His biggest battle awaits
The state comptroller's draft report on the Harpaz affair - and the media's response - will go a long way toward determining Gabi Ashkenazi's political future.
by Amos Harel 3 commentsLieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi is the current the Chief of General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, and is the 19th person to hold the position. He has been credited with rehabilitating the IDF after charges that it had underperformed during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
Ashkenazi was born in 1954 in Moshav Hagor. He attended a military boarding school and enlisted in the IDF in 1972, joining the Golani Brigade. He first saw combat action in the Sinai Desert during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. By 1976 he was a platoon commander in the Golani Brigade, and also participated in Operation Thunderbolt, the rescue of Israeli hostages being held in Entebbe, Uganda.
He was a battalion commander in the 1982 Lebanon War and was promoted to Golani Brigade commander in 1987. After serving in a number of posts, in 1998 Ashkenazi was appointed the head of the IDF's Northern Command, a position in which he oversaw Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon, bringing to an end Israel's 18-year presence there.
In 2002, Ashkenazi was appointed deputy chief of staff, during which he was in charge of the construction of the West Bank separation fence. He resigned from the IDF in May 2005, after former Israel Air Force chief Dan Halutz was appointed chief of staff by defense minister Shaul Mofaz, another former head of the IDF.
After a short stint in the private sector, Ashkenazi returned to public service, when then-defense minister Amir Peretz appointed him director-general of the ministry. Following the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Peretz asked Ashkenazi to return to the IDF to assume the position of chief of general staff. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, and in February 2007 was sworn in.
As chief of staff, Ashkenazi oversaw Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip, which was hailed by many Israelis as a success but condemned internationally as overly aggressive. In February 2010, Ashkenazi hosted his American counterpart, Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for meetings in which the two military leaders discussed the Iranian nuclear threat.
Ashkenazi graduated from the Command and Staff College of the IDF and the Command and Staff College of the U.S. Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, and he also holds a B.A. in Political Science from Tel Aviv University and a degree in International Business Administration from Harvard. He is married and has two children.
