Reply #38: benefit...

[shaayecanaan]

General Dayan said in his conversations with Mr. Tal that the kibbutz leaders who had urgently demanded that Israel take the Golan Heights had done so largely for the land.

''The kibbutzim there saw land that was good for agriculture,'' he said. ''And you must remember, this was a time in which agricultural land was considered the most important and valuable thing.''

Mr. Tal asked, ''So all the kibbutzim wanted was land?''

And General Dayan answered: ''I'm not saying that. Of course they wanted the Syrians to get out of their face. They suffered a lot because of the Syrians. Look, as I said before, they were sitting in the kibbutzim and they worked the land and had kids and lived there and wanted to live there. The Syrians across from them were soldiers who fired at them, and of course they didn't like it.

''But I can tell you with absolute confidence, the delegation that came to persuade Eshkol to take the heights was not thinking of these things. They were thinking about the heights' land. Listen, I'm a farmer, too. After all, I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel Aviv, and I know about it. I saw them, and I spoke to them. They didn't even try to hide their greed for that land.''