Shaul Mofaz

Shaul Mofaz (Hebrew: שאול מופז‎; 4 November 1948) is a retired Israeli military officer and politician. He joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1966 and served in the Paratroopers Brigade. He fought in the Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, and Operation Entebbe with the paratroopers and Sayeret Matkal, an elite special forces unit. In 1998 he became the IDF's sixteenth Chief of staff, serving until 2002. He is of Iranian Jewish ancestry.

After leaving the army, he entered politics. He was appointed Minister of Defense in 2002, holding the position until 2006, when he was elected to the Knesset on the Kadima list. He then served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transportation and Road Safety until 2009. After becoming Kadima leader in March 2012, he became Leader of the Opposition, before returning to the cabinet during a 70-day spell in which he served as Acting Prime Minister, Vice Prime Minister and Minister without Portfolio. Kadima was reduced to just two seats in the 2013 elections, and Mofaz retired from politics shortly before the 2015 elections.

Shaul Mofaz was born Shahrām Mofazzazkār (Persian: شهرام مفضض‌کار) on 4 November 1948 in Tehran, Iran, to Iranian Jewish parents from Isfahan and Gilan of Gilaki Jewish origin, and lived in Tehran until his family moved to Israel. His father was the principal of the ORT school in Tehran. Mofaz immigrated to Israel with his family in 1957 when he was nine years old. The family settled in Eilat, where Mofaz grew up. His father's attempt to open a small factory in Eilat failed, and he had to support the family by working as a menial laborer. His family lived in a one-and-a-half-room apartment and his parents struggled to put food on the table. At age 10 he had to work in construction to help support his family. Mofaz attended a religious elementary school in Eilat. At age 14, his father sent him to an agricultural boarding school in Nahalal in the Jezreel Valley, where studies were combined with agricultural work. Mofaz recalled the boarding school as his first real exposure to wider Israeli society and struggling to fit in and be seen as a "real Israeli", recalling that "you're in a class with children from Nahalal who are Israelis with real roots in the country, children of the valley nobility. These princes who live in the big houses on the big farms of Nahalal, and where do you come from? From nowhere, from Tehran, from Eilat, from a tiny apartment in a housing project." He became determined to become a paratrooper in the army, seeing it as a way to become fully Israeli.

Upon graduating from high school in 1966, he was conscripted into Israel Defense Forces and served in the Paratroopers Brigade. He fought in the Six-Day War as a paratrooper on the southern front against the Egyptian Army. After his mandatory service, Mofaz remained in the IDF as a career officer. He became an officer in 1969, commanded a paratrooper platoon in the 890th Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade, then commanded a company of the 890th Battalion in 1971. He took part in the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. During the Yom Kippur War, he participated in Operation Gown and Operation Davidka, two raids deep in Syrian territory. Mofaz became Deputy Commander of the 890th Battalion in 1974. He was appointed Deputy Commander of Sayeret Matkal, an elite commando unit, in 1975 and took part in Operation Entebbe the following year. After taking a sabbatical to study at Bar-Ilan University in 1976, he returned to active service in 1978. He was appointed commander of the 202nd Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade, and became Deputy Commander of the Paratroopers Brigade in 1980. He commanded the 769th Territorial Brigade in 1981.

Mofaz was an infantry brigade commander during the 1982 Lebanon War. Afterward, he attended the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia, United States. On his return, he was briefly appointed IDF Command and Staff College commander before returning to active service. He was appointed Commander of the Paratroopers Brigade in 1986, and led its forces in counterinsurgency operations in the South Lebanon security zone. He played a major role in Operation Law and Order.

Mofaz served in a series of senior military posts and was promoted to Brigadier General in 1988. In 1993 he was made commander of the IDF forces in the West Bank. In 1994, he was promoted to Major General, commanding the Southern Command, during which the IDF battled Hamas and Islamic Jihad networks in the Gaza Strip. In 1996, he served as head of the Planning Directorate of the IDF General Staff. His rapid rise continued; in 1997, Mofaz was appointed Deputy Chief of the General Staff and Commander of the Operations Directorate. In 1998, he was appointed Chief of the General Staff.

His term as Chief of Staff was noted for financial and structural reforms of the IDF. His tenure also saw continued operations in the South Lebanon security zone and the withdrawal from the security zone in 2000. But the most significant event in his tenure was the Second Intifada eruption in September 2000. The tough tactics undertaken by Mofaz drew widespread concern from the international community but were broadly supported by the Israeli public. Controversy erupted over Israeli actions during the Battle of Jenin, intermittent raids in the Gaza Strip, and the continued isolation of Yasser Arafat.

Mofaz had foreseen the wave of violence as early as 1999 and prepared the IDF for intense guerrilla warfare in the territories. He fortified posts in the Gaza Strip and kept Israeli military casualties low. While he was known for claiming, "Israel has the most moral army in the world," he drew criticism from both Israeli and international human rights monitoring groups because of the methods he had undertaken, including using armored bulldozers to demolish 2,500 Palestinian civilian homes, displacing thousands, to create a security "buffer zone" along the Rafah border.