A profile in three parts

Moshe Dayan, the Israeli general with the image of a pirate, shot to prominence during the Six Day War of 1967. Soldier, farmer, politician and amateur archaeologist, Dayan's is a remarkable story. Tonight he describes the hardships facing the men and women who first returned 100 years ago to settle areas of Palestine for the Jewish people, and explains how their experiences echoed Bible stories he first heard as a child.

He draws parallels between characters of the Old Testament and the people of his own times, and talks of his fascination with archaeology and of the insight it gives him into the lives of people who lived in the country thousands of years ago.

In 1915 he was the first baby to be born on Israel's first kibbutz. In 1948 he was in the front line in the Israeli War of Independence. It had been a momentous epoch.