golan front in the Yom Kippur War

To the full article

Compete with each other over the years.

Alon, Sadeh and Dayan (Photo: Official Website, Wikipedia - Public Property)

Micha Goldman, the former deputy education minister, claims that "Alon repeatedly paid a price."

Goldman is a member of the Kfar Tavor colony where Alon grew up and also a relative.

He sees Alon as "an exemplary figure that the people of Israel missed. He had a combination of a security man and a statesman. He and Rabin laid the foundations for the peace process with Egypt and Alon also initiated secret meetings with King Hussein of Jordan."

"The group that dropped Dayan to the post of defense minister torpedoed Alon's election as prime minister after Eshkol threatened to resign from the party," Goldman claims.

He says that ten years later, when Dayan fell ill with cancer and recovered from a difficult operation at home, Alon asked him to drive him to Dayan's home.

"They talked for three hours, after years of disconnection. Yigal told me correctly that there are disagreements between us, but no fighters are leaving."

Finally, Golda Meir became the prime ministerial candidate by compromise, while Alon will always be remembered as the prime minister for only 19 days.

"Again and again he paid a price."

Alon and Golda Meir (Photo: Government Press Office, Moshe Milner)

On the day of Eshkol's funeral, the program for Purim was canceled and Israeli television broadcast the funeral.

On Alon's first day, he was required to immediately evacuate to burning security matters.

In Sinai, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights, bloody clashes continued in what was later called the "War of Attrition."

Near the time of Eshkol's death, an IDF soldier, Haim Hauptman, was killed in a clash with terrorists near the Abdullah Bridge in the Jordan Valley. Shortly afterwards, mortar shells were fired at Quneitra where IDF soldiers were sitting and in the afternoon another Egyptian sniper shot across the Suez Canal and hit soldiers. Then to a daily event.

Newspapers from all over the world dealt with the struggle for inheritance in Israel, but it seemed that Shalon had already realized that he would not win the prime minister's job, and meanwhile clashes along the borders continued - on the day between Eshkol's death and the funeral ceremony in which an IDF soldier was wounded by Egyptian snipers. The IDF killed three terrorists.

Meanwhile, across the border in those days, Syrian Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad has chosen another way to approach the throne.

He completed a campaign to take over the Ba'ath party apparatus, on his way to occupy the presidency a year and a half later.

In Jerusalem, the police and the GSS uncovered a terrorist network of the Popular Front, which numbered 40 members, and among other things carried out an attack on the Shufersal store in Jerusalem in which two students were killed. Among the detainees were a priest from Ramallah and a doctor from East Jerusalem.

Event Chase Event

In Kibbutz Gvulot in the western Negev, a member of the kibbutz who was driving a tractor hit a mine and was killed on the spot.

Memorial ceremonies were held at the end of the shiva for Levi Eshkol, and it was announced that the Hevel Maon Regional Council would be called "Eshkol".

In Eilat, about 8,000 residents participated in a ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the occupation, but politicians were not on the horizon.

Alon, who commanded the southern front during the War of Independence, was forced to cancel his visit to Eilat due to memorial events for the cluster.

An IDF soldier was again shot and killed by an Egyptian soldier on the banks of the Suez Canal. "We were waiting for him to come on holiday today," said the soldier's mother, Meir Kupito. "He always told me that everything was fine." The London Daily Telegraph reported that Israel had begun building a permanent fortification line Along the canal, which includes deep concrete bunkers and cannon trenches, the fortified array will later be called the "Bar-Lev Line

". is associated with the plan of settlement in the Golan Heights, the Jordan valley and Gush Etzion as part of the political-security includes conceived after the Six Day War. the program has integrated security elements to be included in a security zone east of the country with self-determination for the Palestinians.

cafeteria at Hebrew university in Jerusalem exploded a bomb. the explosion of the 29 students were slightly injured A hand grenade was thrown into a Bank Leumi Israel branch that opened in central Ramallah, and a couple were arrested in Lod who admitted that a week earlier they had placed an explosive device near the market.

The explosion in a cafeteria at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the newspaper "Davar" (Photo: Official website, Israel National Library)

Every day became a day of battle, and March 9 was a particularly difficult day.

After long days of sniper fire, a strange silence reigned that morning along the canal.

The flight was violated by the flight of four Egyptian MiGs.

In the aerial battle that ensued, a MiG 21 was shot down. It was just a trailer for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon, the Egyptians opened heavy shelling along the entire canal.

Soldiers Maurice Maimoni, Victor Arma and Elias Bar Sheshet were killed in the shelling.

As darkness fell, Israel responded with massive gunfire at Egyptian refineries in the city of Suez that burned for several days.

Egyptian Army Chief of Staff Abdul Monam Riyadh was killed as a result of the Israeli shelling. The Egyptians also reported many civilians injured. It was a weekend when two army vehicles went on mines in Sinai. In the Jordan Valley and the Arava there were three clashes between IDF soldiers and terrorists. Three terrorists.

The battles in Egypt, in the newspaper Maariv (Photo: Official website, National Library of Israel)

Another day later, another soldier was killed near the canal.

It was pilot Udi Ben-Ari, whose plane was hit by an Egyptian missile.

Seven mortar shells were fired at Kibbutz Malkia on the border with Lebanon, and shells fired from Jordan fell near Moshava Yavneel.

At the same time, the government had to deal with disruptions created during the work of IEC employees and threatened to issue detention orders.

Haifa Port workers also demanded an improvement in their conditions and began to slow down their work pace.

Another day passed, and on March 11, soldier Aryeh Avder was killed as a result of the Egyptian shelling.

Alon threatened that Israel had not yet exhausted its power and would hit sensitive targets in Egypt.

In the pursuit of terrorists in the area of ​​the jeeplik in the Jordan Valley, two officers and soldiers were killed, in a case that is still considered a symbol of Israeli morality.

Hanan Samson, a veteran of Unit 101, Yosef Kaplan and Boaz Sasson were shot by terrorists hiding in a cave behind a woman who was breastfeeding her baby.

The AP news agency reported on a secret invention by Israeli engineers that is used for fortifications along the canal, and the government decided to discuss where to bury the bones of the Masada rebels that were exposed in archeological excavations.

His last way

Two days before Golda Meir replaces Alon and is pictured as prime minister, Air Force planes launched attacks on three terrorist bases in Jordan.

Six mortar shells were fired at Kibbutz Baram on the Lebanese border.

On Alon's last day in office, the soldiers fought an artillery duel in the Jordan Valley.

Katyushas fell once more in Eshkol's kibbutz, Degania B.

Meanwhile in Gaza, a young woman threw two grenades at an IDF sniper, resulting in three soldiers being lightly wounded.

Air Force planes attacked Monday in a row from terrorist camps in Jordan.

A symbol of the morality of the Israeli warrior.

The Chase in the JeepTall, in the Maariv newspaper (Photo: Official Website, Israel National Library)

On March 17, Golda Meir's government was sworn in.

Haim Tzadok, a senior Mapai official, praised Alon for running the government. Elections were held in October for the Seventh Knesset, in which Alon was appointed Minister of Education and Meir's deputy. After the failure of the Yom Kippur War, the fear expressed by his supporters after Eshkol's death came true. , And in front of the stage, his commander, Palmach Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, showed up.

In the early 1980s, Alon sought to run again for the Labor Party presidency as the prime ministerial candidate.

A month later, on February 29, he died of a heart attack when he was only 61 years old.

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