Editing Moshe Dayan (section)

===1973 Yom Kippur War===
[[File:President Nixon with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan - NARA - 194702.tif|thumb|Moshe Dayan with President [[Richard Nixon]] (1970)]]
After [[Golda Meir]] became prime minister in 1969 following the death of [[Levi Eshkol]], Dayan remained defense minister.

He was still in that post when the [[Yom Kippur War]] began catastrophically for [[Israel]] on 6 October 1973. As the highest-ranking official responsible for military planning, Dayan may bear part of the responsibility for the Israeli leadership having missed the signs for the upcoming war.<ref name=blum>Blum, H: ''The Eve of Destruction'', Harper Collins Publishers, 2003</ref> In the hours preceding the war, Dayan chose not to order a full mobilization or a preemptive strike against the Egyptians and Syrians.<ref name=blum/> He assumed that Israel would be able to win easily even if the Arabs attacked and, more importantly, did not want Israel to appear as the aggressor, as it would have undoubtedly cost it the invaluable support of the United States (who would later mount a massive airlift to rearm Israel).

[[File:Menachem Begin and Moshe Dayan exits from an aircraft.JPEG|150px|thumb|Moshe Dayan and [[Menachem Begin]], [[Andrews Air Force Base]], [[Maryland]] (1978)]]
Following the heavy defeats of the first two days, Dayan's views changed radically; he was close to announcing 'the downfall of the "[[The Third Temple|Third]] [[Temple in Jerusalem|Temple]]"' at a news conference, but was forbidden to speak by Meir.

Dayan suggested options at the beginning of the war, including a plan to withdraw to the Mitleh Mountains in Sinai and a complete withdrawal from the Golan Heights to carry the battle over the Jordan, abandoning the core strategic principles of [[Israel Defense Forces#Doctrine|Israeli war doctrine]], which says that war must be taken into enemy territory as soon as possible. Chief of the General Staff [[David Elazar]] objected to these plans and was proved correct. Israel broke through the Egyptian lines on the [[Sinai Peninsula|Sinai]] front, crossed the [[Suez canal]], and encircled the 3rd Egyptian Army. Israel also counterattacked on the Syrian front, repelling the Jordanian and Iraqi expeditionary forces and shelling the outskirts of [[Damascus]]. Although the war ended with an Israeli victory, the Arab attack destroyed Israel's image of invincibility and eventually led to the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty and the subsequent withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Egyptian territory.