My Father, His Daughter by Yael Dayan (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $17.95; 320 pp., illustrated)

Many American Jews have been perplexed, to say the least, that neither of the Diaspora’s favorite Israelis, Moshe Dayan and Abba Eban, ever became prime minister. In Dayan’s case, it is a pity. He was one of the few Israeli leaders with enough self confidence and understanding of the Palestinians to forge a lasting peace with Israel’s Arab neighbors. A native-born sabra who could speak fluent Arabic, a war hero several times over, Dayan would never have had to carry the burden of the Holocaust that has weighed down other European-born prime ministers.

As Yael Dayan points out in this sad memoir of their relationship, her father confronted the paradox that Israel’s political system is as sclerotic as its military system is supple, dooming Moshe Dayan to early prominence but lengthy frustration.

There is considerable interest on the part of Americans in reading anything by or about members of the Dayan family. While not matching Yael’s four novels, three nonfiction books, numerous articles and columns and frequent speeches around the world on behalf of the United Jewish Appeal, other members of the clan have been quite prolific and visible. Moshe wrote his autobiography and two nonfiction works; Ruth, Yael’s mother and Moshe’s first wife, has written her own autobiography. An actor son, Assaf, has appeared in several films.

“My Father, His Daughter” may put an end to this fascination, telling more than even the most committed partisan would want to know about Moshe Dayan. It is a painful, almost embarrassing book to read, detailing Dayan’s personal failings in excruciating detail, by a frustrated, conflicted “Daddy’s Girl.” A daughter--ostensibly loving--draws a brilliant hero, but paints a portrait of a cold, petty, acquisitive, obsessively materialistic and stingy womanizer. Over and over again, the daughter complains of her father’s propensity for “vulgar” and “third-rate” women in his affairs, while professing admiration for his public service.

There are, to be sure, acute observations of both her father’s career, the political scene and the evolution of Israeli society. Dayan received too much credit for Israel’s victory in 1967, in the Six Day War, and too much blame for the early setbacks of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In the years following 1967, Dayan, “like Israeli society as a whole, underwent a change for the worse, because (they) lost the strength to resist the chance of an easy life and skin-deep temptations.” Or the strength to resist having the last word.