Dayan Vetoed Arab State in ‘67--Ex-Agent

Israel considered setting up a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank in 1967 but dropped the idea because of opposition by then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, a retired Israeli intelligence agent says.

Unlike its current role battling the Palestinians’ drive for independence, the Shin Bet internal security service was the key vehicle in 1967 for Israel’s plan for a Palestinian state, David Ronen, the agency’s former Jerusalem and West Bank commander, wrote in his recently published memoirs.

“We could have set up a Palestinian state then,” Ronen told Maariv newspaper’s weekend magazine, suggesting Israel lost a promising chance for peace at a time when the Palestine Liberation Organization was weak and the West Bank was free of Jewish settlers.

He said that shortly after the 1967 Middle East War, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol instructed the Shin Bet to probe the Palestinians’ readiness for their own state that would be formed following a period of self-rule.

Talks reached the point where it was agreed that Hebron Mayor Mohammed Ali Jaabari would be prime minister of the new state, and the Palestinians were debating whether the capital should be Hebron or Ramallah.

Jaabari was a prominent traditional leader and former Jordanian Cabinet minister who had favored Jordan’s annexation of the West Bank in 1950.

Four months after Eshkol initiated the Shin Bet operation, he canceled it under pressure from Dayan, a charismatic war hero who insisted that Israel must wait for the Arabs to initiate peace talks.

After the plan was scrapped, the Shin Bet’s mission shifted to trying to wipe out the Palestinian nationalist movement.