Late Mossad Chief Meir Dagan was a killer. Throughout the entire history of the Israel Defense Forces, there was just a handful of people who shared his same self-control and complete lack of fear. These included former Chief of Staff Rafael (''Raful'') Eitan, legendary paratroop commando Meir Har-Zion and former Knesset member and retired Brig. Gen. Avigdor Kahalani, who almost singlehandedly saved the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

Dagan, who died March 17, belongs to that exclusive group of courageous warriors who were raised on the sword, who breathed war and whose bodies bore the scars of the struggle between Jews and Arabs in the Land of Israel, a struggle that has lasted well over a century.

No matter where life took Dagan, he always carried a photo of his elderly grandfather pleading with the Nazis for his life, just seconds before he was shot. As a second-generation survivor of the Holocaust and an icon of Israeli-Jewish rebirth and renewal, Dagan swore that the Holocaust would never happen again and dedicated his life to Israel’s security. From a very young age, he mastered the art of knife fighting and developed unique, blood-curdling skills in everything to do with knife fighting. He used these skills as late as the 1970s, when the Chief of the Southern Command (late Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon ordered him to create the Rimon commando unit. Its purpose was to hunt down and destroy the emerging terrorist cells in the Gaza Strip, where there were already signs of unrest.

Dagan fulfilled his orders to the letter. Instead of sending in fighters, whether in uniform or disguised as Arabs, Dagan led his troops there himself. After disguising himself in the most creative ways, he would ambush the fedayeen (militia) terrorists himself. He was determined, lethal and armed with a knife. The Rimon unit’s activities managed to destroy the terrorist nests and restored relative calm to the Gaza Strip. Like all the lulls that preceded it, however, this calm did not last long. It gave way to more seething discontent, which ultimately deteriorated into the current situation. The Gaza Strip is now a fortified terrorist outpost, armed with thousands of rockets and dozens of terrorist tunnels. In the latter part of his life, Dagan, as others, came to realize that people cannot live by the knife alone, nor can policy be based on the sword only. “Might” alone will not solve anything in the long term, without “mind” to back it up. Dagan recognized that Israel had to defend itself. It had to fight, but it also had to extend a hand in peace and seek fresh opportunities.