Summary
A lieutenant-colonel who was adjutant and secretary to Chief-of-Staff Moshe Dayan in 1956-1957; his Etgar ve-tigra [Challenge and quarrel] (1991), written at the time of the events and cleared for publication only 30 years later, is excerpted as Appendix 3 of Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace for its record of the Franco-Israeli Vermars meeting and the origin of the Sèvres “scenario” (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.517-519).
Details
- Bar-On’s book reports the 23 June 1956 Vermars meeting between the Israeli and French defence establishments, chaired by Pierre Boursicot, at which Dayan set out the two dangers of Nasser’s regime — elimination of European influence in the Middle East and a Soviet base in Egypt — Israel’s objective of Nasser’s downfall, and the question whether France would cooperate to bring Nasser down and strengthen Israel; Boursicot affirmed France’s willingness to cooperate (Etgar ve-tigra, p.153, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.517-518).
- Writing on 15 October 1956, Bar-On records General Maurice Challe’s new proposal: Israel would attack Egypt in Sinai alone, “without any apparent connection to its allies”, and Britain and France would enter at the Canal “on the pretence of separating between the warring sides”; Eden “eagerly seized upon this idea” and a secret Matignon meeting of the French and British prime ministers was set for 16 October (Etgar ve-tigra, p.239, quoted at Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.518-519).
- In Appendix 4, Yigal Sarna names “Moraleh Bar-On, the head of the Chief-of-Staff’s office at the time, who today writes about the past, but continues to keep the secret of “Fig”” — the secret Franco-Israeli intelligence accord (Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, PDF p.520).
Related pages
Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, Operation Sinai, Moshe Dayan, Pierre Boursicot, Maurice Challe, Yigal Sarna