Micha Bar-Am Coffee in Kalandia Refugee Camp, West Bank. 1967.
“In 1967, I was working with Cornell Capa, covering the events of the Six Day War. Life magazine asked us to produce an image for a possible cover
(...) of the magazine, to accompany an essay by Moshe Dayan concerning the future of Israel and the Middle Eastern region. As I had a friendly relationship with the Dayan family, I asked whether I could photograph him in dialogue with the Palestinians; he agreed. When we picked Dayan up in my modest SAAB, Cornell —who had seated himself in the back— asked him whether he wasn’t a bit worried about driving without bodyguards in a civilian car. Dayan answered: ‘I will get either a cup of coffee or a bullet — nothing in between.’
We stopped at a little makeshift coffee shop near the refugee camp of Kalandia. A group of Palestinian elders recognized Dayan by his iconic eye patch and invited him to share coffee; a dialogue began and we got the perfect picture. Unfortunately the photograph never made it to the cover: an image of a new American anti-ballistic rocket intercepted and downed it.
We are still left with hope for a peaceful future.”
– Micha Bar-Am © Micha Bar-Am | Magnum Photos
