Nationalist activist Baruch Marzel of Hevron on Thursday revealed some little known information about former Mossad Director Meir Dagan, who passed away earlier in the day at the age of 71.
Marzel's message regarding Dagan, which focuses on the fate of the Golan Heights that were liberated in the 1967 Six Day War, reads as follows:
When a haredi headquarters was established in the council of the Golan Heights communities I served as its head. Beyond an aggressive campaign that we led on the dangers of going down from the Golan (today you see how right we were), I got several reserve officers to go to rabbis from the Torah Sages Councils of United Torah Judaism and Shas.
Meir Dagan was even more active. He would arrive from Rosh Pina to Jerusalem and Bnei Brak - and he was more convincing. We were with Rabbi Kaduri and we convinced him to go on a strengthening tour of the Golan Heights, an historic tour that changed the reality.
In parallel and with the help of Eli Yishai who helped me bring Meir Dagan to the Maran Rabbi Ovadia Yosef zt''l in a meeting that they indicated made a great impression on the rabbi - when Dagan explained the dangers to the security of Israel, Maran zt''l asked Eli Yishai to travel to hold a tour of strengthening and study on the Golan Heights. His guide was Meir Dagan.
The meetings with the Shas leadership and the Ashkenazic Torah sages closed the option of the government to receive a majority as happened in Oslo for a withdrawal from the Golan Heights in an agreement with Assad.
Today I can determine that Dagan was the deciding factor in saving the Golan Heights and in effect saving the country.
We didn't agree on every topic and I had arguments with him; as one who saw everything from the security angle he was ready for compromises in Judea and Samaria but not to give up on the Golan Heights.